Choosing the right opening hours in Big Ambitions can make a bigger difference than you might expect. You don’t want to keep a business open for 24 hours if you’re paying workers during hours when barely anyone visits. At the same time, closing during your busiest hours means you could be leaving easy money on the table.
In this guide, we’ll look at the best opening times for different businesses in Big Ambitions, based on the traffic data from testing. I’ve focused on the busiest hours and days so you can use your workers more efficiently and avoid wasting money on unnecessary operating hours.
Big Ambitions Best Opening Times for Every Business
Keep in mind that these numbers are also affected by your Traffic Index and Marketing/Promotion. If your promotion is only around 10%, you probably won’t notice a huge difference because your overall customer traffic is already low.
However, once you have good promotion and steady traffic, these numbers become much more useful for optimizing your schedule and improving your profit margins.
Bookstore
The Bookstore has a fairly different traffic pattern compared with some of the other businesses. Its strongest period comes later in the morning rather than first thing in the day.
Peak window: Saturday, 11 AM–12 PM
Busiest day: Saturday
The demand by day of the week is:
| Day | Demand |
|---|---|
| Monday | 8.2 |
| Tuesday | 7.7 |
| Wednesday | 6.6 |
| Thursday | 7.7 |
| Friday | 8.8 |
| Saturday | 11.0 |
| Sunday | 9.9 |
Saturday is clearly the strongest day for the bookstore, reaching 11.0 demand, while Wednesday is the quietest at 6.6. Friday and Sunday are also relatively good days, so I wouldn’t recommend cutting too many hours on those days if your bookstore is already making decent money.
The most important period to keep covered is Saturday around 11 AM to 12 PM, since this is the peak window. If you’re trying to reduce labor costs, you can start by making sure your workers are available during the stronger periods instead of simply keeping the store open all day.
Coffee Shop
Coffee shops have a much earlier customer pattern. The biggest traffic spike comes right at the start of the morning.
Peak window: Monday, 6 AM–7 AM
Busiest day: Monday
Here’s the demand by day:
| Day | Demand |
|---|---|
| Monday | 10.6 |
| Tuesday | 10.3 |
| Wednesday | 10.0 |
| Thursday | 9.7 |
| Friday | 9.5 |
| Saturday | 9.0 |
| Sunday | 9.0 |
Monday is the strongest day at 10.6 demand, followed closely by Tuesday at 10.3 and Wednesday at 10.0. Interestingly, the weekend is the weakest part of the week, with both Saturday and Sunday sitting at 9.0.
For a coffee shop, I’d pay particular attention to the early morning. The 6 AM–7 AM window on Monday is the peak, so having your staff ready during this period is important if you want to take advantage of the strongest traffic.
If you’re trying to optimize labor costs, the coffee shop is a good example of why you shouldn’t automatically use the same opening schedule for every business. A schedule that works for a bookstore may not make sense here.
Fruit & Vegetable Store
The Fruit & Vegetable Store also performs particularly well on Saturday, but its peak comes even earlier in the morning.
Peak window: Saturday, 6 AM–7 AM
Busiest day: Saturday
The demand numbers are:
| Day | Demand |
|---|---|
| Monday | 10.8 |
| Tuesday | 9.5 |
| Wednesday | 9.5 |
| Thursday | 9.5 |
| Friday | 10.8 |
| Saturday | 12.6 |
| Sunday | 12.0 |
Saturday is the clear winner here, with 12.6 demand, followed by Sunday at 12.0. Monday and Friday are also fairly strong at 10.8.
The biggest thing I noticed from these numbers is that the store can be especially valuable during the weekend. If you’re cutting hours to save on wages, I would be careful about cutting your Saturday and Sunday schedule too much.
The Saturday 6 AM–7 AM period is the peak window, so you definitely want your workers available during that time if you’re trying to squeeze as much value as possible from your store.
Gym
The Gym has the highest overall demand numbers among the businesses covered here. It also has a strong early-morning peak.
Peak window: Monday, 6 AM–7 AM
Busiest day: Monday
Here’s how demand is distributed throughout the week:
| Day | Demand |
|---|---|
| Monday | 15.2 |
| Tuesday | 14.4 |
| Wednesday | 13.7 |
| Thursday | 13.7 |
| Friday | 14.4 |
| Saturday | 15.2 |
| Sunday | 15.2 |
The interesting thing about the gym is how consistent the demand is. Monday, Saturday, and Sunday all reach 15.2, while Tuesday and Friday are still strong at 14.4.
Wednesday and Thursday are the lowest at 13.7, but that’s still relatively close to the rest of the week. Because of this, I wouldn’t make huge changes to the gym’s schedule just because of the day of the week.
The most important peak to cover is Monday from 6 AM to 7 AM. If you have staff working at the gym, make sure you have enough coverage around this period so you don’t miss customers during one of the strongest traffic windows.
How to Use These Traffic Numbers
These numbers are most useful when you combine them with your own business performance. Traffic alone doesn’t tell the whole story because Marketing/Promotion and the Traffic Index can change how many customers actually show up.
For example, if your promotion is very low, there may not be enough customers coming through the door for a perfectly optimized schedule to make much difference. Once your promotion is strong and the business is consistently attracting customers, optimizing your opening hours becomes much more worthwhile.
I would also avoid looking at the peak hour in isolation. A single busy hour doesn’t necessarily mean you should close immediately before and after it. You still need to consider worker shifts, restocking, deliveries, and whether keeping the business open for additional hours generates enough sales to justify the wages.
For me, the easiest way to approach it is to keep your workers around the strongest traffic periods first, then expand your opening hours as the business becomes more profitable. This lets you control labor costs while still covering the hours where customers are most likely to spend money.
These peak periods are the ones I would prioritize when setting up worker schedules. Once you have enough money coming in, you can keep the businesses open for longer, but during the early stages of Big Ambitions, controlling wages is important.
If you’re still building up your businesses, I’d rather have a smaller schedule that covers the profitable traffic periods than pay employees to stand around during hours with very little demand.