Digital business card for small business

A two-chair barbershop, a one-van plumber and a bakery with a Saturday stall get their work the same way: somebody who already bought from you tells somebody who has not, at the school gate, in the street WhatsApp group, at the till while you box a cake. The person who eventually rings you was rarely there when your name came up.

So your details travel before they earn anything. A customer photographs the sticker on your van for her sister. The stallholder on the next pitch passes your card to a caterer asking about sourdough. Whatever arrives has to open on a phone with nothing to install and say what you sell, when you are open and how to get a price.

Which means the card has to be shareable wherever the recommendation happens: a QR code on the van and the shop door, a link in the group chat, the signature on every quote. All three open the same live card, so the customer who calls six weeks later sees this week's hours and number.

Your biggest customers are often other businesses: the café that takes forty loaves before seven, the letting agent whose flats always need a locksmith, the builder who subcontracts every kitchen's tiling. They rarely buy on the day they meet you; they save your details and call the week their usual supplier lets them down.

Write the card for that week: what you can supply and in what quantity, how far ahead to order, whether you invoice on thirty days or take payment on delivery, and that you carry public liability insurance for jobs where their client will ask. A trade email or direct number says they will not sit behind the Saturday queue.

Winter hours, summer hours, the fortnight you close in August. The Sunday market you drop once the shop opens. A second van with a second driver and phone. A booking app swapped for a cheaper one, a landline finally cancelled. Your first employee, bigger premises, a new trading name after the partnership splits.

Each of those is printed on something you paid for: the van livery, the window vinyl, the stall banner, the flyers that went through every letterbox, the footer on every invoice. Nobody rewraps a van for a new phone number. When the QR code on all of those opens one live card, you change the hours once and last spring's flyer stops sending people to a closed door.

The card is advertising, and the rules differ by country, state and trade, so ask your company registrar, your trade's licensing body or the local small business office about each point. A limited company is commonly expected to show its registered name, sometimes its registration number, on letters and web pages; a sole trader using a business name may also need to show their own name and a contact address.

In a licensed trade the licence number may need to appear on anything advertising the work: gas, electrical and pest control are the usual examples. Food businesses may need to display a hygiene rating, and prices shown to retail customers may need to include sales tax or VAT. If a letter says your card is missing something, fix it once and the van, the window and the flyers follow.