Nearly two-thirds of independent convenience stores are losing out on thousands of customers each year by listing wrong opening hours online.

Better Retailing analysed the trading hours listed on Facebook, Google Business and symbol group websites with live customer visitor data for 300 of the best convenience stores in the UK, as measured by industry award recognition.

Incorrect times were listed on at least one platform in 63% of stores.

More than 50% of stores had incorrect trading hours on Facebook and more than 40% of stores had incorrect trading hours on their symbol group’s own website.

While Budgens, Co-op and unaffiliated stores analysed had the best accuracy when it came to listing trading hours across all platforms, Costcutter, One Stop and Londis had the worst accuracy, with 70% of stores analysed featuring wrong hours on at least one platform.

The inaccuracies follow a year of unprecedented changes in store hours due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Pandemic drives surge in online availability and opening hours checks

NearSt offers technology to convenience stores that makes live availability data available to shoppers, helping shops to win new customers looking for goods nearby.

During the pandemic, it saw the number of customers searching for store information increase by up to 700%, and searches remain 300-400% higher than before the pandemic.

Co-founder Nick Brackenbury said Better Retailing’s research showed “a real missed opportunity” for independent stores. “If you go to a shop for the first time and the shutters are down or they don’t have what you expected, it’s very unlikely you’d visit again.”

He advised stores to focus on removing “friction” between the customer thinking of visiting and arriving at the checkout.

“Things such as opening hours or availability may seem trivial, but they make a phenomenal difference to customers’ choices as to whether they buy from an independent, a supermarket or online.”

Responding to the findings, a Costcutter spokesperson told Better Retailing: “Localised search is increasingly popular with shoppers, however updating directory data across multiple independently own sites is more complex than in whole-owned estates.

How retailers can make the most out of Google Maps

“As part of our commitment to support our independent retailers, we are trialling the use of [platform] Yext, which centralises the process to provide consistent data across Google and other major directory channels.”

Bestway Wholesale trading director Kenton Burchell said the group’s data showed 54% of customers used their phones to search for opening hours or shop contact details before visting.

Explaining how Bestway (Best-one) supports stores in achieving the right details online, he told Better Retailing it also used Yext.

Burchell added: “We update opening hours and/or store contact details, when necessary, predominantly on Google, as Google impressions account for 99% of our traffic, whereas Facebook, for example, is only 0.2%. We prioritise ensuring Google is the most up to date because of this.

“When updating opening hours and/or store contact details on Google, we update our websites to ensure consistency across all online platforms. Our retailers put forward suggestions to changes including opening hours, and these are approved where they are worthwhile and necessary.

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