9-to-5.

We all know it well.

But did you ever stop to think about how much more could be done before and after these old-school hours?

If you’ve ever been to the bank or the post office between 9-5, Monday-Friday, and not encountered a line straight out of a Star Wars premiere, well you are a lucky person, indeed.

But it was just last week that a visit to a local small business reminded me yet again that perhaps the traditional business hours aren’t all they are cracked up to be.

2:15 PM on a Tuesday, and I was the only one in the store. By the time I left at 3, still no one else there.

Compare this to the zillion times I’ve raced to to my favorite shop only to be thwarted by a “Closed” sign at 6:02.

So wouldn’t it make tons more sense for small - and even large! - businesses to open earlier, or later, to ensure more business?

In fact, the big bucks retailers are already onto this. The Best Buys and the Safeways and the Targets of the world are usually open until at least 9 on any given day. They appreciate the magic of non-traditional hours.

Of course they have the large budgets and huge staff to make being open 12-hours a day a reality.

But if you’re a small retailer and profit traffic is not where you’d like it to be, why not get creative with your hours of operation?

Your web site does that already, of course.

But if it a fresh hours approach makes it easer for your customers to care a lot more for your products than the competition’s, you might just be onto something…something big!

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