I have recently opened a hardware store and my friends and family constantly keep telling me that I need to get a website up quickly.
As someone who doesn’t consider himself to be “tech savvy”, I fail to see the point in having one as I get enough traffic through my “plain” brick-and-mortar storefront.
Some questions for small business owners who already have a website or plan to get one would be:
What is your reasoning for creating your website?
Why not use Amazon, Shopify, or a similar platform?
Was it profitable?

  • CasaSatoshi@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    If your customers don’t come from online channels, and you don’t expect that to change any time soon, you don’t need a website.

    BUT having a website and having online presence are not the same thing.

    We are a hostel / BnB / Bar. Our customers come from sites like Booking, word of mouth and local marketing (WhatsApp and Facebook). We collate reviews via a business profile on Google.

    None of our guests come from searching for us online,.or searching things like ‘what are some good hostels in San Cristobal’ so we don’t need a website, just social media and a profile on popular booking sites.

    Don’t listen to people who tell you EVERYONE NEEDS A WEBSITE. They’re repeating platitudes or trying to sell you something. CONTEXT is everything in business.

    You only need a website if your (potential) customers are using the internet to find/purchase whatever it is you offer, and even then, aggregators (like Booking.com) are usually more valuable for client flow than your own, self hosted site.

    Finally, ask yourself, if you DID have a website, how would customers find it? What’s going to get traffic to your page? Is the profit from that traffic going to cover its cost of generation? If you don’t have a good answer to how customers will find your site, and you’re not sure that this is how they WANT to interact with your business, it’s not worth the time or money.

    NOW, let’s say you’re currently doing fine with foot traffic but you want to open up a new market, online, with new customers with a different archetype to your foot traffic - that’s totally cool. In this instance, just note that you need a marketing plan - look into startup metrics for pirates. You need to attract potential customers and convert them. All this takes time and money, so if you’re going to do it, do it intentionally. Aim to succeed 🤙🏼