A website for your shop. Built to get them through the door.
A shop website is not an online shop. It answers two questions - are you open, and have you got the thing - and the sale happens in the shop, the way it always did.
The short version
A shop site has one job: answer the two questions that decide whether somebody drives over. Are you open, and have you got it in. Selling online is a different business, and usually not the one you want.
Most people who look up a local shop are already close by and already intending to buy. They are checking one or two things before they set off, and if they cannot check them they go to the place they know has it - which is usually somewhere larger and further away.
Everything below is what we build into a shop site for that reason, and why. None of it involves becoming an online retailer.
Open, and open when you say.
Wrong hours are worse than no hours. Somebody who drives over on a half day to find you shut does not check again, and they tell whoever was in the car. It is the one error that actively loses you a customer rather than failing to win one.
So the hours go near the top, with the awkward ones spelled out: early closing, bank holidays, the week between Christmas and New Year, and the afternoon you shut for deliveries. The same hours go on your Google listing, and the two have to agree - most people never reach the website at all, they see the listing.
What you sell, and what has just come in.
Not a catalogue of everything. The ranges you carry, the brands people ask for by name, and a short list of what has just landed. That last one is the reason somebody comes back to the page rather than visiting it once.
The brand names matter more than they look. Somebody searching for a make of paint, a seed supplier or a particular fitting with a town name attached is the most valuable visitor this site will get, and a page that never names what you stock cannot be the answer.
Try this now
Write down the last five things a customer rang up to ask whether you had. If those five words are not on your website, that is the page to write first.
How to reach you, and where to put the car.
Directions that open in a maps app in one tap, and a plain sentence about parking - where it is, whether it is free, how long you get. For a shop on a high street that sentence is worth more than any amount of design.
A photograph of the front of the shop from the pavement, too. It is what people match against when they are looking for your door, and it is the picture almost every shop website leaves out.
Nobody has ever driven past a shop because its website was not beautiful enough.
What a shop’s site comes with.
4 to five pages, built for the way your customers actually arrive - written for this trade, not adapted from a template someone else used. The pages we would build are Home, What we sell, Find us and About.
- What you sell, and what has just come in
- Opening hours, holidays included
- Order or reserve on WhatsApp
- Photos of the shop and the shelves
- Directions, and where to park
All of it for $749, paid once. Analytics, Search Console and your Google listing connected, hosting free, and you own the site. There is no monthly fee and nothing here is an upgrade.
What to have ready.
None of this has to be polished. It has to be current, and it is what lets a build start rather than stall on emails asking what time you shut on Wednesdays.
0 of 5 checked
Anything left unticked is a question we would have asked anyway. Sending it up front is what turns a three-week build into a one-week one.
Questions shops ask.
Do I need to sell online?
Almost certainly not, and it is a different business: stock levels, payments, packing, postage and returns. Most local shops do better with a site that gets people through the door and a way to reserve something by message. If you do want to sell online later, we quote that separately.
Can people reserve something without ringing?
Yes. A message button that reaches your phone - WhatsApp works well for this - so somebody can ask you to put something by. It is the single most used feature on the shop sites we build.
My stock changes constantly. Do I have to keep the site updated?
No, and you should not try. The site lists ranges and brands, not individual items, and a short “just in” list you change when you feel like it. Nothing breaks if you leave it a month.
When you pay, why hosting is free, what happens if you want changes later - those are answered on the home page.