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Small businesses operated either individually or by less than 10 people. A bunch of customers buy products/services from these businesses. So they need a better

Small businesses operated either individually or by less than 10 people. A bunch of customers buy products/services from these businesses. So they need a better way to: Engage with their customers Sell and manage product/service deliveries Target specific customer audience Show products/services availability Whatsapp could be the right solution not facebook apps. Also a combination of Yelp and Facebook/Whatsapp could lead replacing small business websites(I'm not telling that no smb website should exist) that going to make a fortune. The platform needs to accomplish these three things : The ability to list core info like contact details, hours of operation, and service offerings in a minimalist fashion. The ability to solicit feedback (not ratings) from customers in a low-friction, high-upside way. An ad system that let's a 60 year-old luddite set up a campaign in less than 3 minutes without having to call anyone. There's a lot to tell but I'll leave you with these thoughts.

askafriend 6y ago
Good post. I really think a lot of people here either haven't run a small/medium business or are woefully out of touch with the needs of the people that run these kinds of businesses. Your post helps ground and frame the discussion appropriately.
- FriendlyNormie 6y ago
  Thanks for sucking up to the other commenter in this totally organic exchange between two people who definitely aren’t Facebook employees.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
dmode 6y ago
This is a great post. But the biggest opportunity here is to build an aggregate SMB platform to take on Amazon. In my local downtown, I see a ton of mom and pop stores, but they don’t get a ton of foot traffic. I sometimes imagine unlocking their inventory that can allow for some inherent advantages like same day pick-up and supporting local businesses
- Lio 6y ago
  I’ve had similar thoughts. If I could find out who has what in stock and at what price before I leave the house and if I could reserve it, it would definitely encourage me to shop locally more. I’m put off by the thought of a wasted trip. The suggestion of “we could order that in for you” is obviously not great either when I can probably order it in faster myself. I hardly ever browse in a real shop anymore because I feel like I’m waisting their time if I don’t buy something.
  - _curious_ 6y ago
    What about calling them?
phreack 6y ago
I have always thought about what it would take for Whatsapp to lose their place as the dominant chat app and you finally nailed it. If I ever start getting ads or requests for reviews or anything remotely related to someone selling something to me, as a personal message because of automated Facebook tools, I'd get myself and everyone I know off the platform in a matter of seconds. On the other hand, for information requests they already have Whatsapp for businesses and it works fine, several luddites I know use it.
- oblio 6y ago
  > I have always thought about what it would take for Whatsapp to lose their place as the dominant chat app and you finally nailed it. Unfortunately, that's not how these things work. I don't know of any mainstream platform that died because of ads. You have to keep in mind the fact that the average person on this site has a total different attitude to technology and its warts than most other people.
  - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
    > I don't know of any mainstream platform that died because of ads. * Traditional television. * Online websites of traditional newspapers - they wouldn’t have moved to paywalling if advertising was working. * MySpace (not directly, but a contributory factor).
    - CraneWorm 6y ago
      > they wouldn’t have moved to paywalling if advertising was working they surely make something on advertising because the ads are present even behind the paywalls.
      - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
        I subscribe to the NYT - and I don’t like the fact there’s ads behind the paywall either - but at least they’re static ads for boring things like ING Bank. Comparing that to my local TV news’ website with Adblock disabled is night-and-day: auto-playing video ads embedded in content, clickbait “one weird trick”-ads, and no end of Share buttons either.
hnick 6y ago
I thought I heard about Shopify doing something like this, an aggregator for stores using Shopify, but apparently I misremembered. As someone who works with such a small business the main problem is finding customers who are a good match as you say. But if you fix it for everyone, then you're back to a crowded market and it'll be hard to stand out yet again. Instead of SEO and marketing you will optimise to whatever helps on the new platform. Sometimes it feels very much like a Red Queen's race [0]. I also hate the current ad systems since they can be overwhelming, however, they are fairly easy to use. What is not so easy is avoiding blowing your whole budget because you don't know what you're doing with fine grained targeting. This is not because the systems are bad per se - it's that someone else will come along, target more efficiently than you, and will indirectly bid up keywords etc so that you are no longer making a good ROI on your own ads but they still can. So it's catch up or get out. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race
- andrejguran 6y ago
  you remember correctly: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200428005278/en/Shopify-Unveils-Consumer-App-Shop https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200428005278/en/Sho...
Justin_K 6y ago
This sounds great in theory, but eventually there will be many businesses paying for the top spot and a standard listing will become irrelevant.

askafriend 6y ago

Good post. I really think a lot of people here either haven't run a small/medium business or are woefully out of touch with the needs of the people that run these kinds of businesses. Your post helps ground and frame the discussion appropriately.

FriendlyNormie 6y ago
Thanks for sucking up to the other commenter in this totally organic exchange between two people who definitely aren’t Facebook employees.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

dmode 6y ago

This is a great post. But the biggest opportunity here is to build an aggregate SMB platform to take on Amazon. In my local downtown, I see a ton of mom and pop stores, but they don’t get a ton of foot traffic. I sometimes imagine unlocking their inventory that can allow for some inherent advantages like same day pick-up and supporting local businesses

Lio 6y ago
I’ve had similar thoughts. If I could find out who has what in stock and at what price before I leave the house and if I could reserve it, it would definitely encourage me to shop locally more. I’m put off by the thought of a wasted trip. The suggestion of “we could order that in for you” is obviously not great either when I can probably order it in faster myself. I hardly ever browse in a real shop anymore because I feel like I’m waisting their time if I don’t buy something.
- _curious_ 6y ago
  What about calling them?

phreack 6y ago

I have always thought about what it would take for Whatsapp to lose their place as the dominant chat app and you finally nailed it. If I ever start getting ads or requests for reviews or anything remotely related to someone selling something to me, as a personal message because of automated Facebook tools, I'd get myself and everyone I know off the platform in a matter of seconds. On the other hand, for information requests they already have Whatsapp for businesses and it works fine, several luddites I know use it.

oblio 6y ago
> I have always thought about what it would take for Whatsapp to lose their place as the dominant chat app and you finally nailed it. Unfortunately, that's not how these things work. I don't know of any mainstream platform that died because of ads. You have to keep in mind the fact that the average person on this site has a total different attitude to technology and its warts than most other people.
- DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
  > I don't know of any mainstream platform that died because of ads. * Traditional television. * Online websites of traditional newspapers - they wouldn’t have moved to paywalling if advertising was working. * MySpace (not directly, but a contributory factor).
  - CraneWorm 6y ago
    > they wouldn’t have moved to paywalling if advertising was working they surely make something on advertising because the ads are present even behind the paywalls.
    - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
      I subscribe to the NYT - and I don’t like the fact there’s ads behind the paywall either - but at least they’re static ads for boring things like ING Bank. Comparing that to my local TV news’ website with Adblock disabled is night-and-day: auto-playing video ads embedded in content, clickbait “one weird trick”-ads, and no end of Share buttons either.

hnick 6y ago

I thought I heard about Shopify doing something like this, an aggregator for stores using Shopify, but apparently I misremembered. As someone who works with such a small business the main problem is finding customers who are a good match as you say. But if you fix it for everyone, then you're back to a crowded market and it'll be hard to stand out yet again. Instead of SEO and marketing you will optimise to whatever helps on the new platform. Sometimes it feels very much like a Red Queen's race [0]. I also hate the current ad systems since they can be overwhelming, however, they are fairly easy to use. What is not so easy is avoiding blowing your whole budget because you don't know what you're doing with fine grained targeting. This is not because the systems are bad per se - it's that someone else will come along, target more efficiently than you, and will indirectly bid up keywords etc so that you are no longer making a good ROI on your own ads but they still can. So it's catch up or get out. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race

andrejguran 6y ago
you remember correctly: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200428005278/en/Shopify-Unveils-Consumer-App-Shop https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200428005278/en/Sho...

Justin_K 6y ago

This sounds great in theory, but eventually there will be many businesses paying for the top spot and a standard listing will become irrelevant.