Stockbridge shops: does an independent need a website?

Stockbridge is one of the easiest parts of Edinburgh to like. Raeburn Place and St Stephen Street are lined with independents: delis, bakeries, cafes, gift shops, charity shops, florists, galleries and hairdressers, most of them small, most of them run by the person behind the counter. The Water of Leith runs through the middle, and on a Sunday the market brings in people from right across the city.

It is also a place where a lot of owners quite reasonably ask me whether they need a website at all. Their customers are regulars. The rest walk past. Plenty of them have been trading for years without one.

The honest answer is that some do and some do not, and the difference is worth working out before anybody builds anything.

Who is looking you up, and why

Start with what your customers actually do before they come in. In a neighbourhood like Stockbridge it tends to be one of four things.

They check whether you are open. They check whether you have something in stock: the bread, the cheese, a size, a particular card. They look for a phone number to order a cake or reserve a table. Or they have been told about you by a friend and want to see what you are like before they make the trip from the other side of town.

Notice that none of those need a large website. Three of them are answered by the free Google listing alone, and the fourth by a few good photos and a paragraph that sounds like you.

What a Google listing already does for you

A Google Business Profile is the free listing that shows your opening hours, reviews and map pin when somebody searches for you or for "deli near me". For most Stockbridge shops it does more work than any website will.

If you do nothing else this month, check it. Make sure the hours are right, including the Sunday hours if they differ. Add photos of the inside, the counter and the shopfront, so a first-time visitor recognises it from the street. Pick the right category. Answer your reviews. All of that is free, and it is the first thing I would look at in a consultation, before anything gets built.

When a Stockbridge shop does need its own website

There are a few clear signs that the listing is no longer enough.

• You take orders. Celebration cakes, flowers, hampers, a bottle shop's mixed cases. If orders come in by phone and get written on a pad, a simple order form saves time and mistakes.
• You take bookings. A salon, a cafe that does private hire, a gallery running workshops. A booking page that works on a phone at eleven at night is a booking you would otherwise have missed.
• People ask the same questions all day. Allergens, delivery areas, whether you do gift wrapping, whether dogs are allowed. A page that answers them saves you the phone calls.
• You sell things that travel. Prints, ceramics, books, coffee beans. Those can be sold to people who have never set foot in Stockbridge.
• You want press or wholesale enquiries. A buyer or a journalist will look for a proper site before they get in touch.

If none of those describe you, keep reading, because the next section might save you some money.

What the site should do, in order

When a Stockbridge independent does need a site, it is almost always smaller than the owner expects. In order of importance, it should do these things.

First, say what you are and where you are in the first line. "A family bakery on Raeburn Place, open from eight" beats a slogan every time. Second, show the opening hours and a phone number that rings when tapped, without any scrolling on a phone. Third, show the shop: real photos, not stock pictures, because your shop is the reason people come.

Then, only if it applies, the one thing that makes money: the order form, the booking page or the shop. Everything else is optional. A long "about us" page can wait. A blog you will not keep up should not be started at all.

Should you sell online?

This is where independents most often get talked into something they did not need. An online shop sounds like more customers. In practice it is more work: every product needs a photo, a description and a price, the stock has to match what is on the shelf, and every order has to be packed and posted.

It pays off when you have a range that travels well, the time to keep it up to date, and customers outside Edinburgh who already ask whether you post. It does not pay off for fresh food, one-off vintage pieces you sell in a day, or a shop where the owner is already working every hour there is.

A middle route works for a lot of people: a small selection online, perhaps ten or twenty things that sell steadily, and everything else in the shop. You can grow it later if it works.

When not to bother with a website

Here is the unwelcome part. If your customers are almost all regulars, you do not take orders or bookings, and your hours and photos are right on Google, you probably do not need a website yet. A good listing and a steady trickle of honest reviews will do more for a Stockbridge cafe than a site nobody visits.

The same goes if you will not keep it up to date. A website showing last Christmas's opening hours in March is worse than no website, because it tells people the shop might have closed. If you cannot see yourself checking it once a month, start with the listing and come back to the question in a year.

And if you already have a site that loads quickly on a phone, says where you are and shows the right hours, you do not need a new one because it looks a bit dated. Change the photos and leave it be.

Talk it over before you build anything

If you run a shop, cafe or studio in Stockbridge and you are not sure which side of the line you are on, that is exactly what the first conversation is for. I will look at your listing, ask what customers ask you, and tell you whether a site would earn its keep. You can read how I approach website creation and redesign, and if a site is not the answer I will tell you that too. Book a free consultation (opens in a new tab).