App or website first? A rule for restaurants, coffee shops and shops

A website gets found. An app gets opened. That is the whole difference, and it decides which one you build first.

How often do customers come back

Count how many times your best customer visits in a month.

A person looking for a roofer finds you once, calls, and may not need you for years. They need a website that shows up on Google and makes the call easy. An app is wasted on them.

A person who buys coffee four times a week, or reorders from the same shop every other week, or checks the comic shop every Wednesday, is a regular. Regulars do not search for you. They already know you. What they need is the fastest way to order, check what is in stock, and hear when something new arrives. That is an app.

The rule

• Customers come once, or rarely. Website first. Get found, get the call.
• Customers come back every week. App first, with a website behind it.
• Both. Most local businesses with regulars need both, because the website is how new people find you and the app is how they turn into regulars.

That is why every Kin app comes with a website. The App Store listing needs a web page anyway, and Google needs something to show.

What an app does that a website does not

A website cannot send a notification to a customer's phone. An app can. The comic shop can tell one customer that the issue on their want list just came in. The coffee shop can tell everyone nearby that the Halloween event has twenty seats left.

A website also cannot sit on a home screen the way an app does. Your icon next to their other apps is a small thing, and it is the reason people open the app out of habit.

One thing to know about Apple

Apple's App Review rules do not allow an app built from a reusable template to be submitted by whoever sold the template. The business has to submit it from its own Apple Developer account, which is $99 a year. That is why every app we build goes on your account, not ours. It also means you keep it if you ever leave.

Where to start

If you have regulars, look at Kin App and Kin App Pro. If you do not, start with a website. We will tell you on the first call which one fits, even when it is the cheaper one.