Most business owners think of their opening hours as a simple operational decision. You open when you can staff the shop and close when it gets quiet. But your hours are also a marketing decision, and one that affects whether customers find you at all.
Google tracks when people search for and visit businesses in every category and location. MarketBase uses those demand patterns to measure how well your hours match what local customers actually want. If you are closed when they are looking, they go to whoever is open.
In this article
- 1. Why this score is about demand alignment, not total hours
- 2. How Google popular times data reveals when customers want you
- 3. Common hours gaps that quietly send customers to competitors
- 4. Weekend and evening hours as a competitive edge in New Zealand
- 5. A practical plan to improve your score this week
This score is not about how long you are open
The Open Times score is the most unusual dimension MarketBase tracks. It does not reward you for being open the longest hours. It does not penalise you for closing on Sundays. Instead, it asks a sharper question: are you open when people in your area are actively looking for businesses like yours?
Google publishes "popular times" data for business categories in every location. You have probably seen it yourself: that bar chart on a Google listing showing when a place is busiest. That data reflects real patterns of when people search, visit, and make purchasing decisions.
MarketBase compares your listed opening hours against those demand patterns for your category and city. If your hours cover the busy periods, your score goes up. If you are closed during peak demand, your score drops. And if you are open during times when almost nobody is searching, that factors in too.
Key point
Your score reflects alignment, not effort. A physiotherapist open four days a week but perfectly covering peak demand times can outscore a competitor who is open six days but misses the hours that matter most.
What popular times data actually shows
Every time someone searches for "electrician near me" or "cafe open now" in your town, Google records that behaviour. Over time, these searches form clear patterns. Tuesday mornings might be quiet for hair salons in Hamilton but Saturday mornings could be packed. A mechanic in Tauranga might see peak demand at 7.30am on weekdays when people want to drop their car off before work.
These patterns vary by category and location. A restaurant in Wellington CBD sees completely different demand from a rural vet in Southland. MarketBase uses the patterns specific to your market, not a generic national average. Your score compares your hours against what customers in your city and category actually do.
The scoring also accounts for how reliable the data is. Patterns backed by large volumes of search activity carry more weight than thin data from less-searched categories. This means your score reflects genuine local behaviour, not statistical noise.
Why this matters more than you might think
Consider a cafe in a business district that opens at 7am and closes at 3pm. The owner is busy all morning and feels good about trade. But popular times data shows a strong demand spike between 4pm and 6pm as office workers look for afternoon coffee or a light meal on their way home. Every day, that cafe is invisible during a peak period, and every day, the cafe down the road that stays open until 6pm captures those customers.
The same pattern plays out across industries. A dentist who closes at 4.30pm misses the parents who can only book after school pickup. An accountant with no Saturday availability loses the self-employed clients who cannot take time off during the week. A dog groomer closed on Mondays misses the people who search over the weekend and want to book first thing on a weekday.
If you are closed when customers are looking, they go to whoever is open.
None of these business owners are doing anything wrong in the traditional sense. They are working hard during their hours. The problem is that their hours do not line up with when customers need them most, and they have no way of knowing that without demand data.
Common hours gaps
Across hundreds of New Zealand businesses, these are the patterns that most often drag open times scores down.
1. No hours listed at all
If your Google Business Profile has no opening hours, MarketBase cannot compare your availability against demand, and neither can your customers. An empty hours section tells Google nothing and tells customers you might not be a serious option. This is the single biggest factor in a low score.
2. Outdated or inaccurate hours
Hours set during COVID and never updated. Summer hours still showing in winter. A new closing time that was changed in reality but never changed on Google. Inaccurate hours frustrate customers who arrive to a locked door, and that frustration often becomes a negative review.
3. Closed during your category's peak demand
This is the gap that catches most people off guard. You feel busy during your hours, so you assume you are covering the right times. But the data might show a demand peak you are completely missing. Without seeing the popular times pattern for your category, you are guessing.
Tip
Check your own Google listing. Search for your business on Google and look at the "popular times" chart. It shows you the demand pattern customers see. If you are closed during any of the tall bars, that is a gap worth investigating.
4. No weekend hours when competitors offer them
Saturday is the single most popular day for in-person visits across most retail and service categories in New Zealand. If your competitors are open on Saturdays and you are not, you are handing them a full day of customers who cannot visit during the week.
5. Missing holiday hours
Public holidays and long weekends drive significant search activity for many business types. Customers search before they visit, and if your profile does not show holiday hours, they will not take the chance. Google prompts you to update holiday hours in advance. Take two minutes to do it.
Saturday hours: the New Zealand competitive edge
Weekend availability deserves special attention in the New Zealand market. Many service businesses default to Monday-to-Friday hours because that is what they have always done. But customer demand data consistently shows Saturday mornings as peak activity for trades, health services, beauty, automotive, and professional services.
Picture this
Dave runs an automotive repair shop in Christchurch. He always closed on Saturdays because that is what mechanics do. When he checked his MarketBase dashboard, his Open Times score was sitting at 34 out of 100.
He opened for a half-day on Saturdays as a trial. Within a month, Saturday mornings became his busiest booking slot. Customers told him they had been going elsewhere because they could not take time off work during the week.
His score climbed to 68. More importantly, his weekly revenue went up because he was serving demand that had always been there but he had never seen.
You do not need to be open seven days a week. Even a Saturday morning window of three or four hours can make a meaningful difference to both your score and your actual bookings, if Saturday is a peak demand time for your category.
Your hours live on your Google Business Profile
Your Open Times score is directly tied to the hours listed on your Google Business Profile. If your GBP hours are wrong, your score will be wrong too. If your GBP has no hours at all, you will score at the bottom of your market regardless of when you actually open the doors.
This also means improving your Open Times score is straightforward. You do not need to change when you actually operate (though that might help). You need to make sure your Google profile accurately reflects your real hours, including any weekend, evening, or holiday availability you offer.
Google also lets you set special hours for public holidays and seasonal changes. Using these keeps your profile accurate year-round and prevents the "are they actually open today?" uncertainty that sends customers elsewhere.
Improve your open times score
5 minutes today
- Check your Google Business Profile hours are accurate and up to date right now
- Look at the popular times chart on your own Google listing and note the peak periods
30 minutes this week
- Compare your hours to two or three local competitors and note any gaps where they are open and you are not
- Set special hours for the next public holiday on your Google Business Profile
- If you do not offer weekend hours, consider whether a Saturday morning trial is worth testing
Ongoing this month
- Set a monthly calendar reminder to review and update your GBP hours, especially heading into seasonal changes
- Track whether any hours changes you make lead to more enquiries or bookings during the new times
Where MarketBase fits in
You can check your own popular times on Google and compare hours against a few competitors manually. What you cannot do on your own is see how your hours alignment ranks against every business in your local market, tracked over time.
MarketBase scores your hours alignment from 0 to 100 based on your position relative to competitors in your area. Your score updates as demand patterns shift and as you adjust your hours. Fix the gaps, watch the score move, and know that every improvement means you are visible to more customers at the times they are actually searching. For more on how all nine dimensions work together, see how MarketBase scores work.