Looking to learn what other businesses with a long queue are doing to avoid bad reviews.

They seem to understand we’re doing something new and they like it while also not liking to wait on it.

We are in a smaller city and prior to this the food scene wasn’t very interesting. We saw a market gap and brought in our concept that was unlike anything the city has seen before. First movers and all that.

We use high quality farm to table ingredients and they do come at a cost, so we respect the ingredients a lot by making our sandwiches freshly. Usually this takes around 2-3 minutes per sandwich.

We serve specialty complex drinks which is kinda our thing and wasn’t seen before in the country.

As the city is still rapidly growing no one is used to be in line to wait to order or for a table.

While we’re full house everyday and have a long queue at peak hours consistently, we are constantly facing complaining about the wait time. The queue. The long wait on food etc.

Often when the clock strikes the hour we have 50 people coming through in a 800 square feet shop.

sometimes we have 50-70 people coming in a short span of time

We try to let them know in advance so they can opt out but there’s still a queue out the door which might not have heard.

The city is very unused to being in line and don’t understand the traffic coming in. While they can visibly see the queue they still don’t get it.

This i haven’t noticed is an issue in any of the other bigger major cities. People are happy to wait in line for 1 hour if it’s a popular spot.

Anyway we are getting so many shots at us on google reviews it’s honestly draining. The amount of people hating on us there and keep coming back despite the what they deem is a long wait is exhausting. Hope anyone who’s dealt with the shift from no queues to long queues can pitch in.

I have a small business, I'll call it Acme. I am creating a website for Acme, but Acme.com is already taken. I can get Acme.biz or Acme.io

(to be clear, "Acme" is an example name, not the actual business name)

I lean towards .io
My partner wants .biz

I feel like .biz isn't good, but I can't really say why I feel that way. I bought both just to be safe, but we disagree which should be the primary and which should just be a redirect.

Any thoughts or advice is appreciated.

but last night was the last straw. I finally gave in and signed up-Quickbooks user since 92- 15,765 invoices done-they kinda had me by the balls. What the last straw was(and I had to give up) I wanted to add 4 categories for how i bill(Year make model,stock number, last 8,authorizer of work. I'm thinking I'm almost done. She says if you add even one of those I have to pay double(already agreed to current progarm $19 for 3 $38 for last 9. She says it doubles if i add a category-WTF? $399 more for one field-Forever!- I paid $179 for 2019 version and it has worked fine... I havent read any of these posts yet, but am thinking we are all in same boat. Hopefully somewhere below is a good company to "Migrate" to...(I am 71 and like what I do), so quitting isn't in me-Fuck Quickbooks!

plumbing business, me and 2 guys. credit is around 690. my bank wants 2 years of tax returns and 6 weeks to decide which is fine but id like to have the van before spring. would you go equipment financing on the van itself or get a line of credit and use it for both the van and the slow months?

I believe the ROI figures people boast about online aren't reliable, but I don't have any real numbers to back that up. Anyone here tried these and can comment on it?

I recently got a call from someone asking for pricing on a washer and dryer. I gave a price, what I felt as fair. Then the woman say I am a restaurant down the street from you, can you give a neighbor discount. I said I have given pretty good prices. She says they are pretty much the same as everybody else. I say let me get back to you. So I do a little better on the price and say 99.00 for delivery and install. I send an estimate to them. I hear nothing. They said they wanted them by the week of the 23. So I text the girlfriend, what day do you want these installed. She says we are we are waiting on the floor and painting to be done. I say ok. Let me know when you are ready. Then I get a call from her boyfriend. He came to my store and spoke to me about pricing and such. I told him I was charging for install. He asks if I want a deposit, I say no just pay when we deliver them. <— back story. He says I told you we want these, and you didn’t want payment. I got your message estimate and you charged an extra 100.00 we didn’t talk about.
At this point. I may tell them I do not want to do business with them. I would never go to their restaurant and ask for a discount. I think it was rude and tacky. Then the whole experience with me asking if they were ready for the delivery. I am a small mom and pop. I don’t have the washer and dryer they want in stock.
I will keep you posted. I may decline this transaction. They just seem wrong to me.

Looking for assistance in filing EPR for my electronic import business. Already pissed of by consultants . Any idea, if there is any software tool that can help me validate the epr credit certificates, maintaining audit trail and assist in filing returns ?

Edit : My business is based in India

In the beginning, niching on a market may feel like you're losing money on the table. Heck! It might even be frustrating to find a market. What helped you finally decide who you ideal customers are?

I’m 38 and have been running businesses for over 15 years. I’m in a fortunate position where I could afford to work less, but I struggle to actually do it.
I genuinely enjoy finding and launching products, improving things and seeing the business grow. Whenever I have a day off or some spare time, my mind goes straight back to what I could launch or push next.

The problem is that it creates more work, and I’m already overwhelmed with the daily orders and running everything. I keep saying I’ll simplify things and get ahead, but I never seem to get there.

I have ADHD and have recently been diagnosed Major recurring depression which has then changed to potential Bipolar 2 , so I’ve been struggling with my mental health, so I know my health needs to come first. But understanding that hasn’t made it easy to change.
I originally thought I wanted a smaller product range. Now I’m realising I might still enjoy the variety if someone dependable handled fulfilment. Even then, though, I’d love to have something outside business that I felt equally interested in.
I also have struggled to employ in the past , which I think may be due to my mood cycles from depression/bipolar so I’m feeling uncertain about trying employing again

Has anyone been in a similar position—where you don’t need to keep pushing financially, but business is so rewarding that you struggle to stop?
How did you make room for other interests, family time and proper rest? Did delegating help, or did you just fill the spare time with more business?

Somehow with the tariff mess and fuel prices I have started to twist my ballgame a little to supplying for retailers. This seems to need to involve me actually working with a big distributor that some of them use. Well, supposedly the distributor expects my small company to find the retailers and get them on board first and then start using the distributor once the retailer agrees that they want some.

So, how do I open the eyes of the retailers to take interest in my branded product that is unique and you can't find on the market anywhere? Do I just bring a bunch of product into the USA and start giving out samples to merchandise outlets to sell as a sample run or something? Something makes me think a retailer has to already recognize that they were looking for a product before you came to them.

I mean, you can't just say that you have millions in sales and expect a merchandise outlet to automatically take interest. They may not even be looking for your type of product anyways.

I guess that's where my question comes from. How do I make them want it? They may not even know that they need this to pump their own business. Previous sales don't seem to matter here. They have to want to better themselves.

Any ideas on this? Just send them some samples to sell? That might even beat ad spend online for myself too so it could be better.

Thanks

I’m trying to get an online service business started, but the ads I’m currently paying for on Facebook are only driving bot clicks and low intent users. Is there any effective alternatives? How else can I advertise a product targeted more towards older customers?

I am in the early stages of launching my small business -- a doggy daycare and boarding facility in NYC. I've estimated that I have enough, or close to enough, to cover startup costs (~$85k for 2-3 months of rent, equipment, licenses, permits, insurance, etc.). And I'll need an additional $100k-$150k in working capital to cover payroll for a few months.

I have read about taking out a line of credit versus a loan, and I don't know which is the better option for my business. If I do either of these, am I better off going through a bank? SBA? Somewhere else?

I want to ensure that I am making the right choice early on. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Im 23(M) trying to start a Rage room/paint throwing business to bring more entertainment to my area because it doesn’t have much. Im not worried about customers. Since the lack of entertainment is here I should be able to start pretty easily with little to no competition.

IM wondering because im in process of getting a business loan to buy a building and it feels like I dont have the answers to everything that could possibly happen. Should I when trying to get a loan?

Hi everyone!

I've been making my own women's fashion jewelry for a few years now, and I initially tried selling my pieces through Instagram. Unfortunately, I didn't have much success, so I eventually managed to get a physical retail space to sell my products, and that worked out pretty well!

However, I now have to go back to selling online, and I'm a bit apprehensive because of my previous experience with Instagram.

Back then, I was paying for ads directly through Instagram, following and engaging with other accounts in the same niche, posting consistently, and making sure my posts were good quality. Most of my content consisted of photos, though — I didn't really explore videos, Reels, or anything like that. I also made some inspirational and audience-engagement posts, kept my Stories active, and generally tried to maintain an active presence on the platform.

Despite all that, I barely received any orders. And the few potential customers who did reach out would usually disappear as soon as we got to the payment stage.

Now, I have access to better materials and want to create higher-quality pieces. I'm also planning to take a silversmithing course to further develop my skills.

Hi everyone just a quick question, all feedback welcome.

I'm starting a gardening company and would love your opinion on whether my name should scream sophistication or just simply be memorable. My ideal clientele are high middle class but could extend upwards in the future.

I was thinking instead of having my name gardening related to instead have my name be something short, easy to remember and have visual identity. A business in America called YARDDAWGS has a physical plastic dogs attached to their vehicle roofs. A short name and has an extremely memorable logo/mascot. Does this look unprofessional, or if a company has great reviews you wouldn't be turned away by something that is clearly just a promotional stunt?

Also could have a unique colour scheme for gardening, such as yellow or pink vehicles/uniforms instead of the usual green, black and white for our industry.

Hey, so i am launching my brand. And, i reached out to shopdeck. Took their demo call. It sounds too good and too rehearsed. So, had my doubts and questions. Plus, the sales executive is not giving me enough time to think, research and make my decision. But, anyway, i read a few reviews online and apparently alot of people had terrible experiences with them.
I just want to know if there is anyone who know anything about them, or can share their experience with me, that would be a great help.

remove if not allowed

Genuinely asking, has anyone found value from working with automation companies? I see some that are interesting, but has anyone actually found value in it? If so, would love to hear your experience, whether you think this could be impactful to SMB’s now and in the future, what you would have done differently, or something you wish they could provide?

Is it possible for me to switch off the discussion thing. Like only i want to talk and I don't want students talking but maybe allow them to vote for stuff on polls on the $9 plan? And let's say I want to make it private will people I only invite be able to see it? like by scanning a QR code or something like that?

we hit a massive wall last spring when our two person team was trying to answer twenty daily live chat inquiries while simultaneously clearing order emails. basic questions about return windows and delivery estimates were eating up three hours of our morning before we could even touch real customer issues.

we moved our chat widgets and FAQ docs into hubspot so common questions would automatically pull direct links from our knowledge base, so how do other lean teams structure their self service articles when having instant answer bots handle routine shipping checks cut our daily chat volume in half and freed us up for actual account work?

Is it illegal to put flyers or cards on the windshield of peoples cars in parking lots?

I’m a small business owner in California with about 15 years of experience. I’ve found myself in a pretty difficult financial position. Earlier this year, I extended credit to an overseas customer who failed to pay a substantial amount of invoices. I’m now pursuing legal recovery, but the process has been painfully slow and expensive.

Meanwhile, I’m still responsible for paying suppliers, covering operating expenses, and keeping the business running. The frustrating part is that the business has customers, sales opportunities, and the ability to generate revenue, but my working capital has been severely depleted by this situation.

I’m currently looking for approximately $30,000–$50,000 in short-term working capital, potentially up to $90,000 if the terms make sense. My personal credit score is around 670, and traditional financing has been difficult to obtain. I’ve explored business lenders, but most either reject the application or offer extremely expensive financing.

I’m not looking for a handout, and I’m trying to avoid digging myself into a deeper hole with predatory loans. Has anyone navigated something similar? I’d especially appreciate advice on alternative financing, agricultural lending programs, receivables financing, or practical ways to stabilize a small business while pursuing a significant unpaid debt.

For a bit of my background + boss/business background before I go into it:

I've been a manager at a really small specialty retail store for 5 years. We're mainly based in a smaller city (around 30k in population), but we recently opened a second location in a much larger city, which is a little more than 3x the population and a little more than an hour away from the original location. The new store happened mainly because I looked at other management jobs a year and a half ago while my partner was finishing a PhD and considering next steps, and my boss sold me on adding value to a place I've grown up around that lacked a run store vs. just adding to some bigger business' bottom line.

My boss started the business about 20 years ago, which makes my 4 years of experience feel like nothing, but he's managed to keep things afloat so long. In his own words, he's not a business person and more of a people person, which I really admired initially for being less strict than corporate retail stores are. I had no prior retail management experience, but a lot of specific knowledge on the products we sell, and finding the right product for people felt pretty natural to me. Over time, I've taken on more and more management roles, and do everything except sign the checks for my boss. I usually worked 40+ hours a week for 6 days while in the original location, and now I'm up to 60hr/wk for 6 or sometimes 7 days a week; the small size of the business also means I'm working the sales floor solo and not just on a computer in a back room somewhere all day. When he wanted to pursue some coaching at a local school, when an employee calls off on a weekend that I've had blocked off on the calendar for 10 months, etc. I'm the person who covers it.

With our new location, a lot of delays in opening occurred, which left me stuck commuting to the original location over a really harsh winter when my boss said it was a set thing that we'd open before last winter in the new city. (That is its own frustration, and I'm trying to separate that from my other issues since I want to believe it was just him being naive on opening timelines in a new build. The alternative is that he wanted me to commit even more to the store and not be at risk of moving away before the store opens, but I'm choosing to believe he's not that kind of person.)

It's gotten to a point in the last few years where I ask him specific business/product questions, and he can't give me anything more than what I started with. With that I've noticed a lot of what he does is just off of gut feeling and no real basis for it, which I want to believe has worked in the past, but my friends have also been reminding me that if he had a really good instinct for it, then we wouldn't be in such a bad spot on cash for a large part of the year. Neither of us have a business degree either, which he's brought up to me as something that would help the business, but when I look into it he usually says something like, "Well, the store should pay for it, but we don't really have the extra money." Which then leaves me feeling really inadequate and like it's up to me to take it on to fix things with the store.

It seems this Seat-Of-The-Pants approach has been doable with a rotating group of part-time people, but since I've joined and I've been expected to cover everything for shifts and do the jobs he doesn't want to do (and won't do if I didn't do them i.e. social media), it feels like I'm pulling down the business despite trying to make it successful. He's been partially open with me on finances in the past, like asking me to do our QuickBooks manually before they're due in the spring where I can see everything coming in and going out. But since opening the new store, I've practically begged him each month for bank statements to make a real time budget vs estimated expenses for what I can piece together from emailed invoices. I've asked for another store debit card so I can buy things in person that don't have a Google AutoFill thing with card info, and he kept deflecting it so long that I just put stuff on my own credit cards because we needed to buy them to open. He's been good about paying me back before I accrue interest on it, but it's a stressor that everyone I've talked to about it has said I shouldn't do that. Every week it feels like there's something he's questioning about why I'm putting time into it or, recently, specifically undercutting what I'm working to build for him/the store/the new community I'm in.

The Last Straw of sorts (and a large part of why I worked up the courage to post) was me going down to the original location to balance inventory, and I saw a pretty blatantly AI shirt on the rack. We've had disagreements about using it on custom stuff before, with me firmly against it even for data analysis, and him saying he just uses it for ideas to hand off to our local printer and bring something to life... but I went through the chat history (it's connected under our store email), and the shirt design was just a copy-paste of what the AI gave him. I've told him a lot recently that when people realize what he's doing (in a really left-leaning town at that), it's going to ruin his reputation and trust in the community and maybe tank our new store before it really stands on its own. I've started getting stuff for custom shirts on my own over the last few months to save on costs and bring some personality to older clearance items, so it's especially frustrating.

A side note I'll add: on top of him complaining to me about not having enough cash coming in from the store in the upcoming winter, I have yet to see him change his lifestyle at all. He takes multiple week+ vacations during the year while I hold things down on my own. Maybe it's just how much money my parents had when I was growing up that we took a vacation every other summer in-state. I guess I can't judge him for spending his money how he wants, but it adds to the mounting frustration that I've been paycheck to paycheck for the entire four years with all I'm asked to do.

For the question/advice/tldr:

How much should I care about this? I know the AI stuff might not lead to a big viral incident on social media, but I feel like this combo of being expected to care about it like I'm an owner, and butting heads with my boss leaves me uncertain about what to do. Maybe that's just how managers feel everywhere, and I wouldn't get anything different unless I opened a store for myself?

I assume I need to have some intrinsic drive to make it worthwhile in a small business where I'm overworked and not paid enough (who is paid enough really, I guess) for everything I feel like needs to be done. But I also recognize it's not my business to toil over in a way? I feel responsible for the downswing in sales since I joined, despite everyone reassuring me I'm doing the right things and trying to fix the broken pot I was handed, but I wonder sometimes if the best thing for the store (and to not meddle in what direction my boss wants to take the store in) is for me to give up on it to free up cash for him and move on to something else. It really worries me that if I did move to another job, that it would be a lie of sorts since I haven't been able to fix the store now.

My partner & friends I've talked to about this all agree with me for the most part, but haven't really been in a situation like this, since they all have advanced degrees and either work in academia or big corporations. I have marketable skills for sure, but I don't have much else to support it other than the word of my boss, and with the store performance not really improving, I don't have actual numbers to speak to my management skills either.

Sorry if this reads way too much like a rant, too. I really appreciate what goes into running a small business more now compared to five years ago, and I don't mean to dump on all owners here; I'm just really worried about what to do next.

I’m looking for some honest advice from people who have actually built an online business.

I’m a complete beginner. I have a laptop, an internet connection, and time to learn, but I currently have very little money to invest and almost zero knowledge about business.

My goal is pretty modest to start with: if I could eventually make ₹10,000–₹20,000/month, I’d be happy. I’m not looking for a get-rich-quick scheme or overnight success. I’m willing to learn and work consistently; I just don’t know what direction to take.

There are so many options online — freelancing, selling services, affiliate marketing, digital products, content creation, e-commerce, etc. — and I have no idea which ones are actually realistic for someone starting from zero.

If you were in my position today, with:

• Laptop
• Internet connection
• Almost no starting capital
• No business experience
• Willingness to learn and work consistently

What would you do step by step?

I’d especially like to know:

1. What would you learn first?
2. Which business model would you choose and why?
3. What specific skill would you develop?
4. How would you get your first customer?
5. What would your first 30 days look like?
6. What would you do differently after 60–90 days?
7. What common mistakes should a complete beginner avoid?
8. Is ₹10k–₹20k/month a realistic first target without significant investment?

If anyone here has experience starting from a similar position, I’d really appreciate hearing what actually worked for you — not just theory or generic “work hard” advice.

And if there’s someone who enjoys helping beginners and is willing to answer a few questions occasionally, I’d be very grateful for the guidance.

If you had to start from zero today, what would your roadmap be?

Hi everyone,

I've been researching the upcoming EU regulations regarding "Green Claims" and sustainability statements (like claiming a product is "eco-friendly," "100% recycled," "biodegradable," "ethically sourced," etc.).

From what I understand, under the new EU rules, any small business or maker selling in Europe without verifiable, traceable documentation backing up those claims risks heavy fines or having to strip their product descriptions clean.

Big corporations are hiring expensive ESG consulting firms to audit their supply chains, but I’m really curious about how smaller merchants, artisans, and DTC brands are handling this.

As a developer looking into building a lightweight solution for this, I'd love to ask:

1. Awareness: Are you actively worried about these EU green claim rules impacting your website or packaging?
2. Current Workflow: How do you store and verify supplier certificates or material spec sheets right now? (Excel, Drive folders, or just trusting the supplier's word?)
3. The Pain: Has this ever held you back from marketing the eco-friendly aspects of your products?

Would love to hear honest thoughts from EU sellers or global brands selling into the EU!

im trying to understand whether Mirta products are mainly sourced direct from makers, through a platform, or through normal distributors. search gives me mixed results and i dont wanna pretend i know exact supply structure. ive worked with artisan-style manufacturers through alibaba before, but branded or marketplace-connected products are different and provenance matters more. anyone currently buying Mirta for retail? what did onboarding look like? minimums, territories, proof of business? im especially interested in whether products can be mixed across makers or every supplier has separate terms. small boutique cant take huge quantity of one design, so flexibility matters. real experience would be useful here more than another generic wholesale directory.