To expect to be able to make a purchase at closing time.

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I was in Laura Ashley today just before closing looking to buy a picture, The assistant showed me the display item which was still marked up at full price and then went over to the tills to check the sale price for me.

Yes I'd like to buy it I replied - only to be told that sorry you can't do that today as the tills are closed now. I checked my phone, bang on 6pm, closing time. I queried this as I have never come across this before. I have been in plenty of shops that advise customers to go to the tills at closing time, but none who refuse to make a sale on the dot of closing.

I said as much to the assistant who looked apologetic and consulted senior assistant. The tills close themselves down at 6pm she advised me. if you want to buy it you'll have to come back in the morning. Don't worry the sale is on until Monday.

Is it unreasonable to expect to complete a purchase when I am already in the shop at closing time?

Well you should certainly take into account the pay and conditions in these internet warehouses. Amazon for example has an absolutely horrendous record of employee treatment. In one warehouse they gave so little consideration to workers that the distribution of hours was so haphazard with a few hours here and there on the same day that some had pitched up tents in the woods and were staying there, because they were to scared to go home because there wasn't enough time to ravel there and back before their next shift started. Online retailers are kings of the zero hours contract.

In fact it's not the staff I'm surprised at but the company policy. They decide the opening hours - why keep your doors open when you know you will be unable to complete the customers purchases.

Because people like you saunter in at seconds-to-closing and expect to be served, no matter how late you make us. Because you expect. Because a business is a business, and they're supposed to want to make money.

If you don't like the policy, how about... not making the store fall back on it? How about... organizing yourself and coming in with more than seconds until closing, so that this wouldn't have become an issue? How about... thinking of someone other than yourself? Retail staff have to it all bloody day by default, it's not too much to expect that we get some human bloody compassion when it's SUPPOSED to be time to go home.

Just because you are paying for a service does not give you the right to treat those providing it like mindless, slaves who should be glad of the money you casually toss in their direction. This applies to online or physical shopping. That should be common sense. Are you really so devoid of compassion and empathy for another human being that you don't see that they should be treated with respect and as a human being, with actual rights no matter what type of employment they are in?

But if you were in Asda and had already picked your shopping and they were checking a price query - would you be happy to leave it there because the clock struck six?

Obviously the company agrees with you all here and so I'll probably not inflict my custom on them ever again.

Translation: I got called out for behaving badly, and I don't like it when that happens, so I'm going to flounce (as if the company will give a crap about losing your business when you cost them more in overtime than you bring in in revenue)

Op, I don't think YABU.

I work near a Laura Ashley, their advertised hours are 9-6 but if I ever pass at 5.45 they already have the doors shut so you can't even get in...conversely at my local supermarket which is meant to close at 4pm I was once still waiting at a till until 4.30...other people were still shopping!

For all the retail staff getting shitty about what is a stupid policy (tills close at 6) What if you'd started queuing at 5.45 behind another couple of people, one of whom has something to return, or an involved query which takes 10 mins to resolve. Would they still have refused to serve you?! Crazy.

Bear in mind lots of jobs require unpaid overtime. I work with a major insurer. All staff who deal with the public (not just call center staff) must remain logged on to phones and available to take calls until the exact time they finish, ie 5pm. It's not uncommon for a caller to phone at 4.59, or dead on 5. Staff member has to take call, and deal in full. That could take anything from 5 to 45 mins. A note of the call has to then be put on the system. If the caller wishes to make a complaint, that also has to be logged there and then. So that could take as much as an hour. There would be no overtime paid in that scenario. And at more time taken that serving 1 extra customer at 6pm not 5.59...

I wondered how long before race to the bottom arguments started creeping in. No one in any industry should be doing extra work unpaid simple as that.

Christ so: Shop early to be considerate to staff as the company won't look after them. Don't shop at Amazon because there staff are not well looked after.
I expect there are probably more of these rules that I've been blissfully unaware of until now. I thought that the longer hours, online deliveries etc were a great and convenient trend. I hadn't realised it was considered rude to use them.

Op I've actually worked in most of those stores you've listed and i can tell you that they do not serve after the set closing time. They do give out warnings to customers that it's time to pay though. I've never served a customer past 6pm and never will

Shopping at closing = treating employees as mindless slaves now!
A touch extreme I think!

This reminds me of people who come in on, like, public holidays, and then make a point of saying to the staff "Oh my gosh, it's such a pity you have to work!"

Yeah, it IS. It sucks that there are draconian and often unfair policies in place in customer service jobs especially. But WE can't fight our companies on them. If we want to remain employed, we HAVE to adhered to them.

But you don't.

We wouldn't have to work on public holidays, Barbara, if there weren't customers willing to partake of our poorly paid labor! We wouldn't have to stay after closing, Deirdre, if there weren't customers willing to stuff us around because they don't think our time is worth as much as theirs!

There's nothing stopping you from actually THINKING before you come in at three minutes to closing "what will happen if this takes longer than I think - and it very well might?" There's nothing stopping you from taking a look at your day, and a look at the store's posted hours, and thinking "I don't think I've got enough time today to go to that store, I might try on my day off." Nothing, except that good old customer sense of entitlement.

So shopping on bank holidays is also inconsiderate - this really is a whole new world for me I'm afraid.

Actually even in big supermarkets the tills close down at dead on the time of "closing". They are on a timer, and have no way to override the system so it was impossible for them to put your sale through. Just because the shop doors are still open, you cannot buy anything. 5:59 was the latest your purchase could be put through, it turned 6:00 before your item had been scanned and paid for, so no sale.
The cut off has to be somewhere, if they did it at 6:01 there would be still people complaining it was "only" just past closing, make an exception etc, but it doesn't work like that. Even in a big shop if you're half way through scanning your trolley full, and it hits official closing time, tills shut down, you cannot buy anything, you have to leave your shop behind. Big shops try to prevent this by giving the count down warning including the info you can't then check out, and they bar you coming in with 15 minutes or less to go.

YABVU!

Indulging in reductio ad absurdum won't make my points any less cromulent. No, it's not inconsiderate to shop on bank holidays. What's inconsiderate is to rub salt in the wound by saying "what a pity" it is that we have to be there, when the REASON we have to be there is because YOU are there.

It's not inconsiderate to come in CLOSE to closing. It's inconsiderate to expect staff to stay AFTER closing to complete a transaction that isn't an emergency and would have been completed on time if you had simply come in even five minutes earlier.

It's about recognizing that we're all human. Not just the customers.

This is going to be one of those threads where the OP is in denial and stroppy because everyone is trying to point out the error of their ways and they don't want to see it, isn't it

All these people telling me that you cannot purchase beyond closing time in other shops...I don't know whereabouts you are but this is certainly not the case in London. There are massive queues once the doors shut.

I've shopped in many supermarkets and large stores and been there (due to queues) after the set closing time, be that 5 or 6pm, or 4pm on a Sunday, or whatever, and I have never been unable to be served, or seen anyone else refused, be it 1 minute, 10 mins or even half an hour after the advertised closing time.

I have never heard of tills being on a timer, whilst I'm not denying it exists, it's certainly nothing I've ever come across in any of the major chains.

Oh please. I am complaining about a company that behaves differently to others in the same shopping centre. I am complaining that the company policy is to shut the tills down a the same time as they close the doors. Other shops are not doing this.

I am NOT saying that staff should be prepared to work overtime to serve me.

THIS JUST IN:
Those places where OP shops, in that particular city, in that particular country, in that particular culture, are THE ONLY SHOPS IN EXISTENCE and anyone with a different policy/experience is either wrong or being unreasonable!

London is not the center of the universe. There are more store policies in heaven and in Earth, Barbara, than are dreamt of in your shopping philosophy.

Maybe we should expand this and suggest as well as people not being 'thoughtless' and expecting to shop up to the minute of closing, people also shouldn't phone any companies after 4.55 as they won't be able to get their call concluded before 5pm....

Well the tills on a timer is definitely in operation here in manchester, been told so in both ASDA and TESCO, when it hits closing (Defo on Sunday, i'm honestly not sure of other days but there are strict laws about sunday hours) It hits 4 or 5pm depending if its an 11-5 store or a 10-4 store, the tills shut down and can't be used.
It may just be on sundays, but the big shops defo do it on sundays.

I get that staff want to go home but really that doesn't seem like it should have to be the customers' consideration.

In regards to this, It's not the 'customers consideration'. The store literally has an opening and closing time for this reason. You don't have to consider a thing, It's there in black and white. If you're not finished within the many hours the store is open, that's your decision.

Thanks Velvet. Mumsnet feels like a parallel universe tonight.
I'm afraid I can only comment on the shops I've been in and I'm afraid I've never been to Manchester faith.

I have just double checked it with my partner, who is still in retail, and to be fair he has not heard of tills stopping.
However he has pointed out that its a bit like voting, if you are in the queue, there is no way to say when you got there, so they have to serve you.

However Op, I put it to you, when does it stop, you? the person behind you? the person behind you?

Its not like you are going to tip these minimum wage workers

In our local Asda and Tesco they are definitely still putting shopping through the tills well after 4pm on Sundays and allowing people to complete purchases. They don't let anyone in the store after about 3.55 but will keep serving until everyone has gone through the tills. Seems odd they'd have different policies in different parts of the country but apparently so...