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?
You say you have steady foot traffic without a website. What is the demographic of a majority of those people? I am going to assume older 55+? The older demographic is use to going to the hardware store to find stuff. The younger demographic wants to go online and make sure you have it instock and the price.
You need a website with live inventory tracking, that you will need to pay someone to design. If you just have some cheap website that says your hours and phone number people will just find a hardware store that has a good website.