Is this a viable idea?

Do the shoppers use smart phones or pc's to
research before they go there?

Best,
Ewen

A friend of mine started one of these in Myrte Beach SC USA. He went through the yellow pages and listed every one as you are doing. His premium listing gave the listing a hi-lited back ground ( Light grey ) web address hours and the like. He charges by the YEAR. Right now he is charging $50 for a 1 year premium listing. He has 4000 premium listings. He also has a gold listing tailored for restaurants. He charges an additional $50 per year for this listing, and it is basically a 1 page menu listing.

In just the listing aspect of his business he is making $350,000 a year. All of that in $50 increments. There are 1800 Restaurants in Myrtle Beach. He has 1500 of them premium listed.

The pricing is the key here. what number can you sell 80% of everyone you walk in front of? $20 a month sounds cheap, but how well is that going to convert? 1in 10? $50 is obviously less, but converts 80% of the time. so you are looking at $240 after seeing 10 potentials, vs selling 8 potentials at $50 or $400

If I understand correctly your focus right now is on Shops and Restaurants. what about all the professionals in the area? Such as doctors, lawyers, dentist ,accountants etc? With every possible listing you can add to your directory, that is a potential listing you can upsell.

As I too am looking into a local directory setup one of the things I will be adding to mine is a travel affiliate. I personally like Expedia as a plausible partner. They have a department that is there to help you integrate their services and products into your site.

BY expanding slightly the idea that you are helping your Neighbors, and growing your potential reach to those that are visiting as well, is a great selling point to your potential upsell clients!

Hope that Helps!

Is there a bigger opportunity here? It seems like the fact that they are so disconnected from the internet creates an opportunity for you to re-sell their excess inventory online for a commission? Just a quick idea off the top of my head. But it seems like there might be an opportunity greater than $20 per month to be had here.

Are these real shops or more like market stalls or flea markets. If they only sell nickel and dime stuff then I think it will be a hard sell. Most of them are struggling to make a living.

When you say they advertise on the radio etc are they advertising individually or are they advertising the area as a whole - big difference.

Not trying to put a dampener on your idea just trying alert you to possible failure markers.

Which may be why so many of them don't feel any need to have a web site. They already have masses of traffic right there, flowing in the streets.

I'll bet what each individual business really needs is a way NOT to be lumped in with their competitors. A way for any one individual business to pull customers out from that mass of people and get them to select their business when they want to eat, want to buy a dress, want to rent a bike, etc.

It sounds to me as if you're infatuated with the idea that the best thing to do here is the website directory thing.

Me, I'm impartial, so I'm looking at this objectively.

Because the factors you've indicated all show that a directory website's chances of success are going to be low.

Why? Because it's just as you've stated:

Most of the businesses don't bother with anything online and they're not struggling to make a living.

Why? Because, as you've pointed out, the streets are overflowing with traffic every day of the week. Plenty of fish swim by and enough stop in the stores to buy.

But with 1,200 stores - some of these shop owners want an edge over the next shop. They pay for radio spots, flyers. They know the competition isn't just the other swim wear shops - the competition is EVERY other shop. The completion is inertia. The competition is hunger. Thirst. Needing a bathroom. Needing a break from walking. From the heat. Everything's the competition.

What's your competition done to fill that want? From what you say, they've made an app to search for specific stores.

But that app didn't resonate with a majority amount of the merchants. No wonder - look at the photo, you can't walk around in that crowd with your eyes on your cellphone watching the GPS. In fact, no one's looking down at their phones.

All that behavior just described above by the merchants and the customers, are clues that online isn't how people are finding shops.

Why? My guess is, if for example the customer is searching for the swim suit shop the app gave them, and the place they searched is three or four blocks away, then it's just easier for that customer to simply go in to the first or second available swim wear place they see rather than fight the crowd to walk another three, four, five blocks away, hoping to find that place the app gave them.

And I fear the directory listing idea would have the same flaw.

There's a REASON those merchants are already paying for radio spots and flyers.
They obviously want customers to come in to THEIR shops.

So I'm thinking about this because it appears contradictory to me. Because if they're not struggling to make a living then why pay for radio and flyers?

I think this is the answer: They have ALL this traffic right outside their door, streaming right by every day of the week BUT.... it's that traffic right outside their door they want to have STEP INSIDE instead of walking on by and going into any other shop. And THAT's why they spend money on radio and flyers.

But radio and flyers may or may not be the most effective way to accomplish that. But let's take away the principle here, which is:

Those merchants will pay you if you can get the traffic that's right outside their door -

- to step foot inside.

They're not interested in paying to show up on an app, and by extension, I'll bet they're not that interested to pay to be listed on a website, because they know they're not going to get the customer who's two blocks away or four blocks away.

Those customers are going to pass their competitors along those two, three, four, five, six blocks - and chances are they'll stop in any of the competitor's shops they come across along the way - and buy there. Ot change their minds and do something else or buy something else.

So maybe the savvy shop owner says, "WHY do I want to pay for an app (or website) or anything that's more likely to get my customers to find and go to my competitors? Why would I pay for something where my potential customer has to put in effort to get to me, effort they're likely NOT going to exert?"

They're not interested in trying to bring in customers by having them bother to make the effort to get through the crowds for several blocks, hoping they'll ignore all the other shops, be they competitors or not, hoping they don't buy elsewhere, stop elsewhere, or lose interest along the way, but instead, have the determined resolve to make it through the crowd with blinders on, just to buy a souvenir towel from them.

So, what would happen if instead you found a way to pull the people who are already right outside their doors to bring them in to the store instead of them continuing to walk past it?

Like an SMS that goes out to anyone passing by that instantly rings or vibrates, grabs their attention, and delivers a compelling offer?

Imagine a thousand people a day streaming by your shop door and everyone with a phone gets it ringing at the moment they're a few feet away, they look at their phones to see who's calling them, they see a compelling offer, they look up, they see the store, some decide to check it out... The numbers alone should result in a boost of sales, don't you think?