Personal Finance (Not Investing) • New Small Business, Website?

I know there are a lot of small business owners on this site so I thought I'd ask this question here.
I'm starting a small business roasting coffee and need to make a website. I'm curious about what steps other people have done to make a simple but professional website. I only have 4 products, and I basically want 4 simple pages:
Home < Our Coffee < Our Story < Shop

I reached out to a company that advertises on FB Marketplace and they wanted $4,000 to create the site for me. That feels high, but I have nothing to compare to. I would think there's a template they could use to get us started.

I know there are websites like SquareSpace out there where I can build it myself, but I'd like to focus my time on the actual roasting and marketing rather than learning to make a website.

Any tips would be appreciated!

to op:
Do you have a formal detailed "business plan"?
Do you have a physical location (store), now, in town with a reputation and customers coming in daily to buy your roasted coffee?
Do you have regular weekly "clients"/vendors (stores and coffee shops locally) that buy your roasted coffee and you can barely keep up?

Are you making a substantial "net profit" (after all expenses) per week, per day, per month, right now, selling roasted coffee.
How much? 1000's of dollars a month "net", a week "net"?

Realize that a "website" plays a supportive role to a physical business like yours and adds a certain amount of legitimacy and information, etc. But, in and of itself, it is not going to cause zillions of orders to come in and you ship out your roasted beans every day and make money.

Look at the smaller and larger boutique "kona coffee" growers in Hawaii, on the Big Island. "Koa", that sell what they grow and roast and have websites that take online orders. But, realize that they have a vendor/store/coffee shop/restaurant supply base income in place and only what you see on the website and online purchases make it seem like that is what is keeping the business afloat.

It is common now, for so many small business ventures, to lst think website because there are so many that are well done, often far better presented than what is reality. Look at the traffic to a website, exposure, then all the way to actual buying something and money in hand. Much like self published books, there are closets filled with them everywhere and the websites for those ventures just exist.

So, be careful of your spending on a "small business website" and do a really honest business plan and projections first.
j

Statistics: Posted by Sandtrap — Wed Jul 03, 2024 9:03 am — Replies 5 — Views 385

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