How to let folks know I'm not brick-and-mortar?

My banner says "Phone Hours" - this is not enough

[HRoth]

I just got a call from a guy who had driven three hours to come to my shop and did not realize from looking at my site that it is online and mailorder only. I feel really bad. On my banner I have the logo, the founding date, the name of the shop, the street address in small letters (because I've had customers get concerned when the street is not mentioned), the phone number in large letters, and then "Phone Hours" with the hours and days given. I do say on the main page that I am online and mail-order only and don't have a brick-and-mortar shop, but after I kept getting folks dropping by my house (which is thankfully really hard to find), I changed my banner hours to "phone hours," which really helped until this poor fellow. How can I make it clear without saying "not a brick-and-mortar shop"?

[rise2it]

Put a display in the friend's shop and let THAT be your storefront...you're only going to have a handful of walkins a year, anyway.

If they need something not in stock there, they can pay for it then come back to get it the next day...small towns, they will understand.

[walkman]

PO Box bad. Every scammer has one.
Online only, unless you're big not to reassuring either

Solution: real address and "By appt only" as someone else suggested

[CritterNYC]

Only have the address on your "contact" or "about" page, not on every page of the site. And list it as "Mailing Address:". That's what I've used on a friend's site that is virtual only.

And for hours, be sure to list them as "Phone Hours:" or something similar, so people don't think it's a store that's open.

Don't use a PO Box. It looks unprofessional. If you don't want to use your home or office (that you run your business from) address, get a box at a local mailing store that's a Suite address. 10 Main St Suite 560 looks fine and much more professional than a PO Box.

[Vishal]

Sorry I haven't read all the replies here, however having faced similar situation ages back, I did found a solutions that works...

Check out MBE.com (Mail Boxes Etc).. As even though it works int he same way as P.O.Box.. but instead of POBox you get a actual address.

Quote from there site ()
[mbe.com...]

A real street address, not a P.O. Box
A street address can provide a professional image for your business.

[HRoth]

I ended up creating a contact page linked to from every page of my site. The contact page has a large graphic with "Mailing address" above the street address plus phone and email (and same info in alt text). In the page text I say I am in the office at particular hours and that the mailing address is not a brick-and-mortar shop, that the business is online only. Then I have some info about the history of my biz. In terms of contact info, the banner now just has the phone number on it. I looked at the sites of people in my niche, and most of them did not have even a phone number on their banner, so I figure this is okay. No one has complained yet, but this is a dead time of year for me.

[creeking]

tough one. some customers are clearly wanting a B&M.

what's the cheapest rent on a small storefront in that town?

your revenue might increase enough to cover the rent.

[keyplyr]

One of the problems is that Google Maps & Google Business listing will stick your address on a map with driving directions. This is a good thing for most business owners and a listing we work diligently to achieve, however often the end user will not click through to your homepage but just use the Google listing for their information.

I did switch to a PO Box after a bus load of camera clad Japanese tourists showed up at my condo 8am Saturday morning during breakfast. So far, so good.

[HRoth]

creeking, the idea of a b&m is a neat fantasy for me, but I don't think it's doable for me at this point. I have too many irons in the fire--not a good time to throw another one on.

keyplyr, I hadn't thought of the Google maps problem, but when I put in my business name and town and state in Google, it just gives three results from my site, no map.

[ballyhoo]

Just to second what PCInk has mentioned (as it seems it's been glossed over), here in the UK the EC Directive states that you must show a physical address on your site and not a PO Box address.

Hope you figure something out, I manage many e-commerce sites and have never seen this problem!

[MrHard]

To people who do show up: "Sorry, we are just not set up that way"

[tangor]

For one company site I used: "NO WALK-UPS, ONLINE ONLY" which seemed to solve a myriad of problems. As for the street address it was specified as "Business office." Might try that.

[piatkow]

My day job is with a major retail chain. Despite the notice on the office door directing people to the nearest store (literally around the corner) security get people walking in every day. You just can't win.