There is a shop in Kampala that lost my money, and to this day they don’t know it happened.
They didn’t insult me. They didn’t overcharge me. I’m sure their service is lovely.
I just couldn’t find them.
The pizza wheel
A while back, I decided to make pizza at home, from scratch. I needed a pizza wheel, the little blade you roll across a pizza to cut it.
So I did what a normal person does. I searched on Google.
Nothing. Apparently nobody in this entire city sells a pizza wheel.
I found one on Jumia, with delivery in two to three days. But I was making the pizza that day. And I wasn’t going into town to look for one. I’m not squeezing through that crowd for a pizza wheel.
So I didn’t buy it from anybody.
The customer you never see
Here’s the part I keep thinking about.
Somebody in this city sells pizza wheels. I’d bet money on it. Somebody maybe fifteen minutes from my house had one sitting on a shelf that very day.
And that person will never know I existed. They will never know that a man with cash in his hand, who wanted it the same day, at whatever price they were asking, just went home.
That’s not a lost customer. A lost customer is someone who saw you and picked somebody else. At least you were in the race.
This is worse. You weren’t in the race.
“But we’re on Facebook”
I know. Somebody is saying, “We’re on Facebook. We post on Instagram every day. We’re on TikTok.”
I believe you, and some people do buy there.
But there’s a difference. Social media is where someone finds out you exist while they’re busy doing something else. Google is where someone goes when they’ve already decided to spend money and just need to know where.
That second person is the one holding cash. That day, I was that person. And you weren’t there.
The smallest version of the fix
Here’s step one. Most businesses in Kampala haven’t done it.
1. Get a Google Business Profile. It’s free. Set it up properly and let it verify. That can take a few days, and then you exist on Google Maps and in local search.
2. Write what you actually sell. Not “quality products and services.” Write the words a real person types: pizza cutter, baking tins, kitchen equipment Kampala. If those words aren’t on your profile, Google has nothing to show anyone.
3. Get the basics exactly right. Correct phone number. Correct location. Correct opening hours.
That’s it.
What this costs you if you skip it
Being invisible feels free. It isn’t. It costs you quietly, every single day, and you never get to see the bill.
Somewhere out there, a shop lost a sale. They’ll never know.
Want us to do it properly?
If you’d rather have someone handle it, Google Business Profile setup and optimization is included in our Territory Starter package, alongside a website built on real SEO foundations. See how we helped Bible Empire Kampala rank top 3 on Google in four months, or see the Territory Starter package.
Not sure whether you show up at all? Search for what you sell, the way a stranger would. Not your business name. See if you come up. If you don’t, book a call and we’ll look at it together.