I was answering the first part of the grandparent. It's easy to start a self employed business, but I'm referring to limited liability companies in the UK and incorporated companies in Australia. Pretty obvious really, that's why the UK is a nation of small shopkeepers. It's simple to do.

Has nothing to do with the cost of software, except in respect of margins, which I and others have mentioned are kept at near parity in the large retail sector, a sector with somewhat unstressed economies of scale.