What the question is really about
The real competitor of a small business in Bangladesh is not Wix or Shopify. It is the Facebook page.
Almost every shop has a page, and most sales happen there. So behind the question "do I need a website?" sits the real one: is there something a page cannot do that I need?
What a page does well
To be fair, this comes first, because the strength of the page is real.
- The people are already there. A new customer does not have to go anywhere. They are on Facebook anyway.
- Talking is easy. Bargaining, asking for photos, all of it works in the inbox.
- It spreads. When a post does well, it travels far for free.
- It costs nothing. Opening a page costs not a single taka.
People who say "the page is working fine for us" are not wrong.
What a page cannot do
Four things, and all four start to bite once the business grows a little.
It does not show up on Google. When someone searches "homemade cake in Mirpur", Facebook posts almost never appear. If they do not already know your name, they have no way to find you.
Old things get lost. Nobody can find the post with the price from three months ago, and neither can you. A page is a stream, not a shelf.
Orders get mixed into conversations. The order that came at eleven at night is buried under new messages by morning. There is no list of what has been handled and what is still open.
The place is not yours. If the page has a problem, if reach drops, or if the rules change, you can do nothing. The list of your customers is not in your hands either.
What a site adds
A site is not a replacement for the page. It is the things the page does not have.
| What you need | Page | Site |
| Reaching new people | Good | Slowly from Google, but lasting |
| Price and address in one place | Lost in posts | Always at the same address |
| A list of orders | None | Sorted in the inbox |
| An address with your own name | facebook.com/... | Your own domain |
| Customer details kept with you | No | Can be downloaded as CSV |
The biggest practical gain is not in the table: you stop typing the same answer again and again. What is the price, what is the delivery charge, how long does it take, where is the shop. These four questions come twenty times a day, and you can answer them by sending the site link once.
When to add the site
There is no hurry. If one of these three is true, you will know it is time.
- Several orders come in each day, and you have to remember which are still open
- You type the same answer to the same question many times a day
- Someone asks "do you have a website?" and you feel awkward answering
Before that, the page is enough. There is no point in forcing yourself to build a site and leaving it unused.
How to run both together
The most useful arrangement is this: the page is the place to talk, the site is the place to keep things in order.
- On the page: daily posts, photos of new products, conversations with customers
- On the site: the full product list with prices, the address, opening and closing hours, and the order form
- On the page: a link to the site in "About" and under every post
- On the site: a link to the page, so anyone who wants to can still talk in the inbox
When an order arrives through the site form, it is added to a list and does not get lost in conversations. Where it is stored and how to handle it with three states is in the post on the order inbox.
What the whole path looks like
An order arrives, you handle it, you take the money and hand it to the courier. How this whole system comes together is described step by step in the post on the shop web app.
Showing your shop on Google is a separate job. For that, see the post on getting your shop on Google.
Questions and answers
Should I close the page? Not at all. Your customers are on the page and the conversations happen there. The site sits next to the page, not in place of it. The two do different jobs.
Will my Facebook sales drop if I build a site? There is no reason they should. If you put the site link in a post, people who want the price look it up themselves, and only the real questions reach your inbox.
How long does it take to appear on Google? Usually a few weeks, and it depends on your area and the competition. It is not instant like a post, but once it appears it stays for months, even if you do not post every day.
Will a link-in-bio page do the job? Somewhat, if you only need to keep a few links in one place. But if you want prices, a product list and an order form, it is too small.
Can I start with a free site? Yes. Build the site, publish it for free, put your-name.banglacodes.app in a post, and see whether people visit. Just remember that you need hosting for form submissions to reach you.
Can I put the reviews from my page on the site? Yes, but only the ones customers really wrote. If you put made-up reviews on the site, it gets noticed and the trust is lost.
What if the price is different in the two places? This is the most common mistake. Keep the rule simple: when a price changes, change it on the site first, then post on the page. The site is the real list, the post is the announcement.
Is buying a domain a hassle? It feels unfamiliar the first time, but the job is small. Where to buy it and how to connect it to your site is given step by step in the post on buying and adding a domain.
How long does it take to build a site? If you describe it in plain words, the first site is ready in a few minutes. After that, it takes as long as you want to spend on adding prices and photos and getting things right.
In short
- The page and the site do different jobs, and one cannot replace the other
- The page's strength: the people are there, talking is easy, it costs nothing
- The page's limits: not on Google, old things get lost, orders mix into conversations
- It is time to add a site when you have to remember orders or keep typing the same answer
- When a price changes, change it on the site first, then on the page