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Hi {{given_name}},

How many people will check your hours on their phone this holiday season, drive over, and find a locked door?

One wasted trip might be all it takes for a regular to quietly start going somewhere else.

💡 This week's 80/20 rule - Set your holiday hours on Google and put them at the top of your website, even on days your hours stay the same.

🧠 A single bad experience sticks with people far longer than a good one, a pattern psychologists call the negativity bias. In a Yext survey of more than 1,000 U.S. shoppers, 44% of people said they had shown up to a closed business in the past year because the hours online were wrong, and 73% said they were unlikely to go back after that.

Google also flags the gap for you. When a profile has no special hours set for a holiday, Maps and Search can warn people that the hours might differ, and 52% of shoppers in the same Yext survey said that warning makes them less confident about visiting. Most don't bother. When Yext checked millions of its own clients' locations, only 8.6% updated their hours for Memorial Day 2021.

It's like leaving a note on the door before you go on vacation. It takes two minutes, and it saves every visitor from a wasted trip and a bad first impression.

🏔️ REI Co-op – This outdoor retailer decided to close all 143 stores on Black Friday in 2015, normally one of its top sales days. Instead of letting shoppers find out at the door, it told its members about a month ahead in a letter and turned the closure into an invitation to spend the day outside. More than 1.4 million people and 170 companies and nonprofits joined in that first year.

🎯 Target – This retail chain closed its stores on Thanksgiving Day for the first time in 2020. Its CEO says that once team members told him how much they valued the time with their families, making it permanent was an easy call. Shoppers weren't left guessing, either. Target leaned on season-long deals and easy pickup and delivery so people could still get their shopping done.

🌯 Qdoba Mexican Eats – After changing its name in 2015, this restaurant chain had duplicate and unmanaged listings all over the web. It cleaned up tens of thousands of location names, addresses, and phone numbers from one dashboard. The team said that cleanup alone brought a spike in traffic and fewer calls from customers asking things like "what are the store hours?"

Set special hours for every holiday
In your Google Business Profile, open Edit profile, then Hours, then Special hours. Google lists the upcoming holidays for you, so you can confirm each one in a few taps.

Confirm the days you stay open
If your hours don't change on a holiday, set them anyway. Confirming your normal hours is what removes the "hours might differ" warning from your listing.

Block the dates in your booking tool
Close the days you're off in your online booking calendar so nobody books a slot you won't be there for. A cancelled appointment hurts more than a closed door.

Add one line to your confirmation email
Mention your holiday closure in booking confirmations and reminders for the next few weeks. Clients who already booked are the people most likely to try to rebook during the break.

Put a banner across the top of your site
Use one short line like "Closed Nov 26 and 27, orders ship again Nov 30" in your site banner. Shoppers see it before they fill a cart, not after.

Set an automatic email reply
Turn on an out of office reply for the days you're closed that says when you'll answer and when orders will ship. It turns silence into a clear promise.

Show the order cutoff on the product page
Add a line near the add to cart button with the last day to order for delivery before the holiday. That's the moment the question comes up.

Update your pickup hours too
If you offer local pickup, change those hours in your store settings and on Google. A pickup customer who finds a locked door is the one most likely to leave a bad review.

1️⃣ The rule change: Set holiday hours on Google and at the top of your website, even when your hours stay the same.

2️⃣ Why it works: 44% of shoppers have found a business closed when it was listed as open, and most of them don't come back.

3️⃣ The result: Fewer wasted trips, fewer "are you open?" calls, and customers who trust what your listing says.

🔎 For this week's website review, let's look at Bakeshop. Bakeshop is a small bakery on NE Sandy Boulevard in Portland, Oregon, run by baker Kim Boyce, known for seasonal pastries, pies, and weekend preorders.

💡 The Good:

Real photos doing the selling
Every image on the page is Bakeshop's own pastries, shot close and in natural light: crumbly apple pie, crackled molasses cookies, flaky pastries. No stock photos anywhere. For a bakery, that's a huge win, because the photos do the convincing before a single word gets read.

One button, one clear next step
The weekend preorder block pairs a single sentence about when to order and when to pick up with one solid red "Shop Weekend Order Menu" button. There's no competing button nearby, so the next step is never in doubt.

Warm, consistent brand colors
The round red logo, the red headings and the cream background carry through the whole page down to the dark brown footer. It feels like one shop, not a template, and the red sits clearly on the cream with plenty of contrast.

🔧 Suggestions:

Put the button and hours on the first phone screen
On a phone, the "Shop Weekend Order Menu" button sits about two screens down, under a photo collage, and the walk-in hours come after it. Moving one line of hours and that button directly under the logo puts the two things most visitors want right in the thumb zone.

Give the red menu text a solid background
The small red menu labels sit right on top of a busy pastry photo, so they blend into the crust and are hard to read, especially on a phone. A solid cream bar behind the menu, or white text with a dark overlay on the photo, would make every label readable at a glance.

Show Kim's James Beard Award on the page
The site's own search description mentions Kim Boyce's James Beard Award, but it doesn't appear anywhere on the homepage. One short line or small badge next to the preorder button would put that proof right where people decide to order.

See you next time for another simple, high-impact strategy!

The LOGO Editorial Team