Websites and shops for retail in Carinthia
The shop on the street and the shop online from one source: opening hours that match everywhere, collection in store, and a range you can maintain without a developer.
Two selling floors, one thing to maintain
The trade sector accounts for 23.4 percent of Carinthian chamber members, making it the second largest in the province. The typical business in it has a shop with an address and, alongside it, some form of selling online. Maintaining the two separately is the mistake all the others follow from: different prices, different hours, different ranges. What gets built here therefore has exactly one source for the details that hold true in both worlds.
Opening hours are a record, not a line of text
A line in the footer is not an opening hour, it is a piece of text somebody forgets. What carries this is a record of regular hours, exceptions, and an end date for each exception. From it come the display on the page, the machine-readable markup for search, and the template for the Google Business Profile. Enter the annual closure once and it stands everywhere, and after its end date it disappears by itself.
Collection in store beats shipping
The district of Spittal an der Drau holds 13.4 percent of Carinthian chamber members, and their customers mostly live within a few kilometres. For those people postage is an irritation, not a service. So collection sits in the checkout not as a footnote but as the first shipping option, with a collection day and a message once the goods are ready. As a side effect the most expensive item in online retail falls away, namely the return.
Maintaining the range without asking anyone
A specialist shop with three hundred articles does not need warehouse software built for corporations, it needs an entry screen that fits on one display. Picture, name, price, quantity, category, done. Where a till system with an interface exists, stock comes from there and a sale over the counter lowers it online as well. Where none exists, an honestly maintained list beats an automatic one nobody checks.
What selling online really costs
On top of the build come running items that belong on the table beforehand: payment provider fees of usually one to two percent per payment plus a fixed fee per transaction, maintenance of the shop at €89 per month with a minimum term of twelve months, and licences for the extensions you genuinely need. A shop bringing in only a handful of orders a month does not carry those costs; from around twenty orders a month it saves more time than it costs. That belongs said before the order, not after.
Legal texts and accessibility
An online shop counts as a service under the Austrian Accessibility Act (Barrierefreiheitsgesetz), electronic commerce, not a product. The product rules cover only specific devices such as computers, payment terminals or e-book readers, not the range being sold. Services carry the microenterprise exemption: businesses with fewer than ten employees and at most €2 million in annual turnover are exempt, and the obligation only kicks in above that. The build still follows WCAG 2.2 AA from the outset, because customers with weak eyesight or using a phone otherwise cannot order. The legal texts themselves, meaning terms and conditions and the withdrawal notice, come from a lawyer; I build them in and implement the mandatory disclosures in the ordering process.
Price range for retail and online shops
Between €2,400 for the Company website package with a selection of the range, hours, directions and a way to get in touch, and €5,900 for the online shop’s Custom build package with payment, shipping, collection and a link to the till system. The Starter and Business shop packages sit in between. All amounts are net. What your existing site delivers technically, the website check tells you in under a minute.
What holds this industry back
- Opening hours are given differently in three places: on the door, on the website and in the Google Business Profile. Anyone who trusts the wrong one arrives to find the place locked.
- The shop was set up years ago, and since then every price change costs an email to whoever built it, who eventually stops replying.
- Things sell online that left the shelf long ago, because the till and the shop know nothing about each other.
- The payment provider's fees only surface on the monthly statement, and nobody built them into the margin beforehand.
- New stock sits photographed on a phone and never makes it into the range, because creating one article demands twenty fields.
What helps
Opening hours held in one single place
Regular hours, public holidays and the annual closure are maintained once and appear on the page, in the markup for search engines and as the template for the Google Business Profile. Deviating hours get an end date, so the holiday notice is not still standing there in February.
Collection in store as its own route
People who live in the same town do not want to pay in order to wait two days for a parcel. The checkout offers collection as an equal option, with a collection window and a message once the goods are ready. No shipping for you, no postage for the customer.
Maintain the range and the stock yourself
An article is made of a picture, a name, a price and a quantity, not of a form with twenty mandatory fields. Where a till system with an interface exists, the shop takes stock levels from it; where none exists, a list you correct yourself in the evening does the job.
Fees worked out before the first sale
Before any payment method is set up, the arithmetic is on the table: which provider, what percentage, what fixed fee per transaction, and from what basket value a card beats an invoice. One to two percent per payment is usual, and on small amounts the fixed fee weighs more heavily than the percentage.
A concrete case
Collection in store instead of shipping for a traditional clothing shop
Use case, not yet implemented
- Starting point
- In this example scenario, a shop for traditional and contemporary clothing in Spittal an der Drau has run an online shop for two years, and almost every order comes from regulars within the district. They pay €5.90 postage for goods they could collect two streets away, then ring the shop to ask whether the parcel has gone out yet.
- Implementation
- Collection becomes the first shipping option in the checkout, with a choice of collection day and a note about trying items on in the shop. Stock comes from the till system, so a dress sold over the counter in the afternoon can no longer be ordered that evening. A short message says when the goods are ready.
- Result
- Orders from the district run without postage and without a follow-up call, and fitting happens where it belongs.
Price range in this industry
€2,400to€5,900
A presence for the shop with a selection of the range, hours and directions in the Company website package from €2,400, full selling with payment, shipping and collection up to €5,900 in the online shop's Custom build package.
No VAT is charged, small business exemption under § 6 Abs 1 Z 27 UStG (Austrian VAT Act).
Fits these services
- Websites that bring in inquiries
From a one-page landing page to a multi-page company website, built by hand instead of clicked together in a page builder.
- An online shop that sells
A shop with a catalogue, payment and shipping, built on a proven system instead of from scratch.
- Maintenance for your website
Updates, backup and uptime as a monthly flat rate, with a response time of one working day.
Frequently asked questions from this industry
Do I even need an online shop?
Often not straight away. A shop on the street gains first from a page that states the range, the hours, how to get there and where to park, and from a well-kept Google Business Profile. That is the Company website package from €2,400. A shop pays for itself once you are sending goods regularly or want to sell outside opening hours.
What do the payments cost me?
One to two percent per payment is usual, plus a fixed fee in the region of 25 cents. On a €20 basket the fixed fee is the larger item, on €200 it is the percentage. These fees go to your payment provider, not to me, and they are in none of the packages.
How does stock get into the shop?
If your till system has an interface, the shop takes quantities from it, and a sale over the counter lowers the figure online. Without an interface you maintain the quantities yourself, which works well for a manageable range. What does not work is a shop with no stock control at all: then you sell the same item twice.
Who looks after the Google Business Profile?
The profile stays in your account. I set it up once in full and enter the hours so that the site and the profile draw on the same source. After that you make changes yourself or pass them on through the maintenance package. A profile is no substitute for a site, because the range, prices and ordering do not belong there.
What about returns and the right of withdrawal?
Selling to consumers brings the right of withdrawal under the Austrian Distance and Off-Premises Business Act (Fern- und Auswärtsgeschäfte-Gesetz), and the notice about it belongs in a lawyer's hands. I build it in and implement the mandatory disclosures in the ordering process, but I do not draft it. Collection in store follows different rules from shipping, so the two are set out separately.
Your industry, your plans
Write what eats the most time in your business. Within one working day you get an assessment with a price range and a duration.