AIBU to think you cannot say use us or lose us when you barely open?

[catchingup1]

There is a local independent cafe near me that has been posting a lot on social media about how people need to support them or they will disappear. I do try to support independents where I can.

The tone of the posts is very much use us or lose us, talking about how they cannot compete with the big coffee chains and how locals need to step up.
So I made a point of going.

It is only open 10 to 3, closed Wednesdays and Sundays.

The big chains they are comparing themselves to are open early mornings, evenings, weekends, basically when people actually want coffee.

I am not saying it is easy running a small business and I do not expect them to match chain hours exactly. But they are blaming customers for not supporting them while being open very short hours.

We have this with my sister in law. has her own craft /coffee / farm shop. she has had it a good few years now. yes constantly promoting/begging posts on Facebook etc but she has done exactly as you described. used to be able to get eggs and farm produce now no longer does that. Cafe was huge now half the size. food offerings chopping and changing she used to make most herself- she is a very good cook in fairness- but now majority bought in and the constant changing of her opening hours. All of my husbands family are self employed including my husband so they all know what work they have to do and know that it entails long hours. my husband despairs when he sees her posts. she had been told numerous times. she has also been bailed out numerous times too. in my own personal opinion she is lazy and as soon as she can she will close and rely on her inheritance to survive

Even if they faced fair competition (Starbucks and others paying what most of us consider a reasonable level of tax), I don't think any business which such short hours can hope to survive unless they are the only one there.

I have my own business, and I don’t use social media at all. I think people think it’s glamorous in some way, and that I am raking it in, but actually it’s hard work and social media is extra hard work!

I wonder if you live near me, because we have a charity type shop near us, we weren't sure of opening times, so we were going to pop in, we'd just started opening the door and the women literally ran over to the door and pushed it shut (as we were still opening it) and yelled no we're closed.

Ok then!

That kind of message gets my back up- there's a gift barn/cafe near us with prominent signs saying 'we cannot survive on coffee alone, please look at our great selection of gifts...' however the place is full of glitzy shit Rita Fairclough might like with the odd acceptable hand lotion here and there so what can you do?

And actually having a talent to make and create something unique. Too many small businesses don’t have anything original or unique in their shops.

Completely agree, there was a pretty scathing post on social media from an independent cake shop near me. She even had a newspaper article done. Along the same lines.

She had gone from selling from home, to opening a shop in the high street, which I do imagine was at great cost. But she also only opens Tues-Sat 10-3. There's just not going to be the footfall to make that worthwhile in our town centre in the week. The cakes are amazing and no doubt she was doing a rip roaring trade from home, but I bet if you asked when the majority of people were collecting it wasn't Tues-Fri 10-3...

Honestly think this is a brilliant idea

Agree. We have one cafe in town that we always head to.
They do great coffee and lots of alternative drinks.
Their menu is good with lots of variety even though on the pricier side with a good choice of both sweet and savoury. For people who can't spend £12-15 on a cafe meal, there are scones with extra twiddly bits like cheese and pickle, plus other options around the £5-6 mark.
It's constantly busy and sometimes there is a wait for tables and it's the cafe that is consistently recommended on Facebook.

There is so much room in town for other cafes to step up and be as popular - we would love an alternative to it, but they never seem to think about what would be a winning formula and the other offerings are merely functional.

I recently went to a tourist town and found that a lot of shops were only open at weekends, never seen that before! If you don’t live in a tourist town then I can’t see that only opening in the middle of the day when the majority of people are at work is ever going to be a good idea. And bizarre they are not open Sundays! Do they do delivery so people working from home can get lunch delivered?

Costa is always busy after work here and a little cafe that opens until 9pm is always heaving - they do desserts and pastries so there is a draw for a treat or a non-alcoholic drink without having to go to a bar

I think it’s a really hard one for small businesses to work with. We have a local coffee shop that posts these things now about use us or lose us but just the same they are competing with a Greggs literally opposite them on the street.

They can’t compete with the cost of Greggs which is expected, Greggs £3.60 for sandwich & coffee whereas just a coffee in the independent for something like a latte/mocha is £4.50 ish. They do lovely cakes and their coffee & food is much nicer than Greggs plus they have tables so you can sit inside etc, it is lovely and I love going there BUT they are only open 11am-2pm, weekends it’s 10:30am-3pm so slightly longer hours. If I’m going out for a coffee midweek it’s usually 9am, at a push 10, definitely before 11 and even on a weekend most people tend to be out for coffees/breakfast before 10:30. It’s a staffing issue as if they aren’t going to be busy then they can’t afford to pay the staff for a full day which I do understand but it always feels to me like they are missing the trick with opening hours. Opening too late to get the morning coffees/cakes and then closing too soon to get the after nursery/school/work people popping in.

There is one like this near me. It doesn’t open till 10 and it closes at 3:30. So there is literally never a time that I can use it. I would’ve thought they’d earn more money being open early until lunchtime or lunchtime until five. Just being open in the middle of the day doesn’t seem to make a great deal of sense. It’s not got a big lunch offering or anything. It’s literally coffee and cake.

It's usually the setting up and closing down times, i.e. a couple of hours before opening and an hour after closing, that's the problem. They may open 10 to 3.30 but almost certainly they're working 8 to 4.30. If they open longer, they have to be there earlier and/or later.

If they have staff, a longer day means more paid breaks etc., where only having staff for say 2/3 hours in the middle of the day means no paid breaks. Also, staff working longer hours means higher pay which may push them into being liable for workplace pension costs, employers NIC, etc which are avoidable with workers on very low hours.

You can't just walk into a cafe and open to customers within a few minutes. Cookers/ovens have to be heated, food has to be cooked, etc. At the end of the day, it all needs cleaning (tables/chairs, plus counters, cookers, etc), tills to be cashed up, etc.

Not excusing limited hours, but explaining it!

She actually asked the local newspaper to write an article about how she was annoyed with people for not coming to her cafe? I bet that one went down well.

This is such a vicious circle, because they might not be able to afford someone at those times. We also have a couple of independent sellers on our high street, and while I'd love to support them, they are also SO MUCH more expensive than bigger/online shops. It's sad, but I won't spend 100 quid extra just to support them, I'm afraid...

Sadly our local petshop has yet again reduced their opening days. They open Tues to Friday morning.

We have a variety of pets. My only opportunity (work commitments) was to go Friday afternoon or Saturday. I'm now trying to dash there on Tues after work and hoping theyve not shut a bit early.
But when I can't - I am going to the big chain petshop. I dont want to... but our animals need stuff.

Very sick of the "woe is us, working so hard and you... local community don't support us, you big meanies" on the local FB group.

I

We had a sweet shop near us complaining about the same thing. They opened 15 hours a week, including only 9-12 on Saturdays. I don’t know how they expected to make any money on 14 hours a week.

If you are paying the same rent whether you are open 4 hours or 8, your costs to open 4 hours are so much higher.
A coffee shop near us came up with a really good idea and let a local couple rent the venue in the evening for a set number of meals twice a week. The couple had a Turkish themed menu or a curry night etc. People booked in advance and numbers were restricted to one sitting.

Yeah and the comments were essentially just hoards of people telling her the opening times weren't compatible with their schedules etc.

So I guess she got feedback from it if nothing else

The only time I get to go and have coffee with a book is in the evenings when my children are at their clubs (6.30pm-8ish). The only coffee shops open at those times are Costa/Starbucks so that’s where I have to use. They are always at least half full so there’s demand there.

I get both sides. Yes you can’t use them if they aren’t open at times you want…. equally they can’t afford to open all hours and pay rent, rates, heating, power, staff for those times when they might get next to no trade….

Unfortunately, it's economies of scale. Smaller businesses pay more to buy their products than the big stores because they usually don't buy direct, so there are one or two extra "layers" of firms taking a cut, i.e. distributors and/or wholesalers.

I have a couple of clients with convenience stores and they buy huge amounts of "branded" stuff from local "big" supermarkets when they have offers/discounts, so obviously they can't sell cheaper than the supermarket because they pay the same themselves, or more if they buy from other suppliers. They try to fill their shops with things the big supermarkets don't sell i.e. less known brands of crisps rather than Walkers etc so they're not competing so much.

A bakery/pie/sandwich shop I have as a client sells hot pies over the counter for £3.00. 50p of that is VAT which goes straight to HMRC leaving only £2.50. They pay the local pie making firm £2 per pie (quality local pies), so that only leaves them 50p profit per pie. They constantly get people whinging saying they can buy a pie for £1.50 at Tesco - forgetting the Tesco pies are cheap and naff from a production line, have to be cooked out of the 50p profit, and also the wastage at the end of the day from unsold pies going into the skip (for which they have to pay as it's not covered by business rates!).

Nail on the head. Chicken and egg really. I've known our village pie shop for 25 years - it's had 3 different owners and I've been the accountant for 2 of the 3 owners. Over the years, they've tried opening longer hours, opening Sundays, opening on "one off" days for special local events, stalls at the village school Christmas fair and Summer fete. Their opening hours today are exactly the same as they were 25 years ago, as none of the "extra" openings they tried justified the extra expense of utilities and staffing and wastage. The current owners tried a few different things, but have reverted back to the historical tried and tested opening hours and product ranges.

Exactly the same in my town.

Independent cafes are semi-busy in a morning, but it’s usually full of workmen getting their breakfast or coffees as we’re having the high street pavements upgraded. They shut at 2. Then 3pm onwards Costa and Greggs are absolutely heaving with school kids and parents.

There’s a newly opened cafe at the train station I commute from. The main commuter train is 7.29am. The cafe opens at 7.30am. When I pointed out that 7am or even 7.15am might be a better opening time (in response to an insta story specifically asking for feedback!) I didn’t even get a response.