Practical advice for getting an owner-run business online and keeping it working. These articles cover the essentials a small site needs, taking bookings and enquiries, payments and deposits, reviews and trust, privacy and consent, with worked examples from clinics, shops, restaurants, letting agents and service trades.
Taking a rental booking online is not one feature. It is a dozen small rules that all have to hold at once, and the ones people forget are what cause the double-bookings and the arguments at handover.
Tool and plant hire lives or dies on two numbers: what is actually on the yard today, and what it costs when kit comes back late or broken. Both belong on your website, not in someone's head.
Boat hire carries three things car hire does not: a licence you must check, a deposit worth more than the day rate, and weather that cancels. Here is how to handle all three before the skipper arrives.
A paper diary cannot tell you how many bikes are free next Saturday. Here is how to put a bike hire fleet online so availability, deposits and seasonal rates look after themselves.
The EAA applies to a lot of small online businesses selling to EU customers. What it covers, who is exempt, and the practical fixes that matter most.
One rate all year means leaving money on the table in peak and sitting idle in the off season. How to build a seasonal rate card that fits your actual demand.
A no-show is an hour you cannot sell twice. Deposits and automatic reminders are the two things that reliably reduce them, and both take minutes to set up.
A marketplace takes 15-30% of every order and keeps the customer. Here is how to take orders on your own site instead, and what actually changes when you do.
Your domain is your address, your brand, and your first impression. Here's how to pick one that's memorable, credible, and yours.