How to fill your shop's off-peak hours
Every shop has its quiet times: Monday lunchtime, Tuesday morning, late afternoon. Your overheads, though, run all day. Filling these slots means extra revenue, with no additional fixed costs.
1. Identify your real quiet times
Over two or three weeks, note how busy you are by day and hour, or look at your POS or loyalty tool statistics. Aim for one or two priority time slots rather than all of them at once.
2. Create an offer just for those time slots
- Restaurant: free dessert or coffee on Monday lunchtime
- Café, bar: happy hour from 5 to 7 pm
- Hair salon: 15% off on Tuesday mornings
- Bakery: -30% on pastries in the last hour
- Loyalty programme: double stamps during the quiet slot
3. Notify your good customers at the right time
An offer in your window only reaches passers-by. A notification sent to your loyal customers a few hours before the slot, with a photo, is far more effective. Target those who live or work nearby.
4. Don't discount your peak hours
The offer must stay limited to the quiet slot. Otherwise your regulars wait for the promo and you lose margin at times when you'd have been full anyway.
5. Measure and adjust
Compare footfall in that time slot before and after your offer. If nothing changes after two or three weeks, change the offer or the sending time.