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.

Then the supermarkets are perfect for you. I think supermarket meat has become more and more disgusting so I use my butcher. It's twice the price but a hundred times more delicious. He's been in business for 50 years and more popular than ever, so he clearly suits some people.

One thing that maddens me about shopping at the independent stores in our local towns is that they often have a sign in the window - 'back in half an hour' or something similar. If I have driven specially into town to buy something there, I am not hanging around while they go for a coffee or do their own shopping!

Blimey! They probably have no staff to speak of. Chill out.

And they are almost certainly not going for a coffee!

Well no @Sadlifter, @growinggreyer makes a valid point. A business needs to have reliable and clearly advertised opening hours if they rely on customers coming to them to part with their money. If independents in that posters town are doing this (and the poster says it’s often) then customers will “chill out” spending their money elsewhere!

I mean, just go to the supermarket 🤷‍♀️ they are literally there for people who want to shop at 7pm and can't wait. Luckily our town has a thriving set of independents which I'm making an effort to use more and more. They seem to be doing really well.

I really hate businesses that tell people how they want them to be a customer rather than responding to what people actually want (within reason).

When I lived in a commuter town and used to go into the office in London 5 days a week, there was a dry cleaners near home that would have been really convenient, except that I was always in the office during the hours they were open.

A lot of shops are bound by local council rules and couldn't stay open later even if they wanted to.

I'd love to use local shops now I'm at home more. But all we have now is an antique shop, a charity shop, and expensive clothes shop (very nice but, a £50 for a basic organic cotton t-shirt type thing)...you get the picture. If there was a baker, a deli, a greengrocer, I'd be up there several times a week.

The vagueness of these annoys me too.
It would be much more acceptable to put "back at 13:30" so people know. Like this you have no idea if it's 10 min left or 30

Ah, now our local butcher is a great case in point. They've been in business for years, lovely meat. Expensive but that's expected.

They close on Monday their slowest day. They then open 8.00am until 4pm Tuesday to Saturday . Because they know that Saturday is when they'll have the biggest foot fall. There is a queue at their door at 8am on Saturdays - people drop by early so they have the rest of the day to themselves. During the week the parents doing drop off at school or coming back for pick up are usually the ones queuing.

You can call or place an order on line and it'll be ready to pick up when you've asked for it to be ready. So you can drop in before work or first thing on Saturday. They'll also deliver and, if you're away but want the meat (like at Christmas), they'll courier their meat packs!

They've figured out what brings in the most customers and they work around that. Yes, some people want to shop there on Mondays but they make their money on Saturdays so they've made the business decision to chase those customers. And, because you can order on line, they've opened up to those who don't have a lot of time to wait in a queue, order, pay etc. They do all that on line and collect from a specific counter - done and dusted in minutes.

And that is why they're thriving. Sound business sense, lots of social media presence, 'click and collect', open as many hours as they can around what customers need.

If they were only open from 12pm to 3pm on Saturday (as the poster said theirs do) they wouldn't get customers. Most people would be out and about on Saturday - not waiting for the butchers to open. There are butchers in most high streets. Why would you wait half a day for one to open? Opening at 8am means people can shop, get the food back home and be out again for the day before their teenagers have even crept from their crypt if they're like mine! And, of course, the supermarkets open at 8am here on Saturdays. So they're open when their rivals are...

Yeah I def prefer that. I can work round it then.

As has ours. My GP has referred me for an ultrasound and told me that it would be done in the surgery on a Saturday.

Absolutely this! When I shut my little on line shop for Christmas or because I'm away I always say 'I'll be open again between 5pm and 7pm on Thursday' or whatever. That way my potential customers know they're not going to go 'click crazy' trying to figure out when 'on Thursday' they can spend their money!

It shouldn't be rocket science to figure out that 'back in 30 minutes' means nothing if you don't know when the 30 minutes began...tell me you're away until 1.30pm and I'll come back but I'm not a mind reader and I refuse to trapse backwards and forwards (no shop is that unique that I can't find what I want elsewhere I'm afraid).

We have 3 separate shopping centres in town and they were going to build a 4th pre-pandemic on the edge of town, so the trading hours could be extended. It was ridiculous. Lots of the shops were planning to move to it.

This is the future I see for it to be honest.
I don’t get chance to go in on a weekday very often, but when I have it’s been a similar scenario with everything closing again just after lunch. They only open two weekdays and a Saturday as it it.

Thing is the town is fast dying on its arse. A whole side of it is now empty with one of the big old stores regularly used for cannabis grows. You’d think the remaining shops would be battling but they seem completely disinterested in the obvious decline.

im not saying opening until 7pm would save the town, but opening in basic shop/market hours might just increase the footfall.

Opening hours is just one issue. But it is one that comes up consistently to why people do not shop at some small businesses.

There may be other reasons but whatever they are, clearly they are not doing something right. So keeping on doing the same thing for years without changes and then wondering why takings are down is odd.

Don't you get breaks and a lunchtime off at your workplace?

Opening times are often dictated by others, such as council's town centre car parks closing at 6 or 7pm. A High Street shop isn't going to open in the evening if their customers have nowhere to park or risk having to pay a huge "fine" to get someone from the council out to unlock the car park to let them get their car out! Likewise some bus routes that don't run in an evening so staff can't get home without an expensive taxi so won't work evenings.

This is not what posters are talking about. They are pointing out that some independents are complaining that people don’t use them yet are choosing to open later or close earlier than the times their potential customers are actually able to shop with them. It’s not that the coffee shop isn’t legally allowed to open before 10 or the butchers are obliged to close at 3. If a business can do this and still operate at a profit then great but then they’re probably not the ones calling on locals to “use us or lose us”, yet failing to do anything to help themselves. Which is the point of the thread.

I reluctantly agree with this.

I understand that small businesses may have to open fewer hours due to the costs of running, but it is really ridiculous the hours some of them keep.

I live in a small village that's a heritage site, and it's become very gentrified over the last decade or so. It has become full of coffee shops, pizza places and gift-type shops that are extremely expensive and have frankly bizarre opening hours: 10 til 3 a few days a week, then 11 til 2 on a Saturday, closed through the week, etc. It drives me mad, because it means that locals in the village don't have functional, useable, useful shops we can walk to - we have insanely expensive gift shops where we can buy novelty stationery, candles and greetings cards, a pizza place that you can't pre-book at and only opens at weekends, and endless bars and beer places that open and close, come and go, and hardly ever open. This village is in the middle of a rather low income area and in itself used to be very "normal" and working class, too. Not so now. We are priced out and are leaving soon, and most people who live here commute to work in nearby cities and can afford the ridiculous prices.

Sorry for the rant but it really bothers me! I'd love to support small, local businesses, but the reality of "shop local" and "shop small" seems to actually be hobby businesses for luxuries, rather than accessible, useful shops serving the community.

Ok they're going for lunch. But why don't they take a packed lunch and eat it while they serve people. Yes people would moan about that too, they moan about everything.

Alternatively it makes more sense to pop out between 11.30 and 12, or 2 and 2.30 than it does between 12 and 2 when everyone else is on lunch and able to come to your shop.

I agree!

It's like they try and shame people for not supporting their business and shopping local.

The entitled small business owners need to give their heads a wobble - they're not benefitting the community that much in my area anyway, employing some schoolkids and paying them a pittance, or 1 or 2 adult workers with zero benefits and shit pay. It's probably more worthwhile supporting your local Tesco tbh, who at least employ a decent number of staff, provide a pension and living wage (although this should of course be increased).

My pet peeve is definitely the "back in half an hour" sign. I don't often go back to shops that do that.

I realise that if there is only one person to staff the shop there can be no choice about doing this but it's crap to be on the other end of it. I've usually made a special journey and am short of time.

I admit I'm not using my local small businesses because of most of the reasons mentioned above. Short opening hours etc.

Our local information page on FB has had several local businesses post "we're struggling to stay open, please use us or lose us". It's really quite sad, but not surprising.

I understanding only opening in peak times, but cutting off all off-peak times surely has some detriment?

There's a cafe bar in the next village along, that opens 11-3pm every day, it get's very very busy but "busy" is only 6-7 tables full as it's a small place. The shop owner knows best, presumably, but I wonder why they don't open earlier to cater for breakfast (a lot of cyclists in this area who are out of the day, for example - my cycling group sometimes call in for breakfast at a cafe up the road at 9am ) and finishing at 3pm does seem early but there must be reason why they don't open later.

Maybe a "late night shopping night" once every week or every two weeks would work? Our local town does this in the run up to Christmas - most shops in the town open until 8pm each Thursday.