in thinking that if Clarks closes at 5.30...

[Amanderrr]

at 5.23 the doors shouldn't be locked?

Went to Richmond today for a mooch around the shops. DS3 (4yrs) kept complaining about his feet hurting so we headed over to Clarks. We wouldn't have taken long as I know his size and width and just wanted the brown version of the black pair we bought last week.

Got to the doors and they were locked. There was a customer inside still trying on shoes and staff milling around. Had a look at my watch and it was just after 5.20. Looked at the opening times and they should have been open until 5.30. Asked DP what the time was in case my watch was wrong and he said it was about 5.23.

This is happening more and more. In the last couple of weeks alone Boots wouldn't let me in with five minutes until they officially closed. Office the shoe shop was shut before the time stated. The security guard in Zara, which was due to close at 7pm, was telling me at 6.50 that the shop was now closed and could I head to the tills. I looked over and there was a long queue so it didn't really matter whether I carried on shopping or not and M&S turned most of the lights off after saying over the loud speaker that the store would be closing in ten minutes.

I know in the grand scheme of things this should just be a slight irritation but today just brought it to a head when I couldn't get a change of shoes for DS3 when I really needed them.

Am I alone in finding this frustrating and would it worth emailing the stores when this happens?

TBH I'd just stop turning up at shops 5/10 minutes before they close .

I can understand why your annoyed but from your OP its clear you know it happens, and as a shop 'shuts' at 5.30pm then its reasonable that they stop allowing customers to enter 10 minutes before. If customers entered at 5.30pm then it would not shut then.

"People who work in shops should try working in an office to see what real life is like"

Moos...we are currently recruiting for Xmas. At 8pm on Xmas Eve after you've been on you feet for 10 hours a day for the past 5 days (possibly only doing 8 hours on the Sunday), when your shop has had 100,000 customers through it's doors and taken nearly £2m and the 17,000 customer has asked you where the turkeys/xmas puddings/mince pies/frozen sausage rolls errr try the freezers are, then come back on and say how tough it is working in an office.

Oh, and don't forget you're back in on Boxing Day.

And the 2 Bank Holidays after Christmas

your feet even

having worked in retail in a previous life, I have to say I'm with the shop on this one. The shop I worked in closed at 6 and we were only paid until 6, despite having to cash-up tills, hoover the floor and tidy all the stock after the last customer had left. I can absolutely understand why underpaid staff want the customers out by closing time!

I would n't expect to be admitted within 10 minutes of closing time especially for soemthing like kids shoes which take time to buy. Only the manager would be paid beyond 5.30 and that is to log the takings and lock up, not serve latecomers.

Oh, and I moved from retail to being PA to the director of a company (i.e in an office all day).........the retail work was much longer hours and much more stressful.

I don't understand why shop closing time is the time at which an employee's work day finishes. Surely there are tasks to complete after the store is closed: cashing out tills, tidying up, re-stocking, etc.

I have worked retail (in the States) and employees' shifts overlapped to cover opening and closing of the store. It would be most unusual to not allow customers in the stores within posted opening hours. But then again, it is a more customer-focused culture in the States. I find that so many shops (or maybe it's the overworked employees) in the UK aren't that interested in actually making a sale. I've gotten used to it after 10+ years, though.

And don't get me started on why shops aren't open outside 10-5 in the week!! But that's another thread....

A pub's official closing time will be posted as 11.00pm (say), but there will be last orders and time called before then to ensure that they are able to close on time. No reason why it shouldn't be the same with shops... they weren't closed - you said that there were customers in there... they had shut the doors because they wouldn't have been able to serve you by closing time - especially if they already had customers.

When I worked in retail if we had no customers in at 5.15pm we wouldn't lock the doors...but if we did, then we would as there would be no time to serve everyone before closing...

I quite enjoyed my Christmas job in Tescos. The day before Christmas was bedlam, spent most of the shift restocking shelves from abandoned trolleys, fishing glove, hat and scarf sets out of freezers! etc.

I thought there was going to be a riot when 11pm came and no alcohol could be put through the till irrespective of when the customer had started queueing.

I don't think it's unreasonable to want to get into a shop before closing, even when I worked in a tiny newsagents I was paid beyond closing.

Shop workers are lazy??!
Fuck right off.
Ive done both office and shop work and I would give my left arsecheek to be able to sit in a nice padded swivvle chair staring at a computer screen with the added bonus of having sneaky looks on mumsnet every now and then.
I would love to see you try and lug sackfuls of toys down three flights of stairs pretty much all day to replenish the shopfloor (especially this time of year) get 2 deliveries in a week up those same 3 flights of stairs, implement promotions, all the while serving customers with a friendly smile on face, doing all the cleaning, cashing up at end of day and then coming home to all the housework and sorting of kids.
Yes, you're right all we do is stand around all day gossiping...

OP, you're kind of unreasonable but not. In a place like clarks where you have to go hunting for the stock in back room and it takes a while to serve each customer I can see why they close the doors a bit earlier.
In a store like mine, we close doors about 5.15, would never refuse to let people in until exactly 5.30 though.

JFly I was amazed to find that a shop we were looking to buy a bike from wouldn't sell to us because there were only 35 minutes until closing which wasn't enough time. That was for a £1500 pound bike. We went elsewhere.

YABU. I used to work in a shop and was paid till close even though we still had to clean and mop up (taking an average of 20 minutes).

Seeing as we were paid (very poorly) hourly the shop was basically getting a bunch of free cleaners. If we didn't close the shutters at 10 to the hour we would still have people in the shop at 10 past the hour! Not kidding. And we couldn't mop up until everyone was gone (for obvious safety reasons). Even when we closed early I had to at times ask people to leave at 6:15! They would be wandering around the shop happy as Larry with the shutters down and all the staff stood staring at them!

If people would pay attention to the closing time and scoot their asses out the door at the right time then shops could stay open until closing time. But, unless you start closing up early you can be guaranteed that you will have idiots wandering around indefinitely after closing, with more waiting outside the door wondering why they can't come in too. Sigh.

I can understand where the shop are coming from. Used to piss me off when I was a chef and we were closing the kitchen at 9pm, then at 8.59 a ticket came through. Especially when you've had about three tickets all night.

Well the last shop I worked in we did NOT get paid overtime if we were late leaving due to a customer coming in 2 minutes before closing time.

So thanks to that customer, the till couldn't be taken off, the safe couldn't be cashed and I would end up working an extra 10-20 minutes 'free'. And that adds up if it's every time you work. And doing it for minimum wage.

My last office job was EASY in comparison. AND I got to wear better clothes, sit down more, talk to colleagues, drink coffee and eat chocolate, look on the internet and got paid 3.5x more for the privilege.

Retail is hard work for crap money.

Whatever the pay structure, hardships of shop work vs office work etc, if a shop advertises that its opening hours are 9 till 5.30 then that is the time it should be open. I have had the morning issue where I'm there at 9, always for a reason, never for the good of my health, but they aren't open. It's not on. It isn't the fault of the staff, it's the fault of the management. They should either pay the staff the hours that are needed or open from 9.15 till 5.15 and be honest about it.

BTW I know plenty of office workers who are supposed to answer the phones until 5 and either stop answering at 10 to 5 or are told by bosses to say that the boss isn't in after a certain time to avoid having to deal with people beyond a certain time. So it's not confined to retail. The advantage of being in an office is that you can hide.

Tyler, that is shocking!

We had a similar experience at a car garage this weekend. We were told (having been there for over an hour already, quite serious about buying) that the car we wanted to test drive had no petrol in it so we couldn't drive it that day. I reckon it was actually because they wanted to leave. Looking at spending £15k and they are still shuttling you out the door at closing. Clearly, they didn't want to make the sale! And these guys work on commission!

JFly, your experience is completely different. You were waiting a long time, so were obviously there well before closing. You have every reason to be royally pissed off at that garage. The OP's case was totally different, she turned up but she wasn't served so she moved onto a different shop. No big deal.

The shop closes at 5:30. If you'd got in, got the shoes and got to the till only for them to look at their watches and say 'Sorry, we're closed now', take the shoes back off you and kick you out you'd be very pissed off. You'd have expected them to stay open past closing just for you. Why is that a reasonable expectation?

They were saying 'we don't have time to serve you properly before we close', and I expect they didn't.

I think everyone should be forced to do a stint as a retail worker. It would improve people's attitude immeasurably.

Exactly noblegiraffe. The shop is being sensible by not letting people in when they feel they can't complete the transaction in time.

Writer, it could be like national service!

So advertise it as such, in the same way we do at work which is we close at 6, last admissions 5.30. Then everyone knows where they stand.

I used to work in a shoe shop back in the day.

Those people who sauntered in at 5.23 were the absolute BANE OF MY LIFE.

Bearing in mind that when the shop shuts at 5.30 that doesn't mean that all the workers just lock the door and go home. The shop shuts at 5.30, cashing up, tidying up the stock room, tidying the shop floor, HOOVERING, tidying the staff room etc etc etc.

We used to get to leave the shop at 6, ON A GOOD DAY.

That person in desparate need of a pair of shoes coming in at 5.23 pushes all of that back by about half an hour - so OP YABU and should probably organise your life a bit better.

Do people really need a notice to say don't be stupid - Don't shop for shoes 10 mins before shop closes????

And if shops paid for all the overtime - prices would go up - how any of us are prepared to pay extra for everything so that OP can shop late ????