Is it rude to send a late night email to a business?

It's ludicrous for someone to complain about getting an email at the wrong time, and their problem for not working out how to turn off notifications out of hours, which is extremely easy. Not your fault at all OP. Email is an asynchronous mode of communication.

Nah that cake business was very rude. I wouldn't be ordering from her again.

If she doesn't want to be notified at night then she should mute her notifications or put her phone on silent. What a strange woman.

They will only read it when they choose to in their business hours I assume, so no problem at all.

What was the cake like? I’d be leaving a review about the rude manner of who runs the business

I work in a hotel & we get emails around the clock due to nature of the business & international guests etc.

We reply during our office hours like normal.

The business owner in this case needs manage their work/life balance better. 24 hr emails coming in will never allow them to switch off from work.

I work strange hours and on the bottom of my email, I have a comment that says I work flexible hours and if this email lands outside your normal working hours, please feel free to reply when you are next working!

Its not your fault they don't mute their emails outside their working hours!

No. I used to send them at 4am on a Sunday if I couldn’t sleep and decided to get ahead with work for Monday. I’d get the odd “you’re sad working at that time on a Sunday” but no one complained about it

Why though?

You dont have to read it when it comes through, you can turn off alerts at night.

Oh well, do they want your business or not?

A former boss of mine sent a very angry email back to someone who emailed him on a Sunday but the other person just had the best reply with ‘You didn’t have to read it on Sunday’.

I’ve also seen people put disclaimers in their signatures that they don’t expect immediate replies but are sending emails at times that suit them.

Policing when people send you emails seems like a good way to lose customers though.

I might include a comment saying something like "I realise that I'm sending this to you quite late but I don't expect a response from you straight away". I've seen on emails in a business "My work hours don't equal your work hours. Please don't feel obligated to read or respond outside of your work day"

Totally fine to email an actual business in the middle of the night.
Mildly rude to email a freelancer in the middle of the night.
Extremely rude for said freelancer to kick off about it.

I'm freelance and I might have allowed myself a private eye-roll. Scheduling exists for a reason! But generally yanbu

Then that's the baker's problem for not managing her notifications efficiently. If you're running a business and thus expecting people to pay money for your goods or services, it's bad form to chastise them for contacting you in a completely normal way.

If the OP had rung her at 2am she might have a point, but not an email. Email is 24 hour. In fact I received 2 emails from our pet insurer at 2.30am today (info that I was waiting for, not marketing).

It depends. I know people who bake cakes at home, they’re one-woman bands. Most of their business is done on their phone. I suppose your baker could have been woken by a notification?

She is unprofessional, I wouldn’t give her my business anymore

I know. You are missing my point.

Bakery A are idiots who can’t read an order and were rude about an email being sent at night.

OP now thinks, based on what Bakery A said, that everyone thinks like Bakery A about emails. This is making her think twice about emailing Bakery B out of hours.

I am saying that Bakery A are clearly idiots based on their ability to read an order alone, so OP should ignore any nonsense they come out with about emails, rather than treat Bakery A as the arbiter of how things work in the business world.

We receive emails at work right through the night, enquiries (different format) and social media messages as well. There is an automated response that says we'll be in touch as soon as possible in office hours etc.
All those enquiries come through to my own work email address as well so notifications are off.
Which is what you should be doing if you don't want to be disturbed during the night by work stuff. I need to keep my phone and certain things on because I have an elderly parent, but you can do that and turn other notifications off, they come through but are silent and I flick through them in the morning to see if anything is time sensitive.

Wouldn't think anything of anyone sending something through the night - only if they're on the phone at 9am bitching that it hasn't been responded to yet, which happens, and you probably could have answered their email plus 5 others while they're on the phone telling you off about it 🤷🏼‍♀️.

@HotCrossBunplease it was a different bakery who’s got the order wrong.
@YellowPolkaDotBikini1980
it does not look like this person like to have clients, I wouldn’t recommend them then.

This ^
It feels like a lack of professionalism on the side of business owner if they haven’t done it and more because they mentioned it, the latter was just very rude.

No, it's not rude, OP. The baker was unprofessional and I would use someone else next time.

Why would you be annoyed by someone sending an email at 2am? No one’s forcing you to check your email and respond in the middle of the night. And if you choose to have your phone next to you all night with email notifications turned on and don’t schedule Do Not Disturb (not sure what it’s called on Android phones) for the hours when you might be asleep - well that’s your choice.

The whole point of emails is that they can be sent at the sender’s convenience and read at the recipient’s convenience.

They are being completely unreasonable. You are in the right.

If they don't want late night emails they shouldn't be self employed or alternatively, they shouldn't check their emails at night. She is being ridiculous.

If your phone's on, don’t most people get 100 spam emails overnight? And another 100 in my work inbox?