How often do you change your operating hours outside of holidays or festive season?

[tranguyen]

Happy March, everyone 🌸 🌼

In the next couple of weeks, the clocks will be going forward in preparation for longer daylight in many countries. In Dublin, it means the beginning of what is called "the grand stretch" — or when the sun shines longer. Shops also begin to lengthen their opening times for the season, with some staying open until 9pm into the evening.

With that in mind, we'd love to know:

How often do you change your operating hours outside of holidays or festive season?

Do you open longer when daylight lasts longer in the summer, or do you keep the same operating hours throughout the year? Or maybe, your operating hours are varied by days?

Looking forward to reading all your replies!

[mksavage]

@TheRealChipA @alexandriak Totally agree with all of this. I was going to say the same thing -- unless you're a seasonal business, keep your hours as consistent as possible. There's a local coffee shop nearby that I like to work at when I need a break from my own coffee shop (haha), but several times in a row when I went there, they were closed (at seemingly random times, with no explanation or post on social media). So, I've stopped going, because there's always a seed of doubt that they'll actually be open.

Whenever I see a new business opening with really odd hours (or hours that are different every single day of the week), it's hard for me not to call them up and say, "Okay, here's my unsolicited advice..."

[phillipsrw]

@tranguyen we don't flex the hours we like to advertise consistent opening times, but on occasions we do keep the shop open longer during the summer months as there are more people mulling around in the lighter, brighter months. So if we happen to be open, bonus for us and the unsuspecting customer. But it really depends on your business type, what you offer as well as your customer type, i.e. repeat customer v tourists.

[maxpete]

I like this approach and how it can be a surprise and delight for your customers too.

[MudFire_Dex]

We used to change seasonally - but adopted a 57 hour a week schedule a few years back after reopening from pandemic closure and it has worked really well and generated more profit - we used to be open later on the weekends but we started opening earlier on week days and members it and we can host events on weekend evenings now so that works great.

[VanKalkerFarms]

Same hours 6a-7p every day that isn't Christmas or Thanksgiving at our bakeries.

Personally I have quit supporting multiple local businesses because I would finally get out of work early and go to the comic book store and it is closed cause it is the third Tuesday or whatever day.  I hated to leave the struggling business but when the third time happened and they were closed on a random Thursday I took my business online and save 30% and shipped right to my door.  I was willing to eat the cost to support him, but after third time driving 30 minutes to a locked door at 3pm I was done.  Maybe it is my fault, but I just think consistency is key in hours.  

Now in our seasonal garden center it is complicated because there is no hard opening day until the weather says and we are open until we sell out so that could be a 20 day window in late June/early July.  We post a lot about the countdown to opening day and to closing day on Facebook.