The question comes up on every second call. The company has something to sell, the website is old, and somebody in the meeting says they should probably have an online shop. Nobody quite knows why, but it would sound modern.
For made-to-order manufacturing, and for companies selling to other companies, the answer is almost always no. Which is good news, because the shop is the more expensive option, and not only at the start.
An online shop is not a page with a basket, it is an operation
The basket is the cheapest and quickest part of the whole thing. Everything expensive sits behind it, and most of it has nothing to do with the website: somebody has to do it every day.
| Area | What it involves | Who does it daily |
|---|---|---|
| Catalogue | Photos, descriptions, specs, variants, availability | Someone at your end, not the web supplier |
| Stock | Real quantities, reservations, accounting link | Warehouse and bookkeeping |
| Delivery | Carrier rates, pickup points, labels, tracking | Dispatch |
| Payments | Gateway, transaction fees, matching payments | Bookkeeping |
| Returns and claims | Fourteen-day window, credit notes, return shipping | Support and bookkeeping |
| Law | Terms, claims policy, information duties, dispute resolution | A lawyer once, then you |
| Support | Where is my parcel, can I return it, will the size fit | Somebody who answers the phone |
Go down that column, and if half the rows have nobody to do them, the decision is made. An unattended shop is not a sales channel, it is a source of complaints.
Three questions that settle it
It narrows down to three things. Answer yes to all three and a shop makes sense. Answer no to any of them and start with an enquiry form.
- 1Can what you sell be bought without a conversation? If the customer needs to know whether it fits their existing line, whether you can deliver in three weeks and whether service comes with it, no basket will answer that.
- 2Is the price fixed? Made-to-order work, installation, oversized freight and volume discounts for regulars all mean the price only exists after the enquiry. A fixed price in a shop would be either too high or loss-making for you.
- 3Do you have someone to run it? Not to set it up, but to handle orders, returns and questions every morning. If you are looking for a volunteer, it is not time for a shop.
When the enquiry form wins
For made-to-order manufacturing, construction, engineering and technical services, a form sells more than a basket. Not because it is more modern, but because the customer is not buying at that moment. They are working out whether you are the right supplier.
A form can also do something a basket cannot: ask. A well-written enquiry form draws out dimensions, material, quantity, deadline and budget, so the first reply you send is already a concrete quotation rather than a request for details.
A basket on made-to-order work: the customer sees a price that does not apply to their case and either leaves or orders something you cannot actually deliver.
An enquiry form: the customer spends two minutes saying what they need, and you answer a concrete brief with a price that holds.
That figure matters here more than it looks. If the customer picks you before they get in touch, the deciding is done by a website with no basket on it. What decides is whether they find references, technical documents, photos from the works and an answer to the question they are dealing with right now.
When a shop does make sense
There is no reason to demonise it. There are cases where it is the obvious choice and delaying it is the mistake:
- You sell finished goods from stock, not made-to-order work.
- The price is fixed and does not depend on who is asking.
- There are so many orders that nobody can keep entering them by hand.
- Your regulars reorder the same things and want to do it at two in the morning without a phone call.
- You sell abroad and need customers to order for themselves.
That last point is the reason that holds up most often at manufacturers: a shop for regular customers, meaning a closed part of the site with their prices and their order history. From the outside it is still a site with an enquiry form; inside it is a shop for the twenty companies that buy from you every month.
The third route nobody talks about
Between the form and the shop sits an option that wins at most manufacturers: a catalogue with prices but no basket.
Every product gets its own page with photos, specifications, a downloadable data sheet and an indicative price. It cannot be ordered, but it can be enquired about, straight from that page, with the product already filled in.
You get three things at once. Search engines have something to index, so people find you for a specific product. The customer knows the price before getting in touch, so you stop receiving enquiries from people you are ten times too expensive for. And you have no stock, delivery or returns to run.
Starting price by what the site has to do
Values in CZK
| Label | Value |
|---|---|
| Site with enquiries | 30,000 CZK |
| Catalogue with prices | 50,000 CZK |
| Custom online shop | 50,000 CZK |
Those are delivery prices. With a shop, what is not in the price list matters more: your people's time. An hour a day on the catalogue and orders comes to roughly a hundred thousand crowns a year at ordinary wages. That is the figure the decision runs on, not the price of the website.
An online shop is not paid for once. It is paid for every morning somebody has to open it
Will we lose customers if they cannot order online?
Not with made-to-order work. A customer buying a hall, insulation or two hundred pressed parts is not looking for a basket. They are looking for confidence that you can do it, and a fast answer. Reply by the next day with a concrete price and you are ahead of the competitor whose shop gets back to them in a week.
What will running a shop cost us monthly?
Server and backups are 400 CZK a month with me, maintenance and small changes 1,500 CZK. That is the smaller part. The larger part is your people: catalogue updates, dispatch, returns and support. Before deciding, work out how many hours a day it eats and multiply by two hundred and twenty working days.
Can we start with a form and add the shop later?
Yes, and I would recommend it. A custom-built site can be extended, because the product catalogue and its data are already in it. Adding a basket, delivery and payments is then extra work rather than building from nothing. It does not work the other way: a good company website cannot be made out of a boxed shop.
What if we sell to consumers and to companies?
Then both usually make sense at once, but not as two websites. A public part with a catalogue and prices for everyone, plus a login for regular customers where they see their own prices and reorder. It is one site with two modes.
Is a shop better for search engines than a site with enquiries?
No. What decides is whether each product or service has its own page with its own text, not whether there is a buy button under it. Google indexes a catalogue without a basket exactly the same.