In short and in plain language
A shop does not need an online store to be found on the web. The website should bring customers into the shop.
Show your goods and brands. You do not need a full catalogue.
Customers use a short form to ask if something is in stock. They can also reserve goods to pick up. They pay at the till.
Opening hours, address and phone number should be the same everywhere. Sales and discounts have their own rules for showing prices.
An online store can pay off later if people often ask for delivery. Your website can then grow without starting over.
Before someone walks into a specialist shop for the first time, they have often already checked on their phone: Is there one nearby, is it open today, does it carry the brand I am looking for? The purchase itself still happens at the counter. In 2025 the online share of total retail in Germany was 13.5 percent (HDE Online Monitor 2026) – the vast majority of sales still happens where goods can be touched, tried on and explained. For an owner-run shop without an online store, the website is therefore not a sales channel but a shop window with directions. It shows the range and the brands, explains advice and service, catches the question “Do you have this in stock?” and makes sure opening hours and directions are right. This article walks through which pages do that, how a reservation for pickup works without a shopping cart, what has to be on the page when you announce a discount, and how to tell when an online shop is worth adding later.
Key takeaways
- In 2025 the online share of total retail in Germany was 13.5 percent (HDE Online Monitor 2026). The vast majority of sales still happens in the shop – the website should lead there.
- Sections or pages per product group and a list of the brands you carry replace an item catalogue. They stay valid for a whole season and do not need day-to-day stock levels.
- “In stock? Just ask” and reservations for pickup run through a short form. Payment happens at the till; a binding online order would usually be a distance contract under Section 312c BGB.
- Opening hours, address and phone number read the same on the website, the business profile and the door sign. According to Google, local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and popularity (Google Help).
- Anyone announcing a price reduction states the lowest total price of the last 30 days before the offer (Section 11 PAngV) – on the promotion page just as on the poster in the shop window.
- An online shop pays off once shipping requests pile up and fixed prices are maintained. Then the right of withdrawal with a 14-day period (Section 355 BGB), shipping and payment methods come on top.
A shop window, not a shop: where retail sales happen
The figures of the German Retail Federation put the task into perspective. Online retail grew by 3.9 percent in 2025 to 92.3 billion euros net (HDE Online Monitor 2026), so the online share of total retail rose only slightly from 13.4 to 13.5 percent. Business away from the web grew as well, by 2.9 percent (HDE Online Monitor 2026). Online growth was ahead again, but from a much smaller base. For a specialist shop with two, five or ten employees, this does not mean the web does not matter. It means the website has a different job from an online shop: it should convince people who are looking around enough that they drop by – and make the way there so easy that nothing gets in between.
What the Online Monitor 2026 shows
In practice, the way into the shop starts with three questions someone types into a phone: Is there one near me? Is it open right now? Does it carry the brand or the part I am looking for? Even a starter website, meaning a well-kept one-pager with a contact form and business profile, answers exactly these three questions. An online shop answers a fourth – “Can I order it right away?” –, which a specialist shop often does not want to ask at all, because advice, fitting or adjustment on site are part of what it offers. If you take the shop window on the web seriously, you gain one thing above all: customers who come through the door with the right expectations.
Show the range and the brands without maintaining a catalogue
An online shop needs a picture, price, stock level and shipping details for every item – and someone who keeps all of that up to date every day. A storefront website can work with a coarser unit: the product group. Instead of showing every single item, it describes what the shop has, which brands it carries and what is best seen in person. That is a fraction of the upkeep and still tells a customer looking for a particular brand of running shoes whether the trip is worth it. For a small business short on time, that is the key difference: a product group page is revised when the season changes, an item inventory every day. On a one-pager, each product group becomes a section of its own; once there are more than a handful, a separate sub-page per group is worth it.
Product groups, not single items
One section or page per product group with two or three photos from your own shop. It stays valid for the season and needs no daily stock figures.
Brands you carry
A plain list of the brands you stock permanently. People searching for a brand and a town land at your shop that way. For manufacturer logos, check your dealer agreement.
Advice as a service
What you sort out in conversation, such as fit, use or compatibility, deserves a page of its own. That is exactly what sets the shop apart from a parcel on the doorstep.
Service and workshop
Repairs, alterations, adjustments or engraving: services bring people into the shop, even on days when they did not plan to buy anything.
New arrivals and seasons
A short section for what has just come in. It does not need to grow weekly; one entry when the season changes is usually enough.
Owner and team
A photo of the team in your own shop and two sentences about who gives advice. In an owner-run business, the person behind the counter is part of the offer.
Whether prices belong on the range pages is a separate decision. Anyone who offers goods or services to consumers or advertises with prices must state total prices (Section 3 PAngV) and keep them current – with changing purchase prices, that is exactly the upkeep a storefront website wants to avoid. A middle way is to show prices for fixed services such as an alteration or repair flat rate, while the product groups go without prices. The trade-offs in detail are covered in should you show prices on your website; if a package price appears on the page, the minimum term belongs right next to it.
“In stock?” and reservation for pickup: a request instead of a cart
One question that reaches many specialist shops by phone every day can be organised on the website: Do you have this in stock? A small form below each product group – “In stock? Just ask” – takes the question with exactly the details you need to answer it and lands as an email in your inbox. On request, it turns into a reservation for pickup: you put the item aside, the customer comes by, tries it on and pays at the till. No cart, no payment interface, no shipping. For the shop it remains a phone call that arrives in writing and can be answered calmly.
- Item or product group, plus size, colour or model where it matters. A free-text field is enough if the range does not fit neatly into drop-down lists.
- Name and a way back, meaning a phone number or email address. A reservation needs no more required fields than that.
- A preferred pickup day, so you know how long the item should be put aside.
- One sentence right at the form stating how long you hold items, for example until the end of the following working day. That is your own rule, not a legal requirement.
- Your confirmation by email or call-back. Only this turns the request into a reservation; until then nothing is promised.
- A one-sentence privacy notice next to the submit button that links to the full version.
Reserving is not ordering
For the form to bring requests rather than block them, the same rule applies as for any contact channel: as few fields as possible and an answer on the same day. Which fields are really needed and which put people off is covered in the article on the contact form with fewer fields. For the reservation itself, an inbox that someone checks twice a day and a shelf behind the till where the held item lies with name and date are enough. If you like, write the pickup deadline on the note attached to the item – then nobody has to check the inbox when the customer is standing at the counter.
Opening hours, directions and local search
Someone looking for a shop nearby often gets the first answer not from your website but from the map in the search results. According to the Google Business Profile Help, local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and popularity (Google Business Profile Help). Relevance means how well a profile matches what someone is searching for; for prominence, Google by its own description also counts how many websites link to a business and how many reviews it has. The website helps in both ways: it describes in detail what you carry, and it is the address that a retailers’ association, the local press or manufacturers can link to. The Google Business Profile and the website should therefore be kept together – with the same opening hours, the same address and the same phone number.
- Regular opening hours as text, not only as an image – that way a screen reader can read them too, and search engines can use them.
- Different hours for public holidays, stocktaking, company holidays and Sunday shopping days, with the date and in good time.
- Address with directions in words and a link to the route, plus parking options and the nearest stop.
- Notes on access: a step at the entrance, the width of the door, room for a pram or walker.
- The phone number as a clickable link, so a call from a phone works with a single tap.
- The payment methods in the shop, if you do not accept certain cards – that saves a disappointed trip back to the till.
Three places where opening hours drift apart
How the profile is set up and verified and which details count there is explained in the article Google Business Profile: better local visibility. If your catchment area reaches well beyond your own town, for instance because a specialist shop is the only one of its kind in the district, separate pages per location can make sense – but only if there is something specific to say about each place. A page that differs from the next only in the town name helps neither customers nor search.
Announcing promotions, discounts and vouchers properly
Promotions are often the reason a shop changes anything on its website at all: end-of-season sale, anniversary, an in-house show with manufacturer advice. For price promotions, one rule is set out explicitly in the Price Indication Ordinance: anyone who announces a price reduction for goods to consumers must state the lowest total price they applied to consumers within the last 30 days before the price reduction was applied (Section 11 PAngV). Exemptions include individual price reductions, such as a personal discount at the till. That applies to the poster in the shop window just as to the promotion page on the web and the post in the business profile. If you know the rule, you plan a promotion so that the reference price is fixed beforehand.
| Type of promotion | What belongs on the page (Section 11 PAngV, where prices are stated) | What to watch |
|---|---|---|
| Percentage discount on a product group | Size of the discount, goods affected, period and the lowest total price of the last 30 days as the reference point | The reference is the lowest price of the last 30 days, not an earlier list price |
| Crossed-out price on single items | Current price and, for comparison, the lowest total price of the last 30 days | A price that applied only briefly before the promotion is no valid comparison |
| End-of-season sale in the shop | Period, product groups affected and the type of reduction | State the end of the promotion and reset the page afterwards |
| Gift vouchers | Values, redemption in the shop and where the voucher is available | Vouchers sold online raise questions of their own, see below |
| In-house show, advice day, reading | Date, time, whether registration is needed and who gives advice | Without a price there is no price indication; the date belongs on the home page |
Vouchers are a special case because they can be sold via the website even without an online shop and then raise their own questions about VAT and redemption. That is described in detail in the article sell gift vouchers online. For a storefront website the simpler route is often enough: vouchers are available at the till, and the website says in which values and that they can be put aside by phone. That fits the logic of the whole site – the website announces, the shop sells.
When an online shop is worth it after all
The storefront website is not a decision against a shop but a decision for the right order. Some shops notice after a year that the requests are shifting: messages arrive from people in other towns who can only find a certain item at your place, or regular customers ask whether you can send repeat purchases. These are the signs that a shop can pay off – provided the groundwork behind it is in place.
- Requests for shipping pile up, specifically for items that can be sold without advice.
- There is a core range with fixed prices that you keep in your merchandise management anyway.
- Someone on the team has time to process orders daily, pack them and check returns.
- Repeat purchases by regular customers recur, for example for consumables, care products or spare parts.
- The range can be shipped without much risk of breakage or returns.
With the shop, the obligations change. In distance contracts, consumers have a right of withdrawal (Section 312g BGB), apart from exceptions such as goods made to the customer’s specifications, and the withdrawal period is 14 days (Section 355 BGB). On top come information duties, shipping costs, payment methods and, depending on company size, accessibility requirements: the Accessibility Strengthening Act exempts micro-enterprises that offer or provide services from its requirements (Section 3 BFSG). What applies beyond that is covered in the article on the accessible website under the BFSG. A realistic overview of getting started is given in start a small online shop.
What matters is that the shop complements the storefront website rather than replacing it. The pages on advice, service, directions and opening hours stay, and the shop is added as a further section. The online shop package is meant for exactly this second step: if you start with a storefront website, you do not have to commit today and do not start from zero later.
A storefront website does not have to sell anything. It has to make sure that someone comes through the door with the right expectations – the advice takes care of the rest.
How to build the site for your shop
- For one week, write down the questions that come up at the counter and on the phone. They almost produce the structure of the website by themselves.
- Photograph the shop, window, counter and team in daylight. Your own photos show what it looks like inside and spare you questions about third-party image rights.
- Create one section or page per product group and name the brands you carry. Prices only where you can reliably keep them current.
- Set up “In stock? Just ask” with a few fields and decide who answers the requests and how long items are held.
- Match opening hours, address and phone number between website, business profile and door sign, and enter known special opening hours in advance.
- After three months, look at which requests have come in. If questions about shipping pile up, that is the moment to think about a shop.
The mandatory information belongs there from the start. The imprint under Section 5 DDG must be easily recognisable and directly accessible; what it contains for sole traders and companies is covered in the article on the imprint requirement. If you have only just opened the shop, you will find the order of the first weeks in getting online after registering a new business. If your regular customers tend to be older, it is worth looking at what a site should do differently for reaching older customers online – especially in specialist retail, where advice and the phone often count for more than any form.
Many shops in a town centre organise joint promotions through a retailers’ association, which is often set up as a registered association. If founding one is on the agenda, the article new association: plan the website from day one helps. The joint page of the association and the pages of the individual shops then link to each other, and a Sunday shopping day shows the same hours everywhere.
The next step
Sources and legal basis
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