To think *some* independent shops really aren't helping themselves...?

[BeansAndNoodles]

I'm massively supportive of small businesses, I try to use them as often as I can. We are lucky to have a high street with lots of independent shops. However, my trips to town are limited due to being short of spare time, plus parking costs a fortune unless you limit it to the free 90 mins that you get in the supermarket car park, etc.

But time and time again I go to one of the independent shops to find them randomly shut. I get that they probably only have one staff member so it's hard to stay open if anything out of the ordinary happens, but it's still so flipping frustrating.

The last few trips to town have ended with me ordering stuff online or going into one of the chains because the independent shops I wanted were closed for no apparent reason. The independent health food shop is the worst, they close for an hour at some point between 11 and 3 for lunch but it's not the same time day to day and they don't say on the closed sign what time they'll be back, so if you get there and it's shut you don't know if it's worth trekking back to that end of town in 30 mins or not. I tend not to even bother checking now and just go straight Holland & Barrat instead. Several more shops seem to rely on posting that days opening hours on their FB page, but thats hardly a reliable way to tell people if they're open or not! Last week I had an afternoon off and took a trip to a different town specifically to go to a shop that stocks work by local artists to get some cards and gifts, only to find it closed with no indication of why or if it was opening late or what. I checked their FB page while stood outside but nope nothing. Later that day (3 hours after their stated opening time) they posted that they'd decided to open later for the Christmas lights switch on and that they hoped people would come and support them

Anyway I've just seen yet another slightly passive aggressive plea from one of the owners of the worst shops for this, complaining how quiet business is and telling people to use them or lose them yada. Well yes I totally agree but more often then not when I try to use them they're not bloody open!

Does anyone ever leave comments about the issues they've had with the independent business when the owners are kicking off on Facebook about people not supporting them? Or do they just end up mysteriously getting deleted vanishing.

I try to support local businesses but recognise so much of what's on this thread.

I stopped using a local beauty salon due to all of the 'rules' that the owner put in place and posted on FaceBook:

Don't come more than 3 minutes early for your appointment - we won't open the door
Don't arrive more than 3 minutes late for your appointment - we won't see you even if you've already paid in full
Don't come early and expect to be able to wait - we don't like having clients sitting outside the treatment rooms
You must bring 'indoor shoes' with you
Don't park outside the salon - we try to keep those spaces for staff
Don't bring cash as we can't get to the bank
We don't take cards as it's too expensive

It just went on and on... All next to posts around how hard it was for small businesses with the obligatory sad faces.

They sound like a bloody nightmare.
Did they expect you to pay with Bitcoin??

So you either hire someone to open, or you hire a childminder you can drop your kids at early?
Either way, you will more than make up the small amount you spend.
I once had that exact job-opening up a coffee shop. I’d get in about 6.30, open for 7.30. We did so much trade early doors.

Nail on the head. It's the same with a lot of my clients. Particularly tradesmen such as plumbers, mechanics, electricians, etc. They likewise worked their arses off in the early days to build up a loyal customer base and now they don't advertise anymore as their regulars keep them busy. I'm the same with my small accountancy practice - been here 25 years and havn't advertised nor taken on any new clients for the past 10 years, nor will I. It was bloody hard work at first, but I put heart and soul into giving clients the best possible service and in 25 years, only a handful have left to other accountants!

Small business/self employment ISN'T a hobby, it's not "something to do" for a bored housewife once their kids are at school!

Yes, long term, once established, you can have a "lifestyle" business with flexibility to work around your other interests/family, etc., but you can't do that from the outset as you have to put heart and soul into it to build it up in the first place.

Amen.
I work from 9 to 5, if you have the same opening hours I won´t be your customer, and neither will any of the thousands of office workers around me. There is a nice independent clothes shops across the street from us. I arrive to it closed and leave to it closed. There is never anyone in it, although there must be or it would be broke.

Won't work if the PROFIT made in the extra hour doesn;t cover ALL the overheads, ie wages, employment costs, overheads, utilities, etc. Successful business owners aren't idiots. They'd have crunched the numbers. And finding a staff member to only work an hour or two during the school run will be incredibly hard as most potential part time staff will be doing the school run themselves. It's also pretty basic fundamental of running a business that you need two staff if you're not there yourself for security and H&S. So that doubles the wages and employment related costs from the outset, even if you can manage to find two people willing to work just a couple of hours!

Have you fed this back to them?If not,why not?If you have then they should be taking on the feedback.

We have an independent gift shop on our mini High Street that sells quirky things but similarly they shut at times and have no message on the door or on Facebook. When they put a similar post up about use or lose I said and so did many others that it would be handy of they could update their opening hours either old-school with a note on the door or better yet on Facebook. They got all defensive so I don't bother going there tbh. People understand that if you have one or 2 staff members you night need to shut due to illness etc. but if it's just you opening when you feel like, why be so surprised when people don't turn up?

Ah, small businesses. They complain they can't "get staff" but what they actually mean by this is that they won't pay staff. They don't want to give someone a proper four hour shift to cover the lunch period, because if it turns out quiet, they've "wasted" money. How they prefer to operate is to call someone in at short notice, for about two hours, and pay them minimum wage.

Most employees obviously consider this to be taking the piss, and aren't exactly chomping at the bit to take a job like this. Living your life on call, to be paid peanuts by someone whose business is their life, and can't understand why you don't feel the same about it? That's the kind of job where you're better off not working. It's no surprise they can't get staff.

Not all small businesses, I'm sure, but most of them? This is the problem. They can't get staff because they don't respect their employees. You reap what you sow.

Sure... but that means losing the prime time business!

I’m a huge Amazon supporter. Super fast delivery at almost everything cheaper. And I don’t have waste time and effort as well.
Our Local independent stores are just ridiculous with 10 - 3 pm hours, everything SO overpriced and also follow you around trying to get you to buy something/ sit there with a pulled up face making you feel uncomfortable.
Im all for what works for me - cheaper prices, convenience, and time saving.

Fucking hell, I'd rather just stay ugly.

As the daughter of shopkeepers, I opened this thread ready to disagree with the OP. But you are right, shops need to be open a) when there is footfall and b) consistently. Small shops need to offer better service and better products than Amazon, or there’s no point.

Then you dont open a shop front business! very simple.

These are all factors you need to consider BEFORE you start it. If the cash flow projections wont work then you dont do it.

If I was going to open a retail business and had noone to do the school run I'd start my business online first, without the physical overheads, it would be flexible to my hours and I'd scale it gradually until my kids were older and I had the money to then open a shop (if I wanted to open a shop).

I am sorry but I have no sympathy for people who dont think these things through, plough ahead with it and then moan and whine that they cant make it work.

Noone should rush into starting a business. It takes research to explore if its viable or not and if you do it on a whim then dont complain when problems arise

When I was growing up there were lots of independent shops. They closed for lunch and Wednesday afternoons
This was before supermarkets were even thought about

However there was one food shop that sold everything you might need. It only had a small freezer and she didn’t sell any meat products unless it was in a tin but everything else was there. She opened a set 12 hours per day every single day barring Christmas Day. No other food shop could compete.
If you needed a pint of milk, even on a day when other shops might have been open you went there because you knew that shop was definitely open.

I have looked at struggling businesses and if you suggest to them that maybe they keep to set hours and don’t close their doors for lunch they look at you like you have suggested something really dreadful

Honestly agree with you that begging for business when no one knows when they are open is really taking the proverbial biscuit

I'm an Amazon boycotter and this drives me bonkers!

Also the moralising, urgh. I went to a local florist who is always hanging on about sad supermarket flowers and just caught her closing at 3pm (!) looking for a bouquet of dried flowers, which is something she sells. None in stock and I got a very teachery lecture about how it's best to work with dried flowers in late summer, so I would just have to wait and come back in several months time. I did not go back, I just went down the road to the farm shop (another independent) that opens sensible hours and turns out stocks dried bouquets the whole year round (I thought that was the bloody point of dried flowers!)

Ultimately they're not charities, and I don't feel any moral obligation to "support" Sandra's childhood dreams. I just want to buy nice things, fairly priced without going hugely out of my way to do so.

Couldnt agree more! Went to a lovely little market town nearby today ,to find that the super little 16thC cafe is now shut over Christmas! A lady outside who had booked for 12 people at a loss.Apparently renovations but surely be more understandable in Jan /Feb .

I have been there once, and I have walked past three or four times since it opened. I am the only person I have ever seen in there (other the the two business owners).

So many near us have this too. No, I’m not phoning up to make an appointment next week to awkwardly look around a shop selling prints of the local area, or the local craft shop, with the owner breathing down my neck having opened up especially for me.

I will pop in if I’m passing, and might well come back to buy something around Christmas or birthdays, but nobody wants a personal tour of the local wool shop.

I used to work in an off licence, and the owner Sarah had recently bought it from Duck.
Sarah had previously worked there as a regular employee.
Duck obviously made running the shop look easy, cos she very quickly realised that it was a lot of hard graft.
She used to go to the cash and carry twice a week, with her husband.
She could have saved herself a lot of aggravation if she had paid the cash and carry to deliver it all, in one delivery.

But, no. She’d rather ‘save’ the money and whinge about how many trips she was making to the cash and carry every week.

Daft mare.

YANBU, but have you actually told them they lose trade by acting like this?Maybe it’s never occurred to them. Obviously you can’t do it with everyone, but you could with e.g. the ones you mention here.

God yes. Out of date menus as well. Sometimes I am booking for people with specific dietary requirements, I need to know in advance and no I won't follow you on Instagram, use your bloody website!

This definitely. AND I can preorder and get it on publication day. Our local bookshop closed because of this and because of the prices. Honestly the bookshop could have ordered it off Amazon, got it delivered the next day, added a profit margin for themselves and it would STILL have been less than what they wanted to charge me to wait a month.

If they don't like it, maybe they shouldn't live in the centre of a market town?!

to be fair to the residents, are these noisy events longstanding or have they appeared relatively recently?

Increasingly I like to have my housework/exercise/wind down day on a Saturday, to decompress from work. On Sunday I enjoy myself and shop.