Why have a website?

Small businesses do need websites.

OK, not all do, and the sites can be holding pages or very simple 5 page sites, but most small businesses will do better with web sites.

Let’s ignore anything to do with ecommerce and think only about brochure sites, or a cross between a business card and a small brochure site:

Lets customers find your telephone number
Lets customers find your location
Lets customers find your opening hours

Without these people will go to businesses that provide these details, businesses that make life easier for customers.

Thats the business card part, out there 24 hours of every day rather than in a wallet or dispenser on the counter of a closed shop.

Then the site:

Lets customers find get an idea of what you stock
Lets customers find get an idea of your positioning in whatever field or sector you are in.

Thats the brochure part of the site, again out there 24/7, quietly working away.

Now, a small business might not lose much business but it probably will lose some by not having a simple brochure site. And some small businesses don’t want the extra business anyway. I think these small businesses are a small minority and that most want all the custom they can get, and want new customers to replace the inevitable loss of old ones.

So, most small businesses will benefit to some extent by having a small website. Small, functional, good looking and reasonably easy to find; a site that conveys basic information, a site that says “I’m open, I’m here, and I sell this good stuff”

At the very least it is just being polite to your customers.