I don't think anyone expects a typical small store to have the kind of web presence an Amazon or ebay does, Amazon has huge server farms all over the country, to the point where a lot of their revenue is in Amazon Web services and cloud hosting for businesses.
That said, though, Rich and others are right, in this day and age a website is not a frill or a luxury, it is how people find places and interact/shop with them. More importantly, websites for a small business don't need to be complex or complicated, the hobby business that is a side business or a retirement business isn't the same as Charly Ro. Things like instant inventory updates, things like a fully functioning web store, may be beyond what the store can do, but that doesn't mean you don't have a well ordered and constructed site either, there really is no excuse for "hey, I built a web site, it works", and leave it like that, it sounds like a business that doesn't care about doing business, kind of like the LHS where the proprietor spends most of his time talking to his cronies and ignoring customers.......these days building a website is to the point where there are literally build a website out of a box solutions, that allows the owner to create the website without knowing a stitch of code, have it hosted for them, including e-store ability, and it isn't all that expensive. And to be honest, unless you are constantly changing the code that runs the website, bugs aren't going to be a big factor, bugs come when you tinker with it, change the code, change even things like fonts and whatnot..and a lot of the small stores/businesses we are talking about don't need to do that, most of the maintenance likely is updating what they have to offer/specials, etc. This isn't 1995, website technology is not exotic, it is a commodity item.
I have seen all kinds of horrible web sites, where basic contact information, for example, or store hours (if a store), are buried somewhere deep. Likewise, there is no excuse when a website has artifacts on it, like listing Christmas holiday hours and it is April, or listing a sale that obviously no longer could be on. Outdated web information is a big no no, it leaves people wondering if the place is in business any more, if they even check the web. Put it this way, it would be a lot better to have a single page website with basic information on it (phone number, store hours, etc) then to have a website that has a lot more information on it but is sloppily put together, clunky to use/hard to navigate, outdated information, etc.
Give you an example of this, we used to order grass fed beef from a farm in Vermont. It is run by a couple, obviously doing this themselves, but ordering via the web is likely a large part of their business, and while I felt sorry for them , 9 times out of 10 the order was messed up in some way, couldn't get confirm the order went through, etc and I eventually went elsewhere. Having a poor website would be like them not bothering to make sure the livestock had shelter in bad weather, good feed, fresh water, veterinary care, because 'it was too difficult and time consuming", how long would they stay in business doing that? Web presence these days is a fact of life, and should be a priority, maintaining a web site is time consuming and frustrating, but not having customers for your business means not having a business.
) and have great time.
Then I learned about catalogs, preorders, BTO, cancellations, etc. There are a lot of small shops with decent enough websites but very little inventory. You can spend a long time looking at dozens of different websites and never find what you're looking for. And I have!
