To wonder why we still shut all the shops at5.30?

[Lanark2]

I work all week, often sleep in at the weekend, and get my shopping mojo at about 5 on a Saturday, but then all the shops shut..why? I have so many clothes and home items from supermarkets as a result.

How have we resisted a continental pattern, when we have the darkest evenings??

As said by a pp, for most retailers opening extra hours wouldn't produce enough/any profit for it to be viable. Especially as online shopping is only going to increase.

Your choices are to shop online (I hate shopping so I love this option)
Go to a specific shopping centre that opens until late every day like Trafford Centre or similar.
Take a day off and go during the week.
Get up earlier.

Most shopping centres are open past 5 aren't they?

Tbh if you are off on a Saturday & can get to the places you want to, then get off your arse & go!

Here (small town in Germany), local shops (other than supermarkets) close at 12 or 1 on Saturday.

Some also close Weds afternoon as well!

Shopping centres are open longer though.

how often do you need to go and buy 'clothes and home stuff'. Twice a year is plenty.

so twice a year, get up at crack of lunchtime on Saturday. Not hard.

meantime, some science would be good about how the time it gets dark relates to latitude.

Yes, but I am in tune with my rhythms and emotional tides, so for me shopping on a Saturday morning would feel uncomfortable and off-resonance. It would be nice if the commercial world was in entrainment with emotional need-fields.

It's actually very hard to employ people for evenings. My OH is a retail manager and no one wants evenings. The youngsters who will grudgingly do it constantly ring in sick or don't show up. I don't think it would be cost effective for most shops unless they're in a mall type set up.

I also don't see why you're only ready to shop come 5pm on a Saturday. The vast majority of the country manage to shop when the shops are actually open. YABU. Inconvenience yourself and get up at a reasonable time instead.

Most do in the run up to Xmas where I live, presumably because it's worth their while then but not the rest of the year.

There's 24 hour supermarkets and online everything, why do shops need to stay open silly hours?

But then I work ten hour days and after that the last thing I want to do is go shopping!

Id rather stick pins in my eyes than go toa shopping centre at 8pm

But why are you 'right' mrs jay and honest working people like be who are trying to make Britain great before dawn, 'incorrect' huh?

The centre i work at shuts at 8pm during the week

If i do a 4-8 shift it is pretty much dead, a few browsers

There are quite often no paying customers

My shop has to stay open because the other shops stay open

I liked that thread. It was like 'Eleanor Rigby' by the Beatles

It was, but not sad. I liked it too.

I like the way shops stay open longer in London. We get that in Edinburgh in August during the Festival. We also have much less restricted Sunday opening in Scotland (well Edinburgh and Glasgow definitely) all year round.

In Ireland here, shops in city centres and out of town shopping centres stay open til 7 pm every evening including Sunday with 9 or 10 pm closing from Wed. - Sat.; Sunday opening hours are usually 11.00 am - 7.00 pm. Its great; plenty of shift work for staff and convenient for shoppers.

I do have awful memories of Sundays before Sunday opening, with everywhere shut and families forced to spend time together in that grim "...just waiting to go back to school/work tomorrow" atmosphere. Or maybe that was just my family!

Nobody is forced to shop on Sunday if they don't want to, when my DC's were small we always made sure to do something outdoorsey and wholesome with them. Now that they're grown up and its just me and my DP, I do love a leisurely stroll round my local shopping centre. The sky doesn't fall in just because the shops are open on a Sunday.

Also, my DD has put herself through college on her Sat. and Sun. earnings in her part-time job, as have lots of her friends.

Because the people who work there need lives too? Shift work isn't all its cracked up to be. I work 9 till 6 every sunday and don't have a choice in it. It is a matter of do it or there's the door. They tell you when to work till, you don't get to choose and that is the reality for most people. You have ALL day on Saturday and most of Sunday to get your shopping done. Even with a sleep in. Your mojo will just have to have some consideration

Yes, but I am in tune with my rhythms and emotional tides, so for me shopping on a Saturday morning would feel uncomfortable and off-resonance.
Sorry but of you want stuff then you will need to sort out your mojo and get your arse out of bed.
Most shops these days open for all but two days in a year. If you can't get your chakras aligned on one of those days then that is your problem.
Why should people have to work late so you can have a lie on to sort your aura out?

bakingaddict Except for large shops on Sunday and Christmas Day the law no longer restricts when shops can open.

If retailers want to open large shops from 00.01 on Monday till 23.59 on Saturday then six more hours on Sunday, and small shops 24/7 they can. And some do.

Hmm, the supermarket I work in used to have 24 hour trading and stopped it because nobody actually wanted to shop after midnight! We open at 6am now and shut at midnight (10pm on Saturdays) and we don't make any less money than we did before.

Depending on the area, not enough people want to shop after 8pm to make it viable - businesses are there to make money, not to be in tune with people's auras!

I don't get this "shop staff need time off too". Surely there'd just be more shifts and more staff? Our shopping centre thing closes at 8 but that's quite small. All the other shops are 6. I'd prefer a bit of a later closing time as I really hate wasting my weekend shopping.

Yes, but I am in tune with my rhythms and emotional tides, so for me shopping on a Saturday morning would feel uncomfortable and off-resonance. It would be nice if the commercial world was in entrainment with emotional need-fields.

If you want to use a business, use it when you are open. A business isn't going to open to be in tune with your emotional needs because you can't drag yourself out of bed occasionally

'I'm not suggesting someone should work 9am - 9pm. I'm mostly referring to shift work. The full timers can go off home at 5pm, leaving the evening shift from 5pm-9pm to part time staff such as SAHM and teenagers. I grew up in America and this was very, very common in most retail outlets. It worked well; I was able to have a job that didn't impact homework or social life.'

As long as there were laws preventing retail staff from working more than a set number of hours a week, I agree. You'd have to leave it up to individual businesses to calculate if it would be worth it for them.
There are enough students desperate to have a job that fits round study, as the loans don't cover rent and living expenses. And the gods know how many SAHP there are who want to work around children.

All we have here is a Sainsbury's, so it doesn't make any difference to us.

As others have said, to open longer hours you need to generate more profit.

I think most shops do open longer hours if they think it will mean more money. However if experience shows that they will be twiddling their thumbs they don't.

I have worked in retail for 25 years. I have managed in different locations in London & the south east where later trading is normal. In honesty,it is pointless for some stores to trade past 6ish. I spent years managing a store in a mall where you have to open in line with their guidelines or risk an enormous fine. Barely made anything after 630-7 but scheduled in until 10/11.
Believe me,if there's money to be made,retailers would open.
I close at 6 now (seaside) & actually our street has a very different feel. I would worry about opening later as we sole trade at times. All the talk of it creating lots of jobs? In my experience,no,just workforce spread more thin.
Yabu.

Fuck me,just saw your post about emotional tides.

I can't understand why office staff still work 9-5 in general. If you are doing non time-critical work in an office you could easily do that at 9 in the evening. So let people do shift work - 1pm to 9pm or whatever. Go shopping/to the doctor in the morning.

I always wondered why we didn't stagger hours in the NHS(9-5 workers) - some staff doing 8-4 others 10-7 thus providing more service over a longer time. And NO RUSH HOUR at 5 o'clock. The very expensive equipment is sitting unused so a waste of money.

Seems common sense.

In the USA shops open at 10, close at 7-8 or 10 for big stores. I wonder who the shops are catching at 9am in the UK. Surely it's mostly non workers who would have time to shop any time of day.