That some small businesses are failing because they don’t adapt to the needs of their customers?

[Isawyou]

I try to shop local. Fortunately I do have some great independent places nearby.

What I am finding frustrating is for example the fruit and veg shop closes at 4.30pm. They start packing up at 3.45pm and it is really difficult to buy things from there where they are stacking all the stands with the produce inside. They also look unhappy at customers coming to buy at packing up time. It is easier to go to the Tesco express that stays open until midnight.

Other shops do not open until 10am and close early. So I can’t get there before work or after work.

They complain their businesses are not doing well and people do not shop local but they are not exactly facilitating it for the customers either.

Totally agree with this. The fruit and veg shop near me was open short hours and eventually closed. There's a nice little coffee shop but it isn't open before or after office hours. I would go and get a coffee in the morning when I'm working from but it doesn't open until after 9 and it closes mid afternoon. It's on a route that's much busier before and after work than during the day. They are missing out on a lot of potential custom.

"what's the harm in you staying open a bit if I come in as your closing".

People LOVE this in hospitality
Clear signage at what time kitchen closes, still 15 min after"oh come on, the staff is still theeeeere. You don't want our money or what?"
Keep the money and use them to learn read time.
I had people look at signs on the door, look inside where lights were dimmed and chair were on top of table and floor was being cleaned, walk in and ask for table for 4🤦

Can't make everyone happy, but can try with majority. If enough people are happy, all is fine and bills are paid.

If you are missing on busy shopping times because you can't afford staff, you either do that hours yourself (like most of us did) until you have it confirmed that it will make enough for staff or you concede to not having that income and don't moan about people not supporting.

We trialed evenings which meant 8am-10pm for few weekends to see if it's viable. Hard as fuck, but it gave us clear answer whether it was or wasn't worth it in the location (after customers were mentioning they would like evenings). It was not😂

Yes, I like meeting friends for coffee sometimes after work, all the really nice independent places seem to close at 4pm, so we end up at Nero or Costa which opens till 7.
I understand that independent businesses might not have the resources to open late, but it's the faux suprise and anger that people aren't going there when they insist on only opening when most people are at work.

I wonder how much of it is not affording the staff and how much of it is them simply not being available.

Well my local greengrocer is the one in the market I mentioned. 9am to 1pm on a Friday. Now, I do use them in the school holidays but only if I remember. He's not locked in my brain as I don't see him for at least 6 weeks between the holidays. So I get into the habit of using the supermarkets. I'm fine with that, I assume he's fine with that.

The stall owner I have a mild problem with is the one who won't work weekends as she wants to spend it with the family (fine - so do I) but then complains that she's not getting enough traffic. Well she won't will she?

Those businesses who don't want to work on Sundays, fine. Want to shut at 3pm, fine. But don't complain that you're not getting customers. If you, as a business owner, want to shut at 3pm you have to understand that some potential customers will never use you and be OK with that and get on with your chosen business model.

However our high street owners regularly complain that no-one comes to their shop - then shut early! We do come to their shops - it's just not open as we wander past it after we finish OUR working day!

Chrrently it could be availability. Hospitality has had big issues hiring.
But if you have someone cover mid day, you can do split shift yourself. There are ways, lots are not easy but it's usually temporary solution while you are sorting things.

Yeah maybe. I just don't think there's a great number of people crying out to work weekends at the moment, are there?

My Gp is open until 8pm a couple of nights a week and Saturday mornings..(rural market town)

We had a nice independent coffee shop that did lovely breakfasts, and a costa. The independent coffee shop would open somewhere around 9.30 (always slightly random), and moaned when constantly that Costa was full every morning with parents after the school run. I used to go for coffee every Friday with a group of Mums, and we wanted to go to independent one, and we literally had to walk past it to get to Costa. But we're not going to spend 40 minutes standing on the street waiting for it to open. So they ended up closing. Opening an hour earlier would have bought in so much custom.

I live in New Zealand and this is part of the culture I will never understand.

Cafes open 10 am till 3 pm, they close even earlier on the weekend, sometimes close on a Sunday.

Who on earth can go and spend money in a cafe between 10 and 3? The only people available at those time during the week are the unemployed, retired and women on maternity leave... neither of them known for having huge disposable income to spend in cafes. It doesn't help that they charge bloody $6 for a coffee, which I just refuse to pay when I can make an often much better one for less than 50 cents at home.

In the Mediterranean countries in Europe cafes are open at 6 or 7 am for breakfast and often offer a very affordable option (coffee and croissant/coffee and sandwich for 3-4 euros). Coffee is made fast, cheaply (80 cents to a euro each) and it's always delicious. They are always packed in the early morning. They close late in the evening, I'm talking about 9-10 pm, and they are packed with groups of families and friends having coffee and drinks and snacks.

Coffee in new Zealand is a disgrace, even though they love to consider themselves part of the "coffee culture"... they're not! "Baristas" take 20 bloody minutes to make a single coffee, they faff around with the machine and manage to either burn it or water it. They spend 10 minutes painting a bloody fern on the foam, so when they bring it to you the coffee is lukewarm at most. They serve you a urinal of mostly milk. And they call that a good coffee.

And then they complain they don't make any money.

With the increase of food prices, the other day I ordered a pie at a cafe. They wanted to charge me $18. Just for the pie, not even a side salad. I declined and went to have lunch at home. I also would love to "support local", but I agree that they need to adapt to modern times, and offer a service people want.

I think a huge number of people open shops for the first time thinking it will be great and fit around their life.

The reality for most is that running a shop is really hard and for most to turn a good profit you do need to put customers first and your own lifestyle wants or needs second. I think that's why most new shops don't stay in business very long.

Ugh, THIS! The smug 'we don't have wifi so you'll have to talk to each other, hur hur!' signs. Fuck off.

There seem to be a couple of issues here and one is that some people want to own their own business partly so they can do the hours they prefer and are really struggling to accept that they are serving people. They are in a position of power- I own my business, I'm not some drone employee who has to put up with stupidity and entitlement- but also one of subservience- if I don't do things customers want, they won't give me money and getting that money is the only way I can continue to own my business.

If they don't enjoy the challenges of actively changing and growing the business throughout its lifetime but find it a stressful, miserable chore, they will end up feeling that the people whose lifestyles and priorities change are the problem.

People like the market woman who wants time with her family and customer's money simultaneously are showing impressive levels of cognitive dissonance. Sometimes what you want isn't ever going to be an option however hard you want it. Having a lovely day out with your family while people come in a steady stream to push envelopes of cash through your letterbox is one of those things.

There definitely is a lack of staff to fill vacancies in hospitality and retail in my area and this has impacted on opening hours.

Which bits of ‘Europe’? In France , shop workers are not able to work more than 35 hours a week by law, so many of the smaller shops are often closed. Plus the two hour lunch break….

Fruit and veg shops always used to shut early as they had to be up half way through the night to get to the markets to get their stock.

I'm torn between as a customer wanting better hours from businesses and yet also wanting people to have happy and healthy working lives with an opportunity to enjoy family and social life beyond their jobs.

France seems to be the place where they have got this right.

Local cafe opens at 8am - 3pm and shuts at 2.30 on a Saturday.

Butcher opens at 10 and closes at 4pm and is open 12-3 on a Saturday and is more expensive than the supermarket.

Local card shop is £5 for a generic birthday card whereas home bargains or Asda is £1.50.

It's not just about the opening hours but also about affordability.

People fishing for costs are a pita

So people should just sign a blank cheque to hand over to any tradie who deigns to visit?

Fortunately here in real world plumbers, electricians etc can give me their call out rate and their hourly rate on demand and can make sensible comments like "if its the part which does X it would be Y to replace plus labour and at worst case its 5Y to replace the whole unit".

If they said "not going to tell you my prices, I'm just going to come out and demand you pay whatever" then I'd simply try the next name on the list.

How many people who want places to open longer would happily work those shifts themselves?

I fail to see what the NHS has to do with how a business operates.😂

And there in a nutshell we have also added in one of the biggest problems the NHS

What the founder of Tesco did in 1919 is completely irrelevant. It's also irrelevant what small businesses need to do to turn into FTSE 100 companies.

It's much more complex than just listening to customers, I did but the customers we didn't reach thought our takings would be crap but they weren't. The majority of our customers were happy and takings were great.
The new owner has now lost most of these customers as its now run badly.

Truth is without knowing the exact state of the business you can't really tell what's going on.

My post was to highlight simply that many on this thread may be those who want to support local but maybe due to your actual needs the business can't accommodate you, you could fall in that small percentage of customers I mentioned before. The issues raised on here ring very true to the 10/20% I was referring to.. The issue your local businesses have could be more complex than just their opening hours.

I am very time short. Sunday is basically my only free day for shopping, so 90% of my shopping is done online. I'm fine with this, but it does really piss me off when I get moaned at for shopping in the way that works for me. Telling me I should be using my local high street and spending my money the way they think I should be spending it.