Five
Put your shop on Google Maps, in the time it takes to drink a coffee
When somebody nearby types "kirana near me" or "medical shop open now", Google answers from a list. Shops that are on it get the call. Shops that are not, do not exist to that person.
It is free, it is done from your phone, and nobody at Google will ask you for money. Here is the whole of it.
- Open business.google.com/add. Sign in with the Google account you already use on the phone. If your shop is already on the map, search for it on Google Maps, tap Claim this business, then Manage now.
- Write the name as it is on your board. Not a longer one, not a keyword. The name on the shutter is the name people will type.
- Pick the category, then the address and hours. Grocery, pharmacy, bakery, mobile shop: one that says what you sell. Put the real hours, and change them for festivals. A person who walks up to a closed shutter does not come back.
- Add three photos. The front with the board readable, the counter, and the shelves. Taken in daylight, on the phone you have.
- Verify the way Google asks. Google decides the method for each shop, and it cannot be chosen. It is one of these: a call or a text, an email, a short video of the shop, a live video call, or a postcard. For a video, stand in the shop with the board and the counter in frame. Google says the review takes up to five working days.
- Answer the first review. Two lines, polite, with your name. The reply is read by everyone who comes after, and it is what makes the listing look like a shop with a person in it.
Said plainly: the listing brings the person to the door. What happens at the counter is still yours. Two small things help there. Print your UPI id or QR on the bill, so the customer pays from the bill in their hand. And when somebody at the counter asks for your number, hold the phone up instead of spelling it out. Our free Show a number tool puts it on the screen in letters they can read from a few feet away.
One more honest note. A listing is not a shortcut. It is your shop's hours, its photos and its replies, kept true. The shops that get the calls are the ones whose listing matches what a person finds when they arrive.