For independent retailers
Local shop websites that answer the question: do you stock it?
Most people who look up a local shop want to know two things: are you open, and have you got what they need. A website that answers both, in words Google can read, brings in people who would otherwise have ordered online and never known you had it on the shelf.
- Price from
- £1,400
- Build time
- 14 working days
- Built by
- Coltura
- Growth Care™
- £149 a month
One-off, for a Growth Website of up to 6 pages.
From agreed direction to launch.
Our studio in Didsbury, Manchester.
Optional. Cancel any time, with a month’s notice.
How your customers choose
Two questions decide it: are you open, and have you got it?
A shop customer online is usually on a mission: something needed today or this week, and a quick check before making the trip.
When it is urgent
Needed today, and close by
A spare key, a watch battery, a birthday card, the right fuse, a bike tyre. They search on a phone with near me or open now on the end, and want the hours, the address and whether you stock it or do it.
When it is considered
A gift, a hobby or a specialist range
Someone buying a present, building a hobby or looking for a brand they trust takes longer, and wants to know whether the shop knows its stock. These customers come back, and they tell their friends.
What wins their trust, what loses it, and what they search for
What makes them trust you
- Staff who know the stock, named
- Parking and access details
- A quick reply when they ask about an item
- Local delivery or collection, stated plainly
What makes them leave
- A website that looks closed when the shop is open
- Last Christmas's opening hours still showing in February
- A Facebook page as the only website
- Photos from before the refit
What they type into Google
- “shops open now near me”
- “key cutting near me”
- “watch battery replacement”
- “gift shop near me”
- “stockists near me”
- “bike repair near me”
- “picture framing”
- “wool shop near me”
Most of these are settled on the Google map within a minute, by whichever shop looks open and looks like it has the thing.
01 / 04
Do you sell it? The question most shop websites never answer
Independent shop websites tend to describe the shop: family-run, friendly, a wide range. That is pleasant, but it does not help someone standing in their kitchen trying to work out whether you sell the right fuse, a size five football, gluten-free flour or a particular brand of wool. If they cannot tell, they order it online, and you never knew they looked.
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The fix is not a full catalogue. It is a clear page for each of your main categories and the brands you carry, written as text, with a line on how to check a specific item by phone or message. Brand names are worth listing because people search for them with near me on the end.
02 / 04
A full online shop, click and collect, or neither
It is easy to be talked into an online shop you then struggle to keep up. Every product needs photos, prices, stock levels and postage, and a shop with thousands of lines and fast-moving stock can end up spending more time on the website than behind the till. For many independents the better answer is a site that shows the range, takes reservations or collection requests by message, and sells online only the few things that travel well, such as gift vouchers.
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If you already sell online through a platform you are happy with, the shop website can point to it. The decision is really about how much time you can give it each week, and the free Growth Audit is a sensible place to have that conversation honestly before anything is built.
03 / 04
Key cutting, repairs, orders in and gift wrapping
The services behind the counter are often what make a shop findable. Key cutting, watch batteries, bike repairs, picture framing, alterations, special orders and local delivery are searched for with urgency and a short travel distance in mind. Each is worth a short page or a clear section, with prices where they are fixed and turnaround times where they matter.
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Services also bring people in on days when nobody is browsing. Someone who comes in for a spare key or a watch strap may well leave with something else, and the website is how they found out you did it.
04 / 04
Where a small advertising budget goes furthest in retail
Paid search is hard to justify for general shop visits, because the sale is modest and you cannot easily tell whether someone who saw an advert later walked in. It works better for something specific with a clear value: a specialist range, a service with a booking such as bike servicing, gift vouchers at Christmas, or a brand people already search for by name.
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Measure it on calls, direction clicks and reservation requests, and stop whatever does not produce them. Tracking for those is set up when the site launches, so the decision can be made on evidence.
What the website needs
The shop site, page by page
A clear picture of what you stock and what you do, kept current, with a quick way to check a specific item before setting off.
Homepage. What kind of shop you are, today's hours, the address, and a quick way to ask about an item.
A page per main category. What you carry and the brands, with photos of the real shelves.
Services. Key cutting, repairs, framing, alterations or orders in, each with its own short section.
Gifts and vouchers. Ideas by budget or occasion, and gift vouchers if you sell them online.
Visit us. Address, parking, access and the year's opening hours.
News and events. New ranges, events and seasonal hours.
The enquiry route, and what to leave out
The enquiry route
From “do you sell this?” to a trip to the shop
- The visitor finds the category or brand page and sees that you normally carry it.
- If they want to be sure, they ask about the item by message, phone or a short form.
- You reply, and if it is in, you can offer to put it aside for them.
- Hours, address and parking are one tap away from every page.
Leave it out
What not to put on the site
- Supplier product photos in place of your own
- Brands you no longer stock
- A news page with nothing since last year
- A long history of the shop above what you sell
Proof and credentials
What makes a stranger trust a shop they have never visited
Shop customers rarely check a register. They check whether you look open, real and well stocked, and whether other people found what they needed.
What to show, item by item
- The real shop
- A shop front photo from the street, so people recognise it, and photos of real shelves, which prove the range better than any description. Add your best-known lines as products on your Google Business Profile too.
- Specific reviews
- The most persuasive shop reviews mention a person or an item someone could not find anywhere else. Quote them with permission, beside the category they relate to.
- Clear terms if you sell online
- If you sell anything online, set out delivery, returns and cancellation plainly. Customers buying at a distance usually have a legal right to cancel.
- Brands you are a stockist for
- If a brand lists you as a stockist, say so and link to it where you can. It reassures someone who found the brand online first.
The standard of build
There is no demonstration site for a shop, and one borrowed from another sector would not tell you much. Every site is designed and built from scratch around the business, works properly on a phone and is yours outright. If you want to see the standard of build first, three demonstration sites for invented businesses, a roofer, a dental practice and a wine bar, are on the examples page.
See the demonstration sitesIn our clients’ words
What our clients say.
Questions
The questions local shops ask.
Can a shop website show whether something is in stock?
Live stock levels need a connection to your till or stock system, and whether that is possible depends on what you use. For most small shops a simpler route works well: category pages showing what you normally carry, and a quick way to ask about a specific item. It is honest, easy to maintain and still gets people through the door.
How do I keep opening hours right everywhere?
Pick one place you always update first, then change the rest straight after: your website, your Google Business Profile and any other listings. Google lets you set special hours for bank holidays and events, which is worth doing well in advance, including late opening in December and Sundays. On Growth Care you send the change and the website is updated for you, so it never contradicts the sign on the door.
Will a new website bring more people into the shop?
Footfall cannot be promised. What a clearer website does is remove the reasons people give up: not knowing if you are open, whether you stock something, or where to park. Alongside an accurate Google profile, that gives the people who look you up fewer reasons to buy elsewhere, and tracking shows you how many of them call or ask for directions.
The offer in brief
Five answers that are the same for every business we build for. Open any of them.
What does it cost, and what is included?
Growth Websites start at £1,400, one-off, for a complete rebuild of up to 6 pages with setup included. A larger site is the Signature Website, at £3,500. Up to six pages, which for a shop usually means a homepage that answers open and stocked at a glance, a page for your main categories and the brands you carry, a services page, a gifts and vouchers page, a visit-us page and a simple way to ask about an item. Your Google Business Profile is set up with the right hours and photos, and calls, direction clicks and item enquiries are tracked. A page for every category is the Signature Website.
All nine parts are included:
- Growth Audit
- Offer and Messaging Rebuild
- Complete Website Rebuild
- Conversion Optimisation
- Local Search Foundation
- AI Search Readiness
- Conversion Tracking
- Performance Optimisation
- Launch Support
How long does it take, and what do you need from me?
About 14 working days from agreed direction to launch. You watch the real site take shape on a private link, with one round of considered changes before launch. What we need from you: your main categories and the brands you stock, the services you offer, your opening hours for the year, and photos of the shop front and shelves. Beyond that, about half an hour on the phone; we write the copy.
Who builds it?
Coltura, an independent digital studio in Didsbury, Manchester. We do every audit and every build in-house, so you deal directly with the studio doing the work. We take on a limited number of builds at once, which is why there is sometimes a short wait before a build starts.
Do I have to pay every month?
No. Growth Care is £149 a month if you want it, and entirely optional. It covers hosting and security, monitoring, content changes within a fair monthly allowance, a plain-English monthly report, a quarterly conversion review and messaging us directly. Cancel any time, with a month's notice. You are also free to host the site yourself.
What if it is not right for us?
The audit and the direction come before you commit. If the plan is the wrong fit for your business, you can walk away and keep the audit. You own the site, the domain and the content outright, and after launch anything that does not work the way it was built to work is fixed at no charge for 30 days.
Where to next
Also for local shops:
Related trades we build for:
Next steps
Find out what your website is costing you.
Ask for the free Growth Audit of your current site. Then pick three things people often come in for and search for each with near me on the end, on your phone, from home. If your shop does not appear, or appears with the wrong hours, that is the first thing to fix.
Done by hand and back within 48 hours. You can have it without a phone call.
Or ring us on 07958 394808Or start on your own
- Instant website check: one page checked, with the evidence for each finding.
- Revenue leak calculator: what more enquiries would be worth, worked out from your own numbers.