Twenty to ten on a Friday night, four people in a kitchen, and the question “is the offo still open”. Whoever has the phone types “off licence near me open” and takes the first result Google says is open. If your listing has the wrong hours, they are at your shutter five minutes after you locked it, or they went to the shop up the road that said it was open. Websites for off-licences in Dublin come down to two things: being right about when, and being clear about what. The Google listing does the rest.
The hours are set by law, and Google has to match them
The times you can sell drink are fixed by licensing law, with a later start on Sundays and St Patrick’s Day and no sales on Christmas Day. If the shop opens before the drink counter does, as a newsagent with a licence will, the page and the listing need to say both. Christmas week, New Year’s Eve and the bank holidays all need hours set in advance, and you can do that yourself on the private edit page, or text us. The listing side is covered in setting up a Google Business Profile in Ireland, and we set it up and verify it for you on both plans.
Say what you stock in the words people search
“Craft beer Dublin.” “Natural wine.” “Irish whiskey shop.” “Non-alcoholic beer.” The name of a bottle. People search for the thing, then look for a shop near them that mentions it. So the page lists the ranges in plain words: the Irish craft cans and the breweries you carry, the whiskey wall and whether you do independent bottlings, wine by country with a few staff picks, gin, the non-alcoholic shelf (which is searched for by name), gift boxes, mixers, ice and snacks.
Specialist searches get put to ChatGPT and the other AI tools as well as Google (“where can I buy a bottle of a particular whiskey in Dublin tonight”), and those tools can only quote what a page states. We have set out what helps a business show up in ChatGPT answers, without promising that it will.
Parties, weddings, kegs and the van
Someone planning a wedding, a 21st or a Christmas party wants to know whether you do cases on sale or return, kegs and gas, glass hire, ice by the bag, and delivery on the day. A short enquiry form with the date, the numbers, the address and what they are thinking of goes to your email and WhatsApp, and you quote from the shop rather than across the counter on a Saturday. If you deliver locally, the page states the area, the hours, the minimum and that someone over eighteen with ID has to take it at the door.
December is its own trade: hampers, gift sets, the office order, the twenty-third. A “Christmas orders” line with a cut-off date goes up in November and comes down in January.
Tastings and the regulars
A wine or whiskey tasting on a Thursday fills from the regulars and their friends, and on Complete it is booked and paid on the site with a limit on numbers and a reminder text. Reviews matter more to a specialist shop than to a chain, because people are choosing the staff’s knowledge, and a text after a visit with the direct link to your review box keeps them coming. A pub with an off-sales counter has the same two problems, the hours and the Christmas orders, and the same page handles both.
Photos
The shelves, the fridge, the whiskey wall, the staff. The site describes the shop and the range and says when you are open. We keep it to that.
To start
Your door hours and your licence hours, the ranges and the breweries and producers you want named, the delivery area and terms, how party orders work, any tastings planned, whether you want vouchers, and ten photos.
Which plan suits an off-licence
Essentials at €499 to set up and €50 a month suits most off-licences: the page, the hours, the listing, the edit page. Complete at €1,499 and €100 adds tasting bookings, vouchers, review texts and a Google listing that posts what landed this week. The comparison is on the pricing page.