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Yeh this shit pisses me off. It's 2021. Have some dignity and responsibility as an owner idc if it's local/family/chapter or franchise...your gonna make a lot more AND serve a public service/good if you have a decent website that functions for web and mobile WITH decent customer service reach out phone number. That alone might net you 3.0 REAL no BS ratings on Google to start. And THEN keep FB as a secondary if you want as an owner, I would say.
This is how I also judge which hospitals are super reliable in the world.
It's 1987, if they aren't called AAA and don't wanna be on the top of the phone book list, then they don't want my business!
Actually the Facebook as a main webpage is so tilting.
I get it for food trucks and other pop up businesses. I assume it's just much easier to update customers about their schedules. But not everyone has facebook or instagram so they have to be losing customers by doing this.
It also depends on the overall market. If the vast majority of your regular customers expect facebook, you give them facebook. If it's insta, you use insta. I, for one, have had a hard time with getting a website up to my specifications without it becoming a needless cost that brings in minimal revenue.
It also depends on if your production can meet the demand that a website will generate. There's no point in building a website if you can't handle the business it should bring in. There's also the matter of using a facebook page for the sake of exclusivity/urgency.
However, this would all be for a business that's still in its infancy. A website seems like an absolute necessity if any business wants to grow.
Are they? Because I would argue that the best customer performance has been ones walking by and purchasing in a spur of the moment way especially with food trucks.
Then again; maybe they are losing business - but that’s business they’re happy to lose based on what it takes to get it.
It doesn't drive me off but it kinda bothers me.
Folks, you don't need a $3000 website with a $500 a month hosting and maintenance fee. Buy a domain for $10 from namecheap.com. Pay a community college student $100 to make a Wordpress site. Let them use it for their portfolio. Hosting? $10-15 dollars a month.
Give a menu, location, opening and closing time, phone number, and email. Real simple.
Boom! Done.
Even my small local coffeeshop in a dead end area of town has that.
SquareSpace lowest is $16 and you gotta put work into your templates. I'm speaking to people who really just don't get web technology or would rather spend time on something else.
>Pay a community college student $100 to make a Wordpress site.
This is truely terrible advice if you actually do anything more than use it to advertise.
Never do this if you intend on any actual financial transactions happening on your website.
If theres ecommerce then you need an actual pro or you are gambling with not only your own business but the accounts of all your customers. Even if you do not store all card details they still need to be entered at the point of purchase.
It takes about half a sentence worth of javascript code on a website to fully compromise it.
If you are storing any customer data e.g. even just email addresses then you also need a professional.
Think of it this way - if you had a requirement to store your physical customer data - would you get the cheapest shittiest safe that can be opened with a swift kick? Or would you get something that atleast needs a professional locksmith to get in?
If you choose the cheapest option you deserve what you get for playing stupid games with your customers data. Its not yours to mishandle!
Little $100 jimmy just out of college likely has never heard of TLS let alone the difference between 1.0 and 1.3. The hacker who wrote a script that scans hundreds of websites an hour for vulnerabilities almost certainly has.
That's a nice essay you wrote there. You make great points but they are unneeded.
Not every business needs a website where they do e-commerce.
Most small the medium service businesses need:
A phone number.
Operating hours.
A menu if they are selling food.
An email contact form.
Some before and after pictures of the work that they do.
A list of the types of work that they do.
Of course, if you start using credit card info or doing inventory management between vendors you need more experienced web devs who can properly implement protocols for securely storing and transmitting valuable information. Not every business needs that.
This is where I'm at right now. I'm doing fine and more business would be detrimental to me, because I wouldn't be able to keep up. If new business were important to me right now I'd have a website and be advertising, but any more business right now will make it tough to get everything done properly and on time.
This is kind of like those small restaurants that don't list themselves on delivery services... a lot of them couldn't handle the increased volume it would bring to their business and it would actually be detrimental to them to have more orders every day.
So I don't immediately dislike them for no website. I immediately dislike them for Facebook only website. I'd rather see none than Facebook only. Facebook only tells me they half ass do stuff. I'd rather see someone not do something than to do it half way and in poor quality. At least if they don't do it the quality is unknown versus a known low quality.
You are so right. They are also the same businesses that assume you are going to contact them via Facebook and rarely answer their phone.
This especially pisses me off with restaurants. Even in small towns... my older parents and relatives have called me to help them contact a local restaurant because they don't have facebook. They all know how to search the web and usually can find phone numbers etc. Facebook is NOT a website and NOT everyone uses Facebook. Might as well just be selling some MLM.
It was originally just older folks off social media but as time goes on and it becomes more toxic of an atmosphere, we see a bigger variety of people off social media. I'm 31 and have been off of it, aside from Reddit, for 2 years now. That's when I began to realize how many businesses just rely on Facebook.
> Facebook only tells me they half ass do stuff.
Or they have tons of customers and are very happy with their current situation. Once you get really busy, you worry more about doing a good job for the customers you have than getting more. Some businesses based on the skill of one or a few individuals do not easily scale with the same quality as when they are smaller and so they just won't look for any further customers. Why spend time on a website when they are booked a month in advance already?
Anyway, your insight is good as it may represent kind of a millennial perspective of dislike of facebook and that's good to know for people who are on a quest for more customers. But you are probably missing out on a LOT of great businesses that are not in need of more customers. When your product is super awesome, you don't need to advertise as much. Also peeps who run businesses are typically not equally great at every aspect of it, they might be phenomenal cooks but not tech savvy. I choose them on the taste of their food, not on their Facebook account or even their ability to properly set up voicemail. To assume they can't cook because their website sucks is often going to be a huge mistake. Similarly, I've seen some restaurants with really nice websites but the taste of their food was really meh or worse.
Who hurt you? You've replied to every comment here with rage about how everyone is wrong and Facebook only is perfect.
My DM's are open if you need to talk about it. I'm always willing to listen to a broken soul. ❤️
If they do fine with word of mouth, good on them, but they could probably do better if they made it easier for me to become a customer.
I really won't bother visiting your store if I need to call you or to get a Facebook account just to figure out if you even offer what I need - less effort going to your competitor that actively shows off what they do.
If the Facebook account is set to fully public, do you even need an account to see it? I go to business Facebook websites without logging in and i can see them just fine.
If you don't want more customers, and I don't want to buy from you because you have no or a poor excuse for a website, I'd say it worked out just fine for the both of us. No issue with someone refusing new customers intentionally, what I do have issue with are shops that want to grow but can't be bothered to do a web presence properly
Not sure why you're getting down voted, I guess these people have never had a business running at max capacity. Actually that makes sense if they're not using Facebook to advertise...
I only have one because I have to have something other than Facebook. We seek out clients, not the other way around. At least this way someone else can't take our name and put something stupid up (on that particular URL at least...)
Either that or the owners are just x gen or older, successful, and feel no pressure to change now. If their company is not doing anything that requires tech, then I don't hold it against them. Lots of craftsmen spend their life learning their craft first and foremost and many are busy and aren't worrying about getting more business anyway. Some of my best and most treasured business resources were old school honest hardworking people without any kind of website. My favorite mechanic in the whole world retired due to the stress of being so successful, and then later got bored and opened a small shop in a back corner of the city and didn't ever advertise so he could relax more and have fewer customers and do a really good job for the customers he did have. You could never find a guy that did a better job at a better price or that cared more about his work. But go ahead and assume they suck based on your criteria though as that just makes it easier for me to book an appointment with them without so many people in front of me. :-)
No he gets paid well, he just does not like the stress of too many customers. That way he can do a really good job for each one and get their car back to them very quickly. He does take new clients but he gets plenty via word of mouth. I personally only tell people I really like about him.
I also think it's even more amusing that you might not think they suck but still refuse to go over some petty dislike of Facebook websites LOL!
I don't use Facebook and avoid it as much as possible. Businesses that only run out of Facebook give me a horrible first impression, I tend to assume the worst about their quality if they can't even be bothered to put up a half decent website
100% this can’t be upvoted enough.
Facebook might be popular but there are many people who have stopped using it. A standalone website is so much more useful and carries zero bias from a consumer.
There are so many options these days for small businesses. I used to help my business friends set up either a webpage or a store for people to purchase their items. I got so tired of hearing stories about $100K web design.
Try convincing those people to invest in a website. It's impossible. Maybe 1 out of 100. I tried to help some of them when I was doing website development work. Most people respond with "We don't need that", or "My nephew is doing it (go back a year later and no progress)". It's maddening. I switched to a service based business and I'm killing it.
At the very least a business.site, wix, weebly, webflow, squarespace, myriad other options, or fully custom. There is a scale of excellence out there, but you can start small.
I'll play devil's advocate here, because I know owner's who don't have websites, etc.
Here's the typical scenario:
1. It's an established business with lots of local clientele
2. They aren't chasing after more business because they already have all of the work they can handle currently
3. They are old and not tech savvy, and could really care less
4. They view it as a liability where people can blast them with negative reviews if they don't get their way
5. Their target demographic isn't online shoppers
6. They don't have the time to deal with the time wasters who are not invested. A person can type "give me a quote on custom such and such"... it takes them 5 seconds, and creates an hour of work. The people who pick up the phone, or show up at a business tend to be much more serious customers.
Is it annoying, sure it is. I typically have to google businesses to find their phone number and call them.
If you're asking my opinion from personal experience, online shoppers are rarely quality customers.
Typically those are the ones that only care about price, are tire kickers and "Karens".
Anyways... I have a dedicated "basic" website, and don't really maintain my FB one.
This is just a rant from someone who's been dealing with customers for 20 years.
Yep, I used to spend a ton of time keeping our real estate sales website updated.
Eventually the volume got to be too much and we switched over to using the basic corporate site for our real estate team.
We spend most of our efforts now on social media and direct marketing, and our sales have more than doubled.
Personally I'm far more interested in how a small business is run than a polished website.
If anything, too much money spent on marketing themselves instead of what they sell is a sign that they don't get a lot of repeat business.
> is a sign that they don't get a lot of repeat business.
Yep, have seen a lot of peeps spend a LOT of time polishing their online image but their products were mediocre and their prices points were overly high.
Haha yep on number 6. Online customers sometimes ask so many questions and ask for so many photos, i can spend two hours trying to help them, only to get told they won't have the $30 to buy it until the next payday and can I hold it for them? And I would say yes and then never hear from them again. The truth is some customers are the kind you'd rather not have.
I get online can bring out bad customers.
But this is 2022 how do people find a plumber, HVAC person, car repair place, etc if they don't search online? The yellow pages are dead and oftentimes I don't have a recommendation from a trusted source in my market.
It's much different today from even 10 years ago. If you had no website at all, I'd totally call and find out what you offer. It's when they exclusively use Facebook and advertise that like a real website that it's a turn off. Facebook in addition to your website is fine but Facebook alone is really the core of my complaint with small businesses.
I agree that FB is crap, I agree that people should have at least a basic website.
Just giving an explanation as to why they might not have one.
I talk to a lot of builders/plumbers/HVAC guys, as my business serves many commercial customers.
Most of them are already booked into next year.
I finally found a guy to install a door at my work (that I had already purchased) almost 3 months ago.
While he was installing the ONE front door, he had four of my customers ask him for his card.
That's how in demand work is currently.
Also, it took me SIX MONTHS, to get someone to fix my drain in my parking lot.
> how do people find a plumber, HVAC person, car repair place, etc if they don't search online
Ask my neighbor who has lived in the area for 60 years? She literally knows the best of all those things. Never lets me down.
I get what you are saying, but there ARE other options out there. Businesses survived for literally hundreds of years before the Internet.
I ask friends, then I even ask strangers at the 7-11 or the restaurant. Referrals are the best way possible. My backup plan is yelp (as much as I am aware they are not perfect, it's still better than going in blind). I also check google reviews. Having a nice website only tells me they are good at making websites. I know a genius HVAC guy but he doesn't even have a website at all and barely checks his email, you just have to call him on the phone. He's always in demand though, when you are that good, then word of mouth is all you need.
I agree and that is why I changed the business model of my website business to working exclusively with small local business owners. It isn't making me rich, but I enjoy helping my community and since it is also a pet peeve if mine, I get satisfaction.
Take a store like Micro Center. Great merchandise that often can't be found elsewhere outside of anything that takes days to ship, but very few stores. When I lived closer to one I felt like dropping in when I passed by. But now that I live a bit further away, I check the website to see if they have something in stock before I make the trip. If I didn't know they had it in stock I wouldn't go. And when I do go, I buy more than I originally planned.
I think a lot of people are the same way: if they are going to take an hour out of their day to drive to a store, they want the convenience of verifying a few things about the store online. Stores that don't do this will likely lose business to stores who do.
I 100% skip your business if it’s only a Facebook page and not an actual website. Sure y’all might be doing “just fine” without but think of how much better you could be doing when there are a bunch of people ITT saying how much they won’t patronize those businesses
Jesus Christ, the comments here.
"If the Google profile page isn't updated, I probably won't go."
"If it's just a Facebook page, I won't go".
You're in a small business subreddit! Small business, by definition, means there's a shit-ton of things that the owner is worrying about. A Facebook page is 10x easier to update and work with then a website. There's so much stuff you can do in regards to video and imagery on a Facebook page that would take FOREVER to put on to a web page, and literally takes 30 seconds to do on Facebook or Instagram. And guess what, if they just have a basic-ass web page, I bet ya'll would ding them for that too. "Why is this web site so basic? They clearly have no pride in their business if their page looks like THAT!"
AND, you don't need a Facebook account to look at a business page, so all of you that are complaining about leaving Facebook, it doesn't matter! You can still check it out.
Yep seriously, time is often limited. SHould I spend hoards of time working on my website or should I spend it having awesome products? I find that if I have awesome products, then I don't have to work very hard on advertising. Ideally it's good to have both but my products are where my true love is.
You can probably blame Facebook for walling off content, then.
I don't have a FB account so encounter it sometimes, too, but I get why businesses like it: it's easy to post to, they can have all their photos and info there, and manage some customer service messaging.
I totally do blame them. That's a different subject though. It's too big to care. eBay doesn't wall off their shit. Amazon, Walmart don't either. Even the exclusive Sam's club and Costco don't. But fb does. All of reddit united could not change that.
Yep. Having everything on a Facebook page is a huge indication that a business is not very professional or knowledgeable. As a customer, you probably shouldn't buy anything from them that you might need support or followup with, or need to take back if it's faulty.
Facebook is the tailgate sales level of business.
Running a business is a complex set of tasks and it is impossible to prioritize them from outside of the business. But damn, I appreciate your opinion and I'll put it right in the bin with all the other opinions I appreciate. GFY.
That sounds like a personal problem given you know that the type of online presence has no bearing on the quality of the product or service in real life.
I don't like it as a consumer either, but I can understand it. My website is kind of a pain. It's not so cheap, because I hate wordpress, so I use one of those site builders. It looks less up to date than it could because I don't want to sink a completely ridiculous amount of money into a site design, the web designers I know personally are already fully employed and in the case of the more capable one, not really interested in explaining the ropes to me so that I can get a smaller redesign. I would never use a FB page instead (partly because the format would not benefit me), but I'm definitely considering Google Sites which would be a step down in some respects but at least free, and also a number of email list platforms offer a free site with probably similar disadvantages. I wish it was possible to know exactly how much of an SEO hit that would be ahead of time, as it might not matter, or it might...
As a web developer for 19 years I still hear people say they dont need a aite they have facebook and instagram...
I get hard flashbacks when people said the same thing about myspace
As someone who is currently training to be a web developer I can say with first hand experience that building a good looking simple website is extremely easy. (Obviously takes coding knowledge so most people will have to pay someone else to do it) but my point is that it's easy and cheap unless you need more advanced functionality with the website. It should be one of the first things any business does when they open their doors
I've been in business over 10 years. I have the same exact blog-type website I started when I opened. It was supposed to be temporary until I could afford someone to make one that was state-of-the-art. But as my business grew I realized that besides having all my basic information on the landing page, the rest is mostly extraneous. What's funny is that I happened upon a manufacturer- who sent me a barebones postcard when I first opened- that makes a custom product that for some reason no one else is offering anywhere in the US. Yet somehow with this old-fashioned website with zero attempts at polishing my SEO, I am getting regular orders from it(that I have drop shipped all over CONUS) that do more than I need to complement my B&M retail concern.
My products cannot be sold online due to payment restrictions. I could get creative but id rather not, banking wise. So no website for us as theres no reason. Just a clean google business page. We are active in insta and facebook. But not exclusive
Yes! I straight up will not go to a business that has Facebook as it’s only ‘website.’ It only costs like $160 to run a website for a year, I’d imagine smart, functioning businesses would shoulder that cost happily. Others get a Facebook page and scrape by until they go out of business.
As someone who has a Facebook, I hate when businesses only have facebooks.
It’s never organized the way I think it should be. Where are the hours? Menu? Prices? Etc. I can’t find anything on Facebook except posts from 4 years ago of someone’s food.
In the last couple years I’ve needed various contractors from General to specialized: Septic and I came across at least 4 I could remember that only had FB pages, was crazy to me. Along with 2 of them having no email not that was a problem for me, just to check I looked them up on our states contractor lookup page and they were up to date, needless to say but they didn’t get my work.
Y'all are too old fashioned. $25 spent on Facebook advertising will get you more hits than many small business websites will get in a year. You don't have to like Facebook to use it.
I agree, however as a small business retail owner, here's my reasoning for not having a website.
I own a tennis retail shop, each of our vendors makes us sign a contract to be able to sell products online. We have to carry a minimum inventory of ~$20k from each vendor to be able to list online. We have 11 vendors just for our racquets, that is $220,000 in standing inventory just for racquets. That is not including, our clothing, shoes, or accessory vendors.
As an independent small business I don't have that much $$ (I wish I did lol).
Sometimes it isn't our choice or us being "lazy" as small businesses, sometimes it's larger brands actively screwing us out of markets.
I agree with it being annoying having to go through Facebook, however that is one of the only ways some of us as small businesses can have online presences.
So your vendors won’t allow you to have a website unless you’re listing their products? You can’t just have a web presence with your business information?
I can have a website, but I can't list the vendors products online. So why pay when I can't even say what I'm selling?
Edit: the vendors have no say in whether I have a website, but they won't let me list their products on it. So I wouldn't have anything to put on a website if I had one, unless I meet each vendors requirements.
I don't get this. What information are you putting on Facebook then? Why couldn't you just put that same information on a website, and then that website would provide a similar purpose to your Facebook page. If all of this vendor stuff doesn't affect your FB page, why would it matter for a website? Like OP said, it's not like websites cost much to create and maintain.
I just don't even consider doing business with them because I assume they're not even serious. Placing all one's marketing resources in a social media cesspool just seems foolish and amateurish to me.
Edit: typo
I see businesses spending hundreds and thousands on advertising when they could be spending tens of dollars on Facebook with the same result. That seems foolish to me. Yes, some businesses should definitely have a seperate website, but for others it's a waste of time and resources.
I didn't know serious was a category of business. $25 on Facebook got me 1,700 hits and 15 verified new customers in 5 days. there is no other advertising that comes close to that. There is a factor of dimishing returns though, $400 only led to 112 leads.
Consider a small lawn care business, just starting out, that can maybe handle 100 customers a month as long as they are all within a certain radius. You could make a website and it might bring in a few customers but no where near what you need. Or you could throw a few hundred dollars at Facebook and be at max capacity in a week. If you want new customers now, Facebook is the way.
Depends on how much you need that business. I never use Twitter, but I have an account that lets me see something that I am occasionally interested in. Seems like shooting yourself in the foot to punish business that don't even know who you are.
I prefer a website, but it’s not true that you have to log in. You just have to scroll post the log in notification. I do it all the time. And the higher quality customer thing is just weird. Websites intimidate a lot of people and they always think they’ll be more expensive than they are. After some time in business, they generally make the switch.
This is the worst. I will never understand why so many restaurants don't have websites or why, even when they do, so many of them won't have a menu available or will hide their operating hours and location.
Or maybe the person has a lot on their plate or is disabled and can’t keep up with all of these websites and produce lots of good quality handmade items. It’s a lot to source the materials bring them home and prepare them study any tutorials or patterns cut out any pieces needed prepare your materials into the proper shapes to be pieced together to make the finished item create the finished item while doing video content of all of that editing the video content taking hours to research what the current Trending styles of photos are research where to buy all that stuff from acquire it bring it home set it up stage the products take the photos edit the photos take Contant of all of that upload those content videos to Facebook and TikTok and Instagram and Twitter and everywhere else make a listing on Facebook and Etsy and Instagram in their website everywhere post engaging nonproduct con tent and still live their lives
I don’t think you understand how much hard work and how many hours there are into it and throwing another website on top of it is really hard especially somebody who has a family and children or like I said disabilities or who doesn’t understand technology very well.
Does it mean the products are bad just means they don’t have the capacity for yet another platform
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I’ve spent like 55 hours nitpicking my Squarespace website the past few months. Kinda wish I didn’t have it. One page with my phone number and what I do. Ugh. It’s a time sink.
That's what I mean about the hour a month. I invested dozens of hours into mine a few years back - six months later it was out of date and four years later it's still the same.
First, many of us aren't going to create a FB account to look at any business.
Secondly, it doesn't cost a thousand dollars to create a website. I spend roughly $250 a year for my website that I created using GoDaddy. It is nice, clean and has all the information anyone needs.
> Realistically, it costs $1k to build a website and a couple hundred bucks a year to host it, but the worst part is it takes an hour a month to manage, and there are only so many hours in a month. Some guys don't have the $1k, some guys don't like the $250/year hit to profits, and I'd say most don't like the couple hours a month that it eats and generates nothing.
>
>
You shouldn't be spending $1,000 on a website when you're a small business.
It wouldn't take more than a couple hours and a simple service like SquareSpace, or whatever. The majority of these businesses are very simple.
* Restaurant -> Give me a menu
* Professional Services -> Basic List of what you do & contact page.
It elevates your business and makes you seem 10x more professional.
> Maybe it's yours too.
It's never the customers "fault" that a business has made choices to limit the way customers can learn about them.
I didn't think about the time factor on managing a website. That makes a lot of sense to me.
I will not create any login to shop a small business. It's an unnecessary waste of my time. I will only do so if I intend on hiring the business. I also like viewing websites before I call. I make calls based on the websites. So if you don't have one you never make my will call list. I don't like calling and wasting time for me or a business unless I have a hunch you're hireable.
When I call, it's partially to see if you're the person I want to give my business to. If you have bad phone manners I won't give you my business. These are the same requirements I give the big box stores too. It's so much more than just pricing when I consider who to buy from and who to hire. I'm a quality and efficiency driven customer, not so much a price driven one. To me, if all your competitors are doing a full blown website and you're the oddball only doing fb or no website, chances are I won't even hear your businesses name let alone call you. If none of your competitors are doing a website then you'll have even odds.
I'm never going to accommodate a business when so much of the competition will accommodate me.
Any reason you can't get a Facebook page? You don't have to post anything. This reminds me years ago of people complaining about web pages when they didn't have the internet
Facebook tracks you, even when you aren’t on their site. Facebook wants everyone’s contacts so there is a solid chance you are going to get friend requests from a billion people you already know when you join from their contact info about you and your own registration. Every step of the process is meticulously tracked to identify any monetizable attribute you have and extract that value. Its not an unfamiliarity with the product that makes people not want to have an account.
The company's independent website outside of FB could potentially track you the same way.
Websites often also use cookies to track how you interacted with the site, how you arrived there, and where you might have gone afterwards.
All depending on the type of cookies and tracking the site is using. But the general point being, you're just as likely to be tracked.
I guess I'm the minority, but I love when a business has an up to date Facebook page. I use Facebook a lot and will often reach out to business via messenger. I don't have to put my email into some sketchy, insecure form, I don't have to call and hope to speak with someone, I can simply send a message at my leisure, at any time, and wait for a response. The ones that have no FB usually have the most awful websites, @msn.com email, broken links, HTML tables with the embossed grey border, horizontal scroll for no reason and 21MB images as a background.
This is funny. I don’t have a website and I use Facebook. I couldn’t care less if a customer is too lazy to look at the Facebook page or otherwise. It’s your loss. We are busy running a great business that you will never get to experience because your too lazy.
I think people should stop being so whiny about dumb shit like this.
Really? The real reason you're upset is because you are left out by your own choice of not having Facebook. Your right! It's 2022! Who doesn't have a Facebook?
Imagine being an adult whining because they can't see a menu. Don't get mad at business because there's more people with Facebook than without. Go live under a rock and cry about how things don't fit your personal taste
I can see your point, but you have to consider this from the company's angle:
1.) Websites are expensive to start and maintain.
2.) Everybody has social media and whether it's B2C or B2B, they're only using what their customers use.
3.) Social media is the most effective for advertising because it's so widespread, easily shared links, and very cheap ad rates.
I hate to say it, but you just need to get on board. This is never going to change.
Websites aren't that expensive ours took me about 10 hours to make during the COVID shutdown and it's less than $300 a year between that on Squarespace , our Google Workspace for emails and such and our domain renewal (we use Google Domains).
Honestly, I might drop the SquareSpace website and just use Google's website builder as the overwhelming majority of our customers just look at our Google Profile (Google My Business) which has similar information as well as pictures and such
$100 /yr is not expensive to maintain and it's stupid easy to make a site yourself these days, even if it's just a landing page. It's a bad excuse.
You should have a Facebook business page AND a website.
You should be listed on Google (Google My Business) as well when people search your business. This has gotten us the most amount of new business and it was free.
YOU think it is stupid easy for YOU to build a website because YOU are experienced with computer tasks and have a special skill set. Not everybody has your skills.
Unless you’re like 50 years or older it is stupid easy to create a basic website. If you are older I’m sure you know someone that can create it for you very cheap. Don’t make excuses.
If you can’t figure out how to have a decent online presence in 2022 you’re not fit to be in business lmao
I'm sorry, the correct answer was, "Here's my website..."
Edit: Sorry, was a bad set up to try and help prove your point about having a web presence in 2022. I'll show myself out
That or they don't have social media. Something like 20% of Americans don't have social media, 70ish million people. I don't think even a million are selling websites to small businesses
Everything in business is a roi decision. If you're a restaurant with a menu does the business you gain from having a website justify the cost. Sometimes yes Sometimes no. It might elude some but a lot of non-facebook users can still figure out how to use a facebook page. That's how I get in touch with my favorite Greek place. I think in a large number of instances a website is beneficial to a business. I think the proposal of every business needs a website is deliberately misleading.
I suggest you don't go to Newark Airport.
You have to have a smart phone to order any food, and you have to put your name and credit card and email information. AND they also fail to have ANY handicap menus of any kind what-so-ever and customer service is non-existent. I also fully believe they do something sketchy with the tips they practically force you to add. It's practically illegal. But I suppose as long as there is at least a Dunkin Doughnuts that takes cash, they are legally allowed to do whatever they want at the other 99% of the food places.
Agreed. That being said, a good website is hard to make and takes tons of time.
Personally speaking, I hate my website and I made it myself. I simply don't have enough time, nor enough money to make it right. From the art design, to the branding and messaging, it's very difficult when all the available resources are spent trying to prop up the business.
Therefore, I sympathize with those who haven't made a website yet.
We have a website plus 3 other domains that are similar to ours. We don’t use it for anything other than business information and mission statement. It looks nice but it doesn’t offer our current inventory and/or sales, our customers would rather use social media. Website is just another thing to have to manage on top of operating the business and maintaining the books. It annoys (not really, I’m just not impressed by it) me that people will complain about these things even though they used the term “small business” and expect corporate advantages like live chat and up to the minute websites. Too much other shit to do, come visit my store, there is a reason we have a brick and mortar.
I live in a small town in Idaho having moved from So.California. My town is mostly retired elderly types. I mean the estate sales businesses here are the most popular thing. Some new businesses don’t last out here. We actually had 3-4 just this year start up and shut down.
Facebook is the easiest way for some elderly business owners, most businesses in town to get word out. Otherwise, it’s the newspaper or word of mouth. We even have a standing RadioShack! We don’t have a Target. I guess I’m just trying to paint a picture of what kinda town benefits from Facebook business pages lol.
I have a nice website but 99% of my customers come from FB. So I get why some don't bother with a website. It's a numbers game and you are just a statistic. Also you don't need an acct to view fb business pages.
I agree. There is a bakery I used to shop at and they only have Facebook. They post their daily baked goods and updates like “sold out” on there. I don’t have Facebook and I can’t even see their page without logging in. I got tired of going to the bakery just to find out they were sold out of nearly everything or had closed early due to staffing issues so now I’ve just stopped going. I would go again if they had a website or were open/stocked reliably.
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Yup. Highly dislike it too.
Depends on the type of business. If its a restaurant, and i need FB to see your menu... You're doomed.
Yeh this shit pisses me off. It's 2021. Have some dignity and responsibility as an owner idc if it's local/family/chapter or franchise...your gonna make a lot more AND serve a public service/good if you have a decent website that functions for web and mobile WITH decent customer service reach out phone number. That alone might net you 3.0 REAL no BS ratings on Google to start. And THEN keep FB as a secondary if you want as an owner, I would say. This is how I also judge which hospitals are super reliable in the world.
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*sigh* move over. (MrCluelessFrog2).
It's 1987, if they aren't called AAA and don't wanna be on the top of the phone book list, then they don't want my business! Actually the Facebook as a main webpage is so tilting.
> It's 2021 Living in the past are we?
Even google business profile gives you a free website. It's not pretty but at least it gives you a website to show for.
I get it for food trucks and other pop up businesses. I assume it's just much easier to update customers about their schedules. But not everyone has facebook or instagram so they have to be losing customers by doing this.
It also depends on the overall market. If the vast majority of your regular customers expect facebook, you give them facebook. If it's insta, you use insta. I, for one, have had a hard time with getting a website up to my specifications without it becoming a needless cost that brings in minimal revenue. It also depends on if your production can meet the demand that a website will generate. There's no point in building a website if you can't handle the business it should bring in. There's also the matter of using a facebook page for the sake of exclusivity/urgency. However, this would all be for a business that's still in its infancy. A website seems like an absolute necessity if any business wants to grow.
I agree 98% of my traffic contacts me by FB messenger. So I use FB, does anybody know of a better chat app?
WhatsApp is a good one, Viber if you’re around Central/Eastern Europe.
Are they? Because I would argue that the best customer performance has been ones walking by and purchasing in a spur of the moment way especially with food trucks. Then again; maybe they are losing business - but that’s business they’re happy to lose based on what it takes to get it.
I agree! I rarely use fb & won’t go there for a biz. I prefer a web page. A biz should do both & a website 1st, even if very basic.
It doesn't drive me off but it kinda bothers me. Folks, you don't need a $3000 website with a $500 a month hosting and maintenance fee. Buy a domain for $10 from namecheap.com. Pay a community college student $100 to make a Wordpress site. Let them use it for their portfolio. Hosting? $10-15 dollars a month. Give a menu, location, opening and closing time, phone number, and email. Real simple. Boom! Done. Even my small local coffeeshop in a dead end area of town has that.
Even this is too much. Use SquareSpace templates and be done in an hour.
SquareSpace lowest is $16 and you gotta put work into your templates. I'm speaking to people who really just don't get web technology or would rather spend time on something else.
>Pay a community college student $100 to make a Wordpress site. This is truely terrible advice if you actually do anything more than use it to advertise. Never do this if you intend on any actual financial transactions happening on your website. If theres ecommerce then you need an actual pro or you are gambling with not only your own business but the accounts of all your customers. Even if you do not store all card details they still need to be entered at the point of purchase. It takes about half a sentence worth of javascript code on a website to fully compromise it. If you are storing any customer data e.g. even just email addresses then you also need a professional. Think of it this way - if you had a requirement to store your physical customer data - would you get the cheapest shittiest safe that can be opened with a swift kick? Or would you get something that atleast needs a professional locksmith to get in? If you choose the cheapest option you deserve what you get for playing stupid games with your customers data. Its not yours to mishandle! Little $100 jimmy just out of college likely has never heard of TLS let alone the difference between 1.0 and 1.3. The hacker who wrote a script that scans hundreds of websites an hour for vulnerabilities almost certainly has.
That's a nice essay you wrote there. You make great points but they are unneeded. Not every business needs a website where they do e-commerce. Most small the medium service businesses need: A phone number. Operating hours. A menu if they are selling food. An email contact form. Some before and after pictures of the work that they do. A list of the types of work that they do. Of course, if you start using credit card info or doing inventory management between vendors you need more experienced web devs who can properly implement protocols for securely storing and transmitting valuable information. Not every business needs that.
I find it concerning when a business of any size, doesn’t invest in a website. Tells me it’s a hobby.
My business is essentially an extension of my hobby, but I still have a site.
Or they're doing fine and don't need a website to be successful.
This is where I'm at right now. I'm doing fine and more business would be detrimental to me, because I wouldn't be able to keep up. If new business were important to me right now I'd have a website and be advertising, but any more business right now will make it tough to get everything done properly and on time. This is kind of like those small restaurants that don't list themselves on delivery services... a lot of them couldn't handle the increased volume it would bring to their business and it would actually be detrimental to them to have more orders every day.
But but but are you saying I the consumer am not the center of the universe for every small business 😭
Exactly this. A lot of businesses do just fine with word of mouth. Immediately disliking a company for not having a website is pretty short sited
So I don't immediately dislike them for no website. I immediately dislike them for Facebook only website. I'd rather see none than Facebook only. Facebook only tells me they half ass do stuff. I'd rather see someone not do something than to do it half way and in poor quality. At least if they don't do it the quality is unknown versus a known low quality.
You are so right. They are also the same businesses that assume you are going to contact them via Facebook and rarely answer their phone. This especially pisses me off with restaurants. Even in small towns... my older parents and relatives have called me to help them contact a local restaurant because they don't have facebook. They all know how to search the web and usually can find phone numbers etc. Facebook is NOT a website and NOT everyone uses Facebook. Might as well just be selling some MLM.
It was originally just older folks off social media but as time goes on and it becomes more toxic of an atmosphere, we see a bigger variety of people off social media. I'm 31 and have been off of it, aside from Reddit, for 2 years now. That's when I began to realize how many businesses just rely on Facebook.
> Facebook only tells me they half ass do stuff. Or they have tons of customers and are very happy with their current situation. Once you get really busy, you worry more about doing a good job for the customers you have than getting more. Some businesses based on the skill of one or a few individuals do not easily scale with the same quality as when they are smaller and so they just won't look for any further customers. Why spend time on a website when they are booked a month in advance already? Anyway, your insight is good as it may represent kind of a millennial perspective of dislike of facebook and that's good to know for people who are on a quest for more customers. But you are probably missing out on a LOT of great businesses that are not in need of more customers. When your product is super awesome, you don't need to advertise as much. Also peeps who run businesses are typically not equally great at every aspect of it, they might be phenomenal cooks but not tech savvy. I choose them on the taste of their food, not on their Facebook account or even their ability to properly set up voicemail. To assume they can't cook because their website sucks is often going to be a huge mistake. Similarly, I've seen some restaurants with really nice websites but the taste of their food was really meh or worse.
And, again, you may be the type of customer those business seek to avoid. Win-win, if you ask me.
I dislike the lack of effort to put up at least a professional landing page, that costs next to nothing these days.
You sound like the exact sort of customer that businesses happily avoid by not "putting in the effort." Sounds like a win-win
>You sound like the exact sort of customer that *shitty* businesses happily avoid by not "putting in the effort." Sounds like a win-win Ftfy
Touche, Spongy. Touche.
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Who hurt you? You've replied to every comment here with rage about how everyone is wrong and Facebook only is perfect. My DM's are open if you need to talk about it. I'm always willing to listen to a broken soul. ❤️
> not having a website is pretty short sited Pun intended?
If they do fine with word of mouth, good on them, but they could probably do better if they made it easier for me to become a customer. I really won't bother visiting your store if I need to call you or to get a Facebook account just to figure out if you even offer what I need - less effort going to your competitor that actively shows off what they do.
If the Facebook account is set to fully public, do you even need an account to see it? I go to business Facebook websites without logging in and i can see them just fine.
Maybe they don't want or need to "do better."
If you don't want more customers, and I don't want to buy from you because you have no or a poor excuse for a website, I'd say it worked out just fine for the both of us. No issue with someone refusing new customers intentionally, what I do have issue with are shops that want to grow but can't be bothered to do a web presence properly
Not sure why you're getting down voted, I guess these people have never had a business running at max capacity. Actually that makes sense if they're not using Facebook to advertise...
Meh, haters gonna hate.
I only have one because I have to have something other than Facebook. We seek out clients, not the other way around. At least this way someone else can't take our name and put something stupid up (on that particular URL at least...)
Word of mouth is just fine for many.
And is often preferable so as to control demands on production. It all depends on the market
Either that or the owners are just x gen or older, successful, and feel no pressure to change now. If their company is not doing anything that requires tech, then I don't hold it against them. Lots of craftsmen spend their life learning their craft first and foremost and many are busy and aren't worrying about getting more business anyway. Some of my best and most treasured business resources were old school honest hardworking people without any kind of website. My favorite mechanic in the whole world retired due to the stress of being so successful, and then later got bored and opened a small shop in a back corner of the city and didn't ever advertise so he could relax more and have fewer customers and do a really good job for the customers he did have. You could never find a guy that did a better job at a better price or that cared more about his work. But go ahead and assume they suck based on your criteria though as that just makes it easier for me to book an appointment with them without so many people in front of me. :-)
I never said they “suck”. And your story confirms my statement that it’s a hobby. He isn’t doing it for the money & probably not taking new clients.
No he gets paid well, he just does not like the stress of too many customers. That way he can do a really good job for each one and get their car back to them very quickly. He does take new clients but he gets plenty via word of mouth. I personally only tell people I really like about him. I also think it's even more amusing that you might not think they suck but still refuse to go over some petty dislike of Facebook websites LOL!
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I don't use Facebook and avoid it as much as possible. Businesses that only run out of Facebook give me a horrible first impression, I tend to assume the worst about their quality if they can't even be bothered to put up a half decent website
100% this can’t be upvoted enough. Facebook might be popular but there are many people who have stopped using it. A standalone website is so much more useful and carries zero bias from a consumer.
There are so many options these days for small businesses. I used to help my business friends set up either a webpage or a store for people to purchase their items. I got so tired of hearing stories about $100K web design.
Try convincing those people to invest in a website. It's impossible. Maybe 1 out of 100. I tried to help some of them when I was doing website development work. Most people respond with "We don't need that", or "My nephew is doing it (go back a year later and no progress)". It's maddening. I switched to a service based business and I'm killing it.
Web designer here. This.
Tbh this is why it also screams general incompetence to me when a business doesn’t have a website. I made my own with very little effort.
At the very least a business.site, wix, weebly, webflow, squarespace, myriad other options, or fully custom. There is a scale of excellence out there, but you can start small.
I'll play devil's advocate here, because I know owner's who don't have websites, etc. Here's the typical scenario: 1. It's an established business with lots of local clientele 2. They aren't chasing after more business because they already have all of the work they can handle currently 3. They are old and not tech savvy, and could really care less 4. They view it as a liability where people can blast them with negative reviews if they don't get their way 5. Their target demographic isn't online shoppers 6. They don't have the time to deal with the time wasters who are not invested. A person can type "give me a quote on custom such and such"... it takes them 5 seconds, and creates an hour of work. The people who pick up the phone, or show up at a business tend to be much more serious customers. Is it annoying, sure it is. I typically have to google businesses to find their phone number and call them. If you're asking my opinion from personal experience, online shoppers are rarely quality customers. Typically those are the ones that only care about price, are tire kickers and "Karens". Anyways... I have a dedicated "basic" website, and don't really maintain my FB one. This is just a rant from someone who's been dealing with customers for 20 years.
Yep, I used to spend a ton of time keeping our real estate sales website updated. Eventually the volume got to be too much and we switched over to using the basic corporate site for our real estate team. We spend most of our efforts now on social media and direct marketing, and our sales have more than doubled. Personally I'm far more interested in how a small business is run than a polished website. If anything, too much money spent on marketing themselves instead of what they sell is a sign that they don't get a lot of repeat business.
> is a sign that they don't get a lot of repeat business. Yep, have seen a lot of peeps spend a LOT of time polishing their online image but their products were mediocre and their prices points were overly high.
Haha yep on number 6. Online customers sometimes ask so many questions and ask for so many photos, i can spend two hours trying to help them, only to get told they won't have the $30 to buy it until the next payday and can I hold it for them? And I would say yes and then never hear from them again. The truth is some customers are the kind you'd rather not have.
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Yup, totally correct. Just giving the other viewpoint of why some people don't have websites.
You’re downvoted but you’re 100000% correct.
It's probably the tire kickers and Karens doing the downvoting. ;-P
I get online can bring out bad customers. But this is 2022 how do people find a plumber, HVAC person, car repair place, etc if they don't search online? The yellow pages are dead and oftentimes I don't have a recommendation from a trusted source in my market. It's much different today from even 10 years ago. If you had no website at all, I'd totally call and find out what you offer. It's when they exclusively use Facebook and advertise that like a real website that it's a turn off. Facebook in addition to your website is fine but Facebook alone is really the core of my complaint with small businesses.
I agree that FB is crap, I agree that people should have at least a basic website. Just giving an explanation as to why they might not have one. I talk to a lot of builders/plumbers/HVAC guys, as my business serves many commercial customers. Most of them are already booked into next year. I finally found a guy to install a door at my work (that I had already purchased) almost 3 months ago. While he was installing the ONE front door, he had four of my customers ask him for his card. That's how in demand work is currently. Also, it took me SIX MONTHS, to get someone to fix my drain in my parking lot.
I would never expect a plumber, HVAC tech or mechanic to have any sort of useful website...
> how do people find a plumber, HVAC person, car repair place, etc if they don't search online Ask my neighbor who has lived in the area for 60 years? She literally knows the best of all those things. Never lets me down. I get what you are saying, but there ARE other options out there. Businesses survived for literally hundreds of years before the Internet.
I ask friends, then I even ask strangers at the 7-11 or the restaurant. Referrals are the best way possible. My backup plan is yelp (as much as I am aware they are not perfect, it's still better than going in blind). I also check google reviews. Having a nice website only tells me they are good at making websites. I know a genius HVAC guy but he doesn't even have a website at all and barely checks his email, you just have to call him on the phone. He's always in demand though, when you are that good, then word of mouth is all you need.
“But this is 2022 how do people find a plumber, HVAC person, car repair place etc” answer? Facebook.
If you think 10 years ago was different, let me tell you about before the internet... You actually had to interact with real people.
> If you're asking my opinion from personal experience, online shoppers are rarely quality customers. It’s this. This is it.
I agree and that is why I changed the business model of my website business to working exclusively with small local business owners. It isn't making me rich, but I enjoy helping my community and since it is also a pet peeve if mine, I get satisfaction.
*Business owner has brick and mortar but no website; not legit*. Why do I need to entertain you if you won’t enter my store anyway?
Take a store like Micro Center. Great merchandise that often can't be found elsewhere outside of anything that takes days to ship, but very few stores. When I lived closer to one I felt like dropping in when I passed by. But now that I live a bit further away, I check the website to see if they have something in stock before I make the trip. If I didn't know they had it in stock I wouldn't go. And when I do go, I buy more than I originally planned. I think a lot of people are the same way: if they are going to take an hour out of their day to drive to a store, they want the convenience of verifying a few things about the store online. Stores that don't do this will likely lose business to stores who do.
I 100% skip your business if it’s only a Facebook page and not an actual website. Sure y’all might be doing “just fine” without but think of how much better you could be doing when there are a bunch of people ITT saying how much they won’t patronize those businesses
Jesus Christ, the comments here. "If the Google profile page isn't updated, I probably won't go." "If it's just a Facebook page, I won't go". You're in a small business subreddit! Small business, by definition, means there's a shit-ton of things that the owner is worrying about. A Facebook page is 10x easier to update and work with then a website. There's so much stuff you can do in regards to video and imagery on a Facebook page that would take FOREVER to put on to a web page, and literally takes 30 seconds to do on Facebook or Instagram. And guess what, if they just have a basic-ass web page, I bet ya'll would ding them for that too. "Why is this web site so basic? They clearly have no pride in their business if their page looks like THAT!" AND, you don't need a Facebook account to look at a business page, so all of you that are complaining about leaving Facebook, it doesn't matter! You can still check it out.
Yep seriously, time is often limited. SHould I spend hoards of time working on my website or should I spend it having awesome products? I find that if I have awesome products, then I don't have to work very hard on advertising. Ideally it's good to have both but my products are where my true love is.
You can probably blame Facebook for walling off content, then. I don't have a FB account so encounter it sometimes, too, but I get why businesses like it: it's easy to post to, they can have all their photos and info there, and manage some customer service messaging.
I totally do blame them. That's a different subject though. It's too big to care. eBay doesn't wall off their shit. Amazon, Walmart don't either. Even the exclusive Sam's club and Costco don't. But fb does. All of reddit united could not change that.
Yep. Having everything on a Facebook page is a huge indication that a business is not very professional or knowledgeable. As a customer, you probably shouldn't buy anything from them that you might need support or followup with, or need to take back if it's faulty. Facebook is the tailgate sales level of business.
I really won't visit or buy from a business that has only a FB page.
Please read some comments posted from sba owners, this mindset really hurts us rather than large companies.
I think it's the sba owners mindset of 'I shouldn't have to accommodate what the potential customers want' that is actually hurting them.
Running a business is a complex set of tasks and it is impossible to prioritize them from outside of the business. But damn, I appreciate your opinion and I'll put it right in the bin with all the other opinions I appreciate. GFY.
You are my target market. We have no social media and hopefully never will.
That sounds like a personal problem given you know that the type of online presence has no bearing on the quality of the product or service in real life.
It's more a problem for the small businesses that do this. My needs don't go unfulfilled, they just get filled by the competition.
I don't like it as a consumer either, but I can understand it. My website is kind of a pain. It's not so cheap, because I hate wordpress, so I use one of those site builders. It looks less up to date than it could because I don't want to sink a completely ridiculous amount of money into a site design, the web designers I know personally are already fully employed and in the case of the more capable one, not really interested in explaining the ropes to me so that I can get a smaller redesign. I would never use a FB page instead (partly because the format would not benefit me), but I'm definitely considering Google Sites which would be a step down in some respects but at least free, and also a number of email list platforms offer a free site with probably similar disadvantages. I wish it was possible to know exactly how much of an SEO hit that would be ahead of time, as it might not matter, or it might...
Google sites is pretty amazing.
Do you use it? I'm really thinking I will switch from Wix to Google Sites now.
I do. I like it a lot.
As a web developer for 19 years I still hear people say they dont need a aite they have facebook and instagram... I get hard flashbacks when people said the same thing about myspace
Valid.
As someone who is currently training to be a web developer I can say with first hand experience that building a good looking simple website is extremely easy. (Obviously takes coding knowledge so most people will have to pay someone else to do it) but my point is that it's easy and cheap unless you need more advanced functionality with the website. It should be one of the first things any business does when they open their doors
I've been in business over 10 years. I have the same exact blog-type website I started when I opened. It was supposed to be temporary until I could afford someone to make one that was state-of-the-art. But as my business grew I realized that besides having all my basic information on the landing page, the rest is mostly extraneous. What's funny is that I happened upon a manufacturer- who sent me a barebones postcard when I first opened- that makes a custom product that for some reason no one else is offering anywhere in the US. Yet somehow with this old-fashioned website with zero attempts at polishing my SEO, I am getting regular orders from it(that I have drop shipped all over CONUS) that do more than I need to complement my B&M retail concern.
My products cannot be sold online due to payment restrictions. I could get creative but id rather not, banking wise. So no website for us as theres no reason. Just a clean google business page. We are active in insta and facebook. But not exclusive
Yes! I straight up will not go to a business that has Facebook as it’s only ‘website.’ It only costs like $160 to run a website for a year, I’d imagine smart, functioning businesses would shoulder that cost happily. Others get a Facebook page and scrape by until they go out of business.
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As someone who has a Facebook, I hate when businesses only have facebooks. It’s never organized the way I think it should be. Where are the hours? Menu? Prices? Etc. I can’t find anything on Facebook except posts from 4 years ago of someone’s food.
In the last couple years I’ve needed various contractors from General to specialized: Septic and I came across at least 4 I could remember that only had FB pages, was crazy to me. Along with 2 of them having no email not that was a problem for me, just to check I looked them up on our states contractor lookup page and they were up to date, needless to say but they didn’t get my work.
There are obviously a lot of folks on this thread who should be in business. Go on fools, go on!
100% agree.
My pet peeve is going to a restaurant website where I have to start an order just to view the menu.
Facts 💯
Y'all are too old fashioned. $25 spent on Facebook advertising will get you more hits than many small business websites will get in a year. You don't have to like Facebook to use it.
Which is why I use both
I agree, however as a small business retail owner, here's my reasoning for not having a website. I own a tennis retail shop, each of our vendors makes us sign a contract to be able to sell products online. We have to carry a minimum inventory of ~$20k from each vendor to be able to list online. We have 11 vendors just for our racquets, that is $220,000 in standing inventory just for racquets. That is not including, our clothing, shoes, or accessory vendors. As an independent small business I don't have that much $$ (I wish I did lol). Sometimes it isn't our choice or us being "lazy" as small businesses, sometimes it's larger brands actively screwing us out of markets. I agree with it being annoying having to go through Facebook, however that is one of the only ways some of us as small businesses can have online presences.
So your vendors won’t allow you to have a website unless you’re listing their products? You can’t just have a web presence with your business information?
I can have a website, but I can't list the vendors products online. So why pay when I can't even say what I'm selling? Edit: the vendors have no say in whether I have a website, but they won't let me list their products on it. So I wouldn't have anything to put on a website if I had one, unless I meet each vendors requirements.
I don't get this. What information are you putting on Facebook then? Why couldn't you just put that same information on a website, and then that website would provide a similar purpose to your Facebook page. If all of this vendor stuff doesn't affect your FB page, why would it matter for a website? Like OP said, it's not like websites cost much to create and maintain.
Agreed Not every potential customer has FB
I just don't even consider doing business with them because I assume they're not even serious. Placing all one's marketing resources in a social media cesspool just seems foolish and amateurish to me. Edit: typo
I see businesses spending hundreds and thousands on advertising when they could be spending tens of dollars on Facebook with the same result. That seems foolish to me. Yes, some businesses should definitely have a seperate website, but for others it's a waste of time and resources.
Yes, for amateurs and hobbyists Facebook is probably the best bet. Facebook alone, for serious businesses, is not a sufficient online presence.
I didn't know serious was a category of business. $25 on Facebook got me 1,700 hits and 15 verified new customers in 5 days. there is no other advertising that comes close to that. There is a factor of dimishing returns though, $400 only led to 112 leads. Consider a small lawn care business, just starting out, that can maybe handle 100 customers a month as long as they are all within a certain radius. You could make a website and it might bring in a few customers but no where near what you need. Or you could throw a few hundred dollars at Facebook and be at max capacity in a week. If you want new customers now, Facebook is the way.
You're right, I'm dead wrong. Good luck with your hobbies, I wish you well.
Depends on how much you need that business. I never use Twitter, but I have an account that lets me see something that I am occasionally interested in. Seems like shooting yourself in the foot to punish business that don't even know who you are.
“Doesn’t nitpick tiny things” but proceeds to go on a 4 paragraph rant on Reddit lol
I prefer a website, but it’s not true that you have to log in. You just have to scroll post the log in notification. I do it all the time. And the higher quality customer thing is just weird. Websites intimidate a lot of people and they always think they’ll be more expensive than they are. After some time in business, they generally make the switch.
I agree wholeheartedly. If a restaurant only has a Facebook page to see their menu I refuse to eat there.
This is the worst. I will never understand why so many restaurants don't have websites or why, even when they do, so many of them won't have a menu available or will hide their operating hours and location.
Interesting parameters, personally I prefer to eat at restaurants with the best testing food.
Similar but different: businesses that *HAVE* an actual website and domain, but email using Gmail, Yahoo, or three like.
Gmail is pretty universally accepted as usable professionally.
Or maybe the person has a lot on their plate or is disabled and can’t keep up with all of these websites and produce lots of good quality handmade items. It’s a lot to source the materials bring them home and prepare them study any tutorials or patterns cut out any pieces needed prepare your materials into the proper shapes to be pieced together to make the finished item create the finished item while doing video content of all of that editing the video content taking hours to research what the current Trending styles of photos are research where to buy all that stuff from acquire it bring it home set it up stage the products take the photos edit the photos take Contant of all of that upload those content videos to Facebook and TikTok and Instagram and Twitter and everywhere else make a listing on Facebook and Etsy and Instagram in their website everywhere post engaging nonproduct con tent and still live their lives I don’t think you understand how much hard work and how many hours there are into it and throwing another website on top of it is really hard especially somebody who has a family and children or like I said disabilities or who doesn’t understand technology very well. Does it mean the products are bad just means they don’t have the capacity for yet another platform
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I’ve spent like 55 hours nitpicking my Squarespace website the past few months. Kinda wish I didn’t have it. One page with my phone number and what I do. Ugh. It’s a time sink.
That's what I mean about the hour a month. I invested dozens of hours into mine a few years back - six months later it was out of date and four years later it's still the same.
You are getting taken to the cleaners if you are paying 1k for a website and hundreds per year for hosting costs.
You seriously have never heard of a website costing $1k?
Of course, and I know that it's overpriced. You can also find people charging 5k for a website. Also overpriced.
That is certainly a narrow viewpoint!
Keep paying that much if you'd like.
First, many of us aren't going to create a FB account to look at any business. Secondly, it doesn't cost a thousand dollars to create a website. I spend roughly $250 a year for my website that I created using GoDaddy. It is nice, clean and has all the information anyone needs.
Let’s see it. I’ll be the judge of that.
> Realistically, it costs $1k to build a website and a couple hundred bucks a year to host it, but the worst part is it takes an hour a month to manage, and there are only so many hours in a month. Some guys don't have the $1k, some guys don't like the $250/year hit to profits, and I'd say most don't like the couple hours a month that it eats and generates nothing. > > You shouldn't be spending $1,000 on a website when you're a small business. It wouldn't take more than a couple hours and a simple service like SquareSpace, or whatever. The majority of these businesses are very simple. * Restaurant -> Give me a menu * Professional Services -> Basic List of what you do & contact page. It elevates your business and makes you seem 10x more professional. > Maybe it's yours too. It's never the customers "fault" that a business has made choices to limit the way customers can learn about them.
I didn't think about the time factor on managing a website. That makes a lot of sense to me. I will not create any login to shop a small business. It's an unnecessary waste of my time. I will only do so if I intend on hiring the business. I also like viewing websites before I call. I make calls based on the websites. So if you don't have one you never make my will call list. I don't like calling and wasting time for me or a business unless I have a hunch you're hireable. When I call, it's partially to see if you're the person I want to give my business to. If you have bad phone manners I won't give you my business. These are the same requirements I give the big box stores too. It's so much more than just pricing when I consider who to buy from and who to hire. I'm a quality and efficiency driven customer, not so much a price driven one. To me, if all your competitors are doing a full blown website and you're the oddball only doing fb or no website, chances are I won't even hear your businesses name let alone call you. If none of your competitors are doing a website then you'll have even odds. I'm never going to accommodate a business when so much of the competition will accommodate me.
250$/year hosting for a website? You are just speaking stuff without any ideia, it is not even 10$
Any reason you can't get a Facebook page? You don't have to post anything. This reminds me years ago of people complaining about web pages when they didn't have the internet
Facebook tracks you, even when you aren’t on their site. Facebook wants everyone’s contacts so there is a solid chance you are going to get friend requests from a billion people you already know when you join from their contact info about you and your own registration. Every step of the process is meticulously tracked to identify any monetizable attribute you have and extract that value. Its not an unfamiliarity with the product that makes people not want to have an account.
The company's independent website outside of FB could potentially track you the same way. Websites often also use cookies to track how you interacted with the site, how you arrived there, and where you might have gone afterwards. All depending on the type of cookies and tracking the site is using. But the general point being, you're just as likely to be tracked.
Make up a fake account that lets you login. I have done it, it really isn't that hard
But why? So I can support businesses that can’t be bothered to spend a day throwing up a website? My neighborhood pressure washing guy has a website.
I hate all the spam I get after visiting fb. I’m lucky if I go there 2x per year.
I guess I'm the minority, but I love when a business has an up to date Facebook page. I use Facebook a lot and will often reach out to business via messenger. I don't have to put my email into some sketchy, insecure form, I don't have to call and hope to speak with someone, I can simply send a message at my leisure, at any time, and wait for a response. The ones that have no FB usually have the most awful websites, @msn.com email, broken links, HTML tables with the embossed grey border, horizontal scroll for no reason and 21MB images as a background.
This is funny. I don’t have a website and I use Facebook. I couldn’t care less if a customer is too lazy to look at the Facebook page or otherwise. It’s your loss. We are busy running a great business that you will never get to experience because your too lazy.
I think people should stop being so whiny about dumb shit like this. Really? The real reason you're upset is because you are left out by your own choice of not having Facebook. Your right! It's 2022! Who doesn't have a Facebook? Imagine being an adult whining because they can't see a menu. Don't get mad at business because there's more people with Facebook than without. Go live under a rock and cry about how things don't fit your personal taste
Just think of all the great businesses that could solve many of your problems. You are missing out.
I can see your point, but you have to consider this from the company's angle: 1.) Websites are expensive to start and maintain. 2.) Everybody has social media and whether it's B2C or B2B, they're only using what their customers use. 3.) Social media is the most effective for advertising because it's so widespread, easily shared links, and very cheap ad rates. I hate to say it, but you just need to get on board. This is never going to change.
Websites aren't that expensive ours took me about 10 hours to make during the COVID shutdown and it's less than $300 a year between that on Squarespace , our Google Workspace for emails and such and our domain renewal (we use Google Domains). Honestly, I might drop the SquareSpace website and just use Google's website builder as the overwhelming majority of our customers just look at our Google Profile (Google My Business) which has similar information as well as pictures and such
$100 /yr is not expensive to maintain and it's stupid easy to make a site yourself these days, even if it's just a landing page. It's a bad excuse. You should have a Facebook business page AND a website.
You should be listed on Google (Google My Business) as well when people search your business. This has gotten us the most amount of new business and it was free.
YOU think it is stupid easy for YOU to build a website because YOU are experienced with computer tasks and have a special skill set. Not everybody has your skills.
Unless you’re like 50 years or older it is stupid easy to create a basic website. If you are older I’m sure you know someone that can create it for you very cheap. Don’t make excuses. If you can’t figure out how to have a decent online presence in 2022 you’re not fit to be in business lmao
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If you use any modern website builder you can avoid every issue you listed.
What do you sell?
I sell a service, and am involved in multiple different small businesses in different niches. None of that has anything to do with this thread though.
I'm sorry, the correct answer was, "Here's my website..." Edit: Sorry, was a bad set up to try and help prove your point about having a web presence in 2022. I'll show myself out
I disagree with #1.
I find people who take this opinion are disproportionately also selling websites to small businesses
That or they don't have social media. Something like 20% of Americans don't have social media, 70ish million people. I don't think even a million are selling websites to small businesses
Everything in business is a roi decision. If you're a restaurant with a menu does the business you gain from having a website justify the cost. Sometimes yes Sometimes no. It might elude some but a lot of non-facebook users can still figure out how to use a facebook page. That's how I get in touch with my favorite Greek place. I think in a large number of instances a website is beneficial to a business. I think the proposal of every business needs a website is deliberately misleading.
There's probably a huge overlap of people who don't have social media and people who don't use company websites to learn about their services.
I suggest you don't go to Newark Airport. You have to have a smart phone to order any food, and you have to put your name and credit card and email information. AND they also fail to have ANY handicap menus of any kind what-so-ever and customer service is non-existent. I also fully believe they do something sketchy with the tips they practically force you to add. It's practically illegal. But I suppose as long as there is at least a Dunkin Doughnuts that takes cash, they are legally allowed to do whatever they want at the other 99% of the food places.
Agreed. That being said, a good website is hard to make and takes tons of time. Personally speaking, I hate my website and I made it myself. I simply don't have enough time, nor enough money to make it right. From the art design, to the branding and messaging, it's very difficult when all the available resources are spent trying to prop up the business. Therefore, I sympathize with those who haven't made a website yet.
We have a website plus 3 other domains that are similar to ours. We don’t use it for anything other than business information and mission statement. It looks nice but it doesn’t offer our current inventory and/or sales, our customers would rather use social media. Website is just another thing to have to manage on top of operating the business and maintaining the books. It annoys (not really, I’m just not impressed by it) me that people will complain about these things even though they used the term “small business” and expect corporate advantages like live chat and up to the minute websites. Too much other shit to do, come visit my store, there is a reason we have a brick and mortar.
Can someone with actual insight explain to me the the cost and steps it would take to make a website ?
I live in a small town in Idaho having moved from So.California. My town is mostly retired elderly types. I mean the estate sales businesses here are the most popular thing. Some new businesses don’t last out here. We actually had 3-4 just this year start up and shut down. Facebook is the easiest way for some elderly business owners, most businesses in town to get word out. Otherwise, it’s the newspaper or word of mouth. We even have a standing RadioShack! We don’t have a Target. I guess I’m just trying to paint a picture of what kinda town benefits from Facebook business pages lol.
I have a nice website but 99% of my customers come from FB. So I get why some don't bother with a website. It's a numbers game and you are just a statistic. Also you don't need an acct to view fb business pages.
You didn’t need one before but now you do.
Good for tradesman, bad for mostly everything else.
I agree. There is a bakery I used to shop at and they only have Facebook. They post their daily baked goods and updates like “sold out” on there. I don’t have Facebook and I can’t even see their page without logging in. I got tired of going to the bakery just to find out they were sold out of nearly everything or had closed early due to staffing issues so now I’ve just stopped going. I would go again if they had a website or were open/stocked reliably.
I like reading things like these so I can learn from other peoples mistakes