LFS websites -- what websites?!

[ShinySideUp]

I was just having a look for websites for my local fish shops here in Cornwall to see what they had, just out of interest really. What I found was...precious little. It seems that almost all of the fish shops in the area rely on Facebook pages for their promotion. It is fortunate that my nearest and favourite shop in Launceston does actually have a website because -- horror of horrors -- I am not on Facebook!

Why businesses think it is ok just to use FB to promote their efforts I can't imagine as more and more people are starting to desert the platform as being too invasive; I feel it is just lazy.

My local pub announces things on Facebook and absolutely nowhere else and they seem to think that if it's on there then everyone knows about it, which is patently untrue. Another local venue had a band on and very few people came and they complained bitterly but their promotion too consisted of an announcement on Zuckerberg's cash cow with no flyers, no newspaper ads, nothing more at all, so therefore very little word of mouth either. Facebook is not the be all and end all of promotion and local fish shops need to bear this in mind as I personally am not about to travel 50 miles on the off-chance that they have what I think I might want (yes, I could phone but I just like to wander the aisles and don't necessarily have anything in mind, I just want some idea of what sort of stock they have).

 

[Essjay]

My son has just informed me of the reason - the cost. He has a business website and a FaceBook business account. He pays nothing for his FB account but around £40 a year for a very basic website (domain fees and host fees).

 

[NannaLou]

I wonder how much money from sales they miss out on because people won’t know they are there, or what they are offering..?

 

[Herpin Man]

I wonder how much money from sales they miss out on because people won’t know they are there, or what they are offering..?

Lots of small businesses will readily forego dollars to save pennies- especially where advertising is involved.

 

[NannaLou]

But that’s really poor business planning; in the scheme of running a business (rent, rates, insurance, wages etc.) £40 for a website is nothing. And you would (potentially) only need one customer that’s looking to get started in the hobby and you’d make that back 3 or 4 times over. Spending £40 at a LFS in an afternoon is scarily easy to do…

 

[robmcd]

Think about it... An LFS has a very fluid stock list that it would need to update on a daily basis. You can't possibly expect them to go on to the website and change their stock counts daily. On top of that they probably use a ''webmaster'' to do all of the changes to their websites (don't get me started on the webmaster ''God'' complex).

Nowadays most people are on some type of social media and use it daily. It would be far easier for an LFS to post random updates of their stock on a social media platform, that they themselves can access and manage on their own, that to have to constantly update a website.

 

[NannaLou]

Nowadays most people are on some type of social media and use it daily.

This is the closest to social media I get and there are others on here who say they don’t use it..so I think “most people “ is possibly skewed to most people in a certain age range..?

 

[Stan510]

Not just FB is free. They also get a free big internet ad with Google and for even more Yelp. You can get a feel for the shop by testimonials and a few photos tell you if its an upscale shop and Reef with Co2 aquariums to basic PetSmart.
You do have YELP is the UK?