It is easy to look at a tidy online store and think the difficult bit is finished. The pictures are up, the prices are showing, and there is a button to pay. That is the part people notice. The rest is the same work as running any other shop. You still have to photograph things, write what they are, change the prices when they change, and take down anything that has sold out. Then the orders come in and someone has to pack them, sort the payments, answer the questions, and deal with the ones that go wrong.

With seasonal produce it is worse. What you picked on Monday might be finished by Wednesday. If the website still says it is available, you spend the next day explaining why it is not. Keeping that straight takes the same regular effort as standing at a market stall or a gate counter. The screen does not do it for you.

A plain website skips most of that. It can say what you grow, roughly when it is ready, where people can find you, and how to ring. It does not need updating daily to stay honest. For a lot of smaller local places a standard website is enough and, done properly, is a valuable investment. An online shop only makes sense if you are actually prepared to put in the time, or employ someone, to run a shop.