Shops closing early!!

[KILTIECAULDBUM]

Following on from the 'Smoking Shop keepers' thread, we went out of our way today to go to a shop in Wick. It states on their business hours on the business section here (we checked before we left) that they are open 9.30am until 5.30pm Mon-Fri, yet we get there today (Wednesday) just after 4.50pm and they were completely closed up with the padlocks on the outer doors etc, so they hadn't just closed, as it would have taken a good bit of time to get all their stock back in from outside the shop front.

I just can't understand why they should do this, when everybody is talking about how hard things are for privately owned shops up here at the moment? It might only have been around £10 or so we were going to spend, but it's £10 they're not going to get from us now! Why advertise business hours and then skive off early? As I said, it was before 5pm when we got there, so that's around 40 minutes before they were supposed to close!!

If they have changed their opening hours, they should at least change them in the places they have them listed!! i.e the business section on here?

Rant over, lol.

[Beat Bug]

It's even more frustrating when you make a special effort to visit a shop, only to find they've closed down!

[Fran]

was it half day?

[KILTIECAULDBUM]

was it half day?

No. We passed it around 3.30pm and it was open, but decided to come back later with the car as the items we were after were quite bulky and they were supposed to be open until 5.30pm. As I said though, we checked the business listings on here first and they don't close for lunch or a half-day?

[Kodiak]

You try and change or delete a listing in the business section, it is almost impossible.

I retired quite a number of years and when thid happened I wrote and asked for my listing in the Business section to be removed. Nothing happened.

So I wrote again, still nothing. I wroye once a week for 6 weeks, no difference. So I wrote to Bill Fernie asking him to if he could get someone to remove my listing. Guess what I never even had a reply so I gave up.

It has now been 8 years and I never managed to get my information removed from the Business Section, so it is very possible that this shop you went to has tried to get their information updated but Caithness. org have just never done it.

I have just checked and my Listing is still in the Business Section but the is one good this about it. All the contact details have all changed so I no longer get people want me to go and take their Wedding Photographs.

[KILTIECAULDBUM]

You try and change or delete a listing in the business section, it is almost impossible.

I retired quite a number of years and when thid happened I wrote and asked for my listing in the Business section to be removed. Nothing happened.

So I wrote again, still nothing. I wroye once a week for 6 weeks, no difference. So I wrote to Bill Fernie asking him to if he could get someone to remove my listing. Guess what I never even had a reply so I gave up.

It has now been 8 years and I never managed to get my information removed from the Business Section, so it is very possible that this shop you went to has tried to get their information updated but Caithness. org have just never done it.

I have just checked and my Listing is still in the Business Section but the is one good this about it. All the contact details have all changed so I no longer get people want me to go and take their Wedding Photographs.

That's a fair point and maybe they have changed their opening hours but, the thing is, if they were still opened around 3.30pm then they weren't closing half-day obviously. They were also closed by 4.50pm, not 5pm or even 5.30pm as you might expect, so either way it still looks as though they have closed early?

[gerry4]

I must say I find the Business Listings very frustrating as they are so out of date. I never trust them and use them as a pointer.

Other areas are equally out of date. A good site but if the information cannot be trusted then people will use it less & less.

[Corrie 3]

The Owner just may have had an emergency on and had to leave quickly !

C3............:eek:

[M R]

Did you check round the back of the shop ? probably round there having a smoke......

[annemarie482]

the business section really really needs updating.
but we all know that!
a while ago, i tried to find a childminder, first 4 i called had stopped doing it YEARS ago.
recently i tried to find a joiner, first 6 i called weren't in business any more and the last one had retired 4 years ago!
but how would the org go about updating these things?

[Dadie]

Well I tried the business listings to get a childminder in my local area.....found out they had emigrated 5 years ago!
Errm maybe an overhaul of the business listings would be very helpful....and it would stop the sarky comments with the answer of-try the business pages!
An email or phonecall to the businesses to be replied from within a couple of weeks or the entry will be deleted should suffice!
Then a yearly update email(tick box if need be...same deal or any alterations etc) or be deleted option should be applied!

[secretsquirrel]

what you have to remember is that most shops in wick still think it is the 1920/30's and not 2012.

[Niall Fernie]

Kodiak, you will now see that your listing has been removed. If you had had no luck with e-mail, you could have phoned. Anyway, fixed now.

Dadie, you could always tell us which business no longer exists and we can remove it.

Making phone calls to every business in our listing would be a full time job so we rely on people telling us that a business has closed or changed its information. We get a huge amount of updated information sent to us and if you watch the "Latest Updates" section on the left hand side of the Business Index home page you will see it change regularly. We come across new information all the time ourselves as well, new web sites, facebook pages and twitter feeds. From these we will extract updated or correct information.

I am looking at adding the date of the last update to the information pages so that people can judge for themselves how accurate the information is likely to be.

The trend has always been that new businesses are very quick to give us their information for the site but almost never tell us when they close. We're always happy to get a pointer to changes or closures from anywhere. PMs on here, the enquiry form on the business index (checked by three of us several times a day), telephone calls, e-mail. Anyone can tell us, its easy to verify.

There are some really pro-active businesses in the county with regards to their details being up to date but they are in the minority. Getting business people to tell you about their business is sometimes like pulling teeth. We are always ready to add any little news items they they may have to share but we never get any. Without the business agencies that send us news you would think that business just does not happen in Caithness. I would have thought that businesses here would love to crow about their successes, new contracts, new directions and the like but no, not a peep.

If any business would like to send us news of what they are up to, we are happy to put it on the site. This of course does not just apply to businesses, arts groups, musicians, sports groups, community/voluntary groups can all send us information for the site.

As for other parts of the site being out of date, this is something we are going to address soon with a new community index. This is a part of the site that has been neglected for far too long.

Anyway, we hope that Caithness.Org as a whole will continue to improve and it will happen with the input from everyone who uses the site.

Unfortunately the site is not a full time job for any of us so changes might not be a fast as we like but we will get there.

[Birons]

With it being "bash a local shopkeeper week" I thought it wise to check that our information in the business section was correct and current, but found that an offer we ran last Christmas was out of date.:eek:

I used the method explained by the Org Master for removing historic information and it was done within the hour.

Well done the Org and thank you Niall for your Prompt attention.:Razz

www.birons.co.uk

[KILTIECAULDBUM]

With it being "bash a local shopkeeper week" I thought it wise to check that our information in the business section was correct and current, but found that an offer we ran last Christmas was out of date.:eek:

I used the method explained by the Org Master for removing historic information and it was done within the hour.

Well done the Org and thank you Niall for your Prompt attention.:Razz

www.birons.co.uk (http://www.birons.co.uk)

I would like to confirm that it wasn't your shop that I was referring to. Just noticed in your Avatar image that like the shop I'm on about, you also have items outside, so just thought I would clarify that!!