In the UK we have some rather out-dated laws around Sunday trading meaning that shops can only open for 6 hours, some open at 10am and shut at 4pm, some at 10:30am shutting at 4:30pm and some at 11am shutting at 5pm. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve driven to pick something up at a store to catch them just before they shut to learn that you’re too late and they actually closed half an hour ago?
Something that I love about Google Maps is that its more than a map! What map can you get which also tells you what times a store is open, details of its website, photographs of it, reviews of it? This is where we are so fortunate that the massive growth of the World Wide Web has now meant that we can use an interactive map with all of these things and more, and not only that, but anyone with a smart phone has all of this information available to them at the end of their fingertips!
However… when that data is wrong, suddenly our reliance on this technology becomes a pain in the butt! You could use the data to ‘avoid the queues’ by turning up at 4:05pm at the local DIY store because I’ve just realised that I’ve run out of lightbulbs and the one in the bathroom has been flickering for the past few days, only to then realise that the store closes at 4pm and not 4:30pm! What a pain!
As Local Guides, we have the power and also the responsibility to get these things right! I recently went to my local retail park and spend half an hour just going round the shops and checking the ‘Opening hours’ on the front doors were the same as what were on Google Maps. Now these stores have mostly got media teams who have surely spent some time getting this information right on various platforms, right? No! I was shocked at how many stores had the wrong opening hours listed on Google Maps! Within 30 minutes I had managed to verify every store on the retail park, which will hopefully mean that noone else will have that unfortunate experience of driving somewhere when they think the shop will be open, to find that it actually just closed!