Need to put business address on my website. I don't want to put family address.

[TheWayWeLive]

I am self employed startup business. I have been advised that I need to put my business address on my website. I don't want to put my family address on the website. What suggestions do you have? Is there a low cost or free way around this?

 

[Anonymouse72]

search function, address, titles only - quite a few previous posts on this & should be some ideas for you

 

[TheWayWeLive]

:redface:

search function, address, titles only - quite a few previous posts on this & should be some ideas for you

Sorry for not getting it. I have searched for "address title" nothing comes up that is related. What words do I need to search for?

 

[MartinD]

You want to look for "Virtual Office"

 

[businessfunding]

You can use a virtual office address - there are a few providers on here.

f you have an accountant they will let you use their address (for a fee, obviously

If you have friends with business premises you could strike a deal with them.

Just to add, PO Box is not acceptable.

 

[Anonymouse72]

:redface:


Sorry for not getting it. I have searched for "address title" nothing comes up that is related. What words do I need to search for?

advanced search option, "address" in the search box, search titles only option (box underneath).

not sure if this will link ok, these are the results i get.

 

[TheWayWeLive]

You can use a virtual office address - there are a few providers on here.

f you have an accountant they will let you use their address (for a fee, obviously

If you have friends with business premises you could strike a deal with them.

Just to add, PO Box is not acceptable.

Thanks. Have emailed my accountant. How much do they normally charge?

 

[Jet Virtual]

Sorry it took me so long but here I am

There are many different options but the simplest is to register with a virtual office address and avoid using your home address.

I won't go into prices on here as don't want to get MOD slapped.

Check out my link in my sig or pm me for more details.

Best of luck,

Daniel

 

[Chris Ashdown]

One of the major things about e-commerce is does the site come accross as honest and trustworthy

You are looking to disguise where you are before you even start so that can cause problems say a returns address that is different to the stated address two min on google maps shows the building what it looks like and where

Why are you wanting to hide, these days it's totaly acceptable to work from home and unless yourip someone off they are unlikely to visit you

Suppliers will also want a proper address to supply good to you and will do credit checks if not now then latter when sales get larger

Advertise who and where you are and inspire confidence to buy

 

[FirstClassVirtualOffice]

There are plenty of virtual office services to choose from in the UK, though none are free. Just make sure they are a real office and not some PO box.

If you are a limited company then you will still need to provide the directors residential address to companies house, therefore you need to use a virtual office service that provides a directors service address for this purpose.

If you are selling things on your website, then you still need to put a returns address on it, which will be your home address anyway.

But if it's just a brochure type of website and you're not selling anything through it, then you don't need to put your address on the website.

 

[FIZIX Agency]

Why are you wanting to hide, these days it's totaly acceptable to work from home and unless yourip someone off they are unlikely to visit you

Unfortunately I don't think either of those statements are actually true. I think people would trust a physical business in physical business premises over a business that operates from home.

The second statement, unfortunately isn't entirely true.

There are some complete lunatics out there and you only need one - and I think when you consider "this address is where my family, and my children are". When you are presented with that, it is a bit of a game changer; you become as an individual very exposed. Also you don't need to rip someone off for them to be unhappy; I've seen a fair few threads on here from people explaining that they have a bad customer who is trying to pull a fast one. They exist and if you get one who happens to be on the violent side and they see you are a home business; I can understand the concern.


When I think about that, I can 100% understand why someone wouldn't want to list their home address; so someone could Google Maps it and knock on the door.

I've actually worked with a lot of startups that operate from home and the address issue is often something they raise and feel very uncomfortable about and I think there is a very legitimate reason to feel uncomfortable about it.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Do you honestly think that someone could not find out your address in a few hours if they wanted to, returns address, Domain reg, Voting registry, yet alone the use of google

You have about 30 sec to make someone stay on your site to have a look around and then a few min to make them feel comfortable to buy from you

I think you will find a majority of e-commerce sites started from Home as a sideline and grew into companies and the ones that phone up as they don't trust the internet (quite a lot in my experience) will be happy if they know you work from home and kids answer the phone, but would soon leave if they thought it was a bricks and mortar shop or a mobile phone number

 

[FIZIX Agency]

Do you honestly think that someone could not find out your address in a few hours if they wanted to, returns address, Domain reg, Voting registry, yet alone the use of google

That wasn't exactly my point. I was answering to your comment about why someone would want to mask their home (and thus family) address when they run a business from home.

The fact that it's been brought up a lot in the past when I've worked for from home startups; IMHO; shows it's a genuine concern for people.


While the likelyhood of something bad happening may be slim and regardless of how hard it would actually be to look the person up; does not change the concern or negate the power of perceived safety; especially when your family are brought into the equation.

It is a concern for some at home, online businesses. For their family safety, for their family privacy and also for stuff encroaching on family life; like sales calls or people turning up at times that are less than desirable; like a Sunday afternoon (I had that once when I was freelance).

You have about 30 sec to make someone stay on your site to have a look around and then a few min to make them feel comfortable to buy from you

I agree but that's separate from why a from home business may want to keep their actual from home address private and come up with another solution.

I think you will find a majority of e-commerce sites started from Home as a sideline and grew into companies and the ones that phone up as they don't trust the internet (quite a lot in my experience) will be happy if they know you work from home and kids answer the phone, but would soon leave if they thought it was a bricks and mortar shop or a mobile phone number

If I called a hairdresser who worked from home and the kids answered the phone, I probably wouldn't think twice about that. But other types of company I don't think I'd get the right impression if the kids answered the phone.

I think that depends on the business.

 

[silvermusic]

If I called a hairdresser who worked from home and the kids answered the phone, I probably wouldn't think twice about that. But other types of company I don't think I'd get the right impression if the kids answered the phone.

I think that depends on the business.

Surely I'm not the only person in this modern world to have two physically separate phone lines coming into my house, one for business, the other for personal use. I've had it that way since the late 90s. With the technology available now you could probably have two numbers off one line. (sorry not my area of expertise). Two physically separate lines has another very real advantage too with internet access being vital to run a business now.

 

[moo-tique]

"There are many different options but the simplest is to register with a virtual office address and avoid using your home address"

Is using your home address on your website really that bad?