After doing our weekly shop at the local ASDA Wal-Mart we filled up with petrol at the automated filling station and I was amazed to find that it’s only open for the same hours as the store. I’ve been racking my brains to try and work out why it ever shuts but every reason I thought of just doesn’t make sense. The reasons I considered were:

• Staff hours – but there are no staff, it’s totally automated.
• Prevent drive offs – doubtful, the pump won’t turn on until it’s authorised your credit card.
• No cash stored overnight – if the machines took cash they might not want to leave them “full” overnight for fear of theft, but they only take credit cards.
• Legal restrictions on trade – again doubtful, other petrol stations are open 24 hours a day.

It just doesn’t make sense to me to create an automated business and then run it as though it has staff and their associated costs. It’s not just the local supermarket though, I regularly buy companies accounts from Companies House when performing competitor analysis for a new business opportunity or idea, yet I’ve found on numerous occasions I’ve visited the site to find a virtual equivalent of:

Why, it’s a website, it’s an automated service? Not just that but it’s a service that has a potentially worldwide audience (foreign companies might be wishing to run checks against British ones) so why limit it to UK business hours?

If you’re closed when I want to buy you’re missing the opportunity to get my business. If your business can stay open 24 hours a day, 365 days per year without a significant increase in overheads then make the most of the opportunity and stay open.

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