“Are you open?” is a common question customers have. Typically, they try to find out any way they can. Today, people use Google Search to find out. Often, that leads them to Google Maps. The store’s hours are gathered from many sources, which includes information from Local Guides.
The problem is that store hours can change. Holidays impose different open hours. Other factors impact the business hours, like national holidays and unforeseen events. Google Maps does have some provisions for holiday hours if the information is available from the owner. However, a Local Guide can only edit the normal hours of operation.
Having spent too much time editing store hours, an idea surfaced. What if it could be made automatic? What if the store owned a device that would indicate that it is open/closed state? What if the Open/Close sign was able to tell Google Maps its current state? Not really that technically advanced, but it is interesting.
If a shop was able to indicate its open hours from a device at the business (which could be potentially a phone with an app), it would guarantee that the open/close data was live. The information would be exactly correct and would be posted live to Google Maps.
The more I have thought about it, the more it seems that this should be the way it works anyways, regardless of how people use Google Maps. The store hours should be standardised and posted on the web in a way that can be consumed by anyone. They do this for movie times, so why not for store hours as well?
2022
