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.

@Isawyou

Not an issue with childcare as the shop and the staff are around 65+. Could be grandchildren I guess but they start early and so want to finish early.

If they're all 65+, I can fully understand why they don't want to work all day every day - most people have retired fully by then. Working in a shop/cafe is hard work - it's not a sitting down all day office job!

We were in a local market town on Friday afternoon, it’s busy and affluent with a large population of early retirees and ladies who lunch, half term last week as well. The cafe we popped into for a cup of tea and cake shuts at 3pm every week day. YANBU

I hear you OP. Loads of people working from home where I live can now easily get to local shop at lunchtime to support local business... but it's closed for lunch. Yes, I know they have to eat but has no one heard of a a staggered lunch break?

Near to where i live the local high st does not open until 10am. Well i would shop there if it were 9am after dropping kids off at school,but i end up going elsewhere as shops are not open conveniently.

There was a cafe in our village that closed. It didn’t open school holidays, weekends or after 3.30, opened at 9.30. Staff were grumpy and there was never enough space to sit. A new independent has taken over and it is amazing. It’s a really lovely place to go, opening hours are longer and suit people working from home, people with kids as well as people not working. It is doing really well.

It depends how much you want your business to be a success. It is not just about staying open until a critical mass but it is trying different things, constantly adapting, listening to your customers. It is not just opening for longer hours and expecting people to stroll in.

The local independents that have been successful are regularly trying new strategies and by and large it is working. They are expanding, introducing new products, different ways to pay, adding extra value to customers. Adapting opening hours is just one option.

GP’s aren’t avoiding f2f but can do more appointments remotely. Many GP’s are now looking at only offering appointments on a part time basis as they don’t have enough GP’s to be available full time.

That’s no problem if they don’t want to open longer hours but then they can’t act surprised that people pop over to the local Tesco express instead and wonder why people won’t support them!

I've noticed this! There's one charity shop that opens at nine and I've got some good stuff on the way back from the school run.

I'd visit others if they were open

Absolutely correct. I'm an accountant and have dozens of small business clients who would like to grow, but can't because of the VAT, so artificially restrict their business, through shorter opening hours or days/weeks off, to keep turnover under the threshold. I probably also have clients who do "cash in hand" that's not declared but as it's not going through the books (by definition), I don't know how widespread that is, probably very common I suppose!

A few times, a client has actually had to temporarily close when they've accidentally got too close to the registration threshold, so to people on this thread, it may appear that they've just randomly closed their shop or cafe for a couple of weeks, but in reality, that may be to keep turnover under the VAT threshold. I know one of my clients who was a seaside gift shop had to remain closed for the entire Easter period one year as it was when there were two Easters in the same 12 month period (first in April, then next in March the year after), and with Easter being the busiest time of year, it meant that having two Easter;s worth of sales in the sales 12 month period would push them over the VAT threshold. The only way to avoid that was not to open! People who didn't realise that can happen were probably scratching their heads wondering why a seasonal gift shop was closed at Easter - but the owners had good reason to - the profit they'd have made by opening would have been less than they'd lose by having to register for VAT!

There is a difference between opening all hours when at certain times you have little trade (reasonable) and saying you will open until a certain time and being unpleasant for someone who comes in 15 minutes before closing time.

One thing that may be affecting opening hours in mornings is declining sales of newspapers. Though if fewer people are buying the nasty tabloids it is a silver lining to the cloud, as it were.

Agree OP. It just puts you off going back. There’s an independent childrens shoe shop near me. I went a couple of weeks ago and had the strangest experience.

You’re not allowed to touch the shoes on display. The owner measured DS’s feet, and then brought out a selection of shoes from the back, with no input from me on what I was looking for. I pointed to a few on display to see those in DS’s size, and the response was an immediate “out of stock”. He then seemed to be getting frustrated at me not liking the shoes that he brought out.

To be fair i’m guessing the selling style works for him as he’s been there for a good few years, but I was keen to make it my shop for shoes for years but now I have no interest in going back.

Every small to medium sized town I’ve lived in has at least one of these. I never shop in them a) because I don’t like the clothes and b) because every woman that shops there brings her husband with her and sits him on an inadequately built chair sulking and gawping at the rest of the clientele. Fgs leave your menfolk at home or in the café or pub.

I think some small businesses kind of operate like hobbies. We have a cafe right by a bus stop so if it opened at 8 it would be busy. No opens at 9 when people are at work. It's only reliable stuff is coffee. The sandwiches are expensive and not very nice, the cakes whilst lovely are not always available. It also closes mid afternoon.

We have a barber than seems to open when it feels like it.

We had a really good bar and restaurant but they only did food for two. So both had to have the same thing. It obviously didn't work.

My hairdresser is reliable and very good. She is successful because she takes it seriously.

We also have a very good and reliable bar cafe. Always busy because it's open when people need it.

But this is the point. Many people DON’T have a day off in the week, so need to do everything on the weekends- which is tough if they have very short hours or are not open at all.

I also hate when town centres close up at 5. How on earth are people meant to nip in after work?

My DH is disabled so we sometimes go days when we can't get out, sometimes for him its weeks but obviously I do have to go out sometimes. If he wakes up feeling well we grab the opportunity and get out early while we have the chance and sometimes after a walk we will go somewhere for a breakfast.

New cafe opened, looked nice and we thought we'd give it a go. Went in and it was empty, two staff waiting for customers. DH wanted a set breakfast and there was a sign that they wouldn't swap items, OK cafes do that but DH can't eat fried bread so we asked if he could have the bread plain, still a slice of bread and less work for them. No he couldn't have that but he could pay extra for a slice of bread while leaving the fried bread untouched. We left, they lost custom. I can't understand what the issue was.

I'm a business advisor and I would love to work with more very small businesses, particularly High St retail - they're such interesting businesses to speak to. But there's such a wide discrepancy between the Very Small/Micro end of SME and the top-end. If they're just below the VAT threshold they have such a disincentive to grow if they're B2C, and if they did want to grow they're too small to get the grants to help with the advice/projects that would enable it to happen.

If the government of the day could just see past shovelling billions to their mates to pay for Freeports, and instead give a massive increase in the VAT threshold for small businesses in BIDs.

I agree OP! To be honest I gave up trying to support independents a while back - it's usually me trying to fit around them, paying for parking when I could go elsewhere and it's free, etc. Coffee shops with the "no wi-fi badge of honour" also don't do it for me and some people do indeed look grumpy to have to do something like ring up your goods on the till or actually make a coffee. Honestly, I just go to Waitrose or M&S and have a coffee in Cafe Neros.

One problem for small florists and greengrocers is that it's often the same person responsible for buying and selling stock. They go to the markets very early in the morning so the stock is fresh and they don't want to stay open late at night if they are up at midnight to go to buy freshly caught fish or fruit and vegetables.

It's actually comparatively rare to find cash only places these days as there are very few banks left open for them to bank their takings. I used to go to a small hairdressers that asked customers to switch to card payments for this reason.

Like everyone on this thread, I can think of small shops that don't do themselves any favours. It would be comparatively easy for shops selling non perishable goods to stay open late one evening and close one afternoon instead. Some independent bookshops are making a revival by selling online, inviting authors to do readings, and being experts in their stock in a way that supermarkets can't. However, like other retailers, selling online also has its problems - e.g the extra cost of packaging and delivery or reliability of the carrier.

Many GPs did used to do Saturday morning sessions for patients who worked during the week. Most of them are independent contractors not NHS employees and I think it may have become less common after their last contract but I'm not sure about that.

Well I've got a story of extremes I suppose.

Many years ago I worked with a woman who decided to start her own small shop business selling wool and other yarns plus all the craft things around that. She opened her shop in Greenwich. Now, anyone who knows Greenwich knows they have a big craft market. At the time it was a Sunday market. Absolutely teeming with life. You sometimes couldn't get a seat in any of the cafes because it was heaving. We thought she'd boom - beautiful shop, ideal area for those people who did crafting, captive audience. She shut within 6 months. Why? Because she was a devout church goer and wouldn't open on a Sunday! Some small business owners, unfortunately, open up assuming they can fit a business around their lives. Which you can to an extent. But if you want it to thrive you have to be there for your customers. I run an Etsy shop and I'll answer queries any time of the day (except when I'm sleeping). It's not always convenient but my customer doesn't know that and if I want their business I have to put myself out.

On the other extreme, a little sub post office come corner shop near us is family run. They took over 15 years ago when their first child was four years old. They now have four children. Kids help at the weekend, mum and dad run it full time between them, mother and father in law help out in the evening and the woman's sister works early morning. They have someone who comes in to cover holidays so they can get away and, during the summer holidays and after school, one of the parents is always off duty whilst the other is in the shop so the kids don't suffer.

Because, as a sub post office they are open 5am (yes, 5am) until 8pm 6 days a week and 6am to 1pm on Sundays. After 15 years they are now selling up, it was always the plan to work their backsides off and take early retirement after that time. I think they should write a book on organising your life as I don't know how they do it.

Running a business is hard and I think some people go into it with starry eyes rather than a real strategy about what they actually want to achieve. And how to stop when the times right to move on.

Definitely this. I love the idea of shopping more locally if the service is pleasant and the produce is good quality and affordable. But I won’t move my own life around (change my working hours etc) for the benefit of a small business owner. There are plenty of small businesses who also sell on Etsy, I can just order online from them instead.

Our high street has been dead on its feet for decades. Strangely, the shops which are making a go of it are independents: a butchers, a toy shop, a bakers.

They have the stereotypical weird opening hours, there is an Asda within easy walking distance. Yet they keep going.

The butchers sells amazing bacon. You have to get there early or they sell out.

The toy shop sells the usual range but also has a model makers section. This pulls in a different clientele.

Some small business owners, unfortunately, open up assuming they can fit a business around their lives. Which you can to an extent. But if you want it to thrive you have to be there for your customers

Yeah I see that often "can't get a job because of hours? Why don't you open your own where you set your hours?"
Your customer base sets your hours in most cases, if you actually want to make a living.

Now, it will NEVER happen that everyone will be happy with your offerings and hours, but enough people have to be to make at least bit of money!

100%, OP.

It's always been baffling to me that the minute the overwhelming majority of the work force gets off work, independent stores, butchers, fish mongers, fruit and veg shops, etc shut their doors. And then have the gall to complain that they can't compete with the big stores.

The can. They don't want to readjust their opening hours to accommodate the times the bulk of the population can shop. if you force those people to shop weekends or evenings elsewhere, they're going to do it as efficiently as possible so as not to waste their precious time off and do it in one big stop, ie, a big store. Or move to online.

I've never understood it. And sunday trading hours are ridiculous. Lots of people would love just weekend jobs, but we're catering to the 10% of the population who still view it as a religious day of rest.

Running a small business is a juggle and is so different to the huge shops mentioned that are open all hours. The overheads of extending opening hours and paying staff have to be balanced against the additional
profit that would be gained from this plus the work / life balance of the owners too. Many people don’t fully understand the 24 / 7 nature of running your own business, there’s so much to be done behind the scenes that the owners will be doing in the evenings and weekends. Many small business owners never stop, all the marketing, accounts, website, social media, IT etc that are outsourced to dedicated members of staff in a large business often fall to the owner. Shop local where you can and realise that people put their heart and soul into running their own business.