To close at closing time?

[Bananafritter]

I’m pretty sure I’m not but the reactions you get from some people you’d think I am!

I work in a retail store inside a shopping centre. It’s a popular clothes shop. Our shop closes an hour earlier than most other shops in the centre at normal times of the year. At the moment some shops in the centre are open much later for Christmas shopping however our Christmas shopping times don’t kick in till next week.

I often get abuse from customers in the 10 minutes before the shop closes as we can no longer let new customers in the door, or into the fitting rooms. Tonight it was particularly bad, with several people verbally abusing me (as if I set the closing times and not head office).

The simple fact of the matter is that staff don’t get paid after the shop closes therefore we can’t keep serving people with unpaid staff. On the more practical side people have buses to catch, lifts waiting, kids to get home to. It’s not fair that staff have to wait.

Is it unreasonable to close a shop at the time we say we close? I’d be interested to hear opinions from people who try to argue their way into shops past closing time.

The issue is the store's tbh. Opening hours as re just that, the hours that the store is open and as such people understandably expect to be able to walk in up until that time. They should never be rude of course.

Yes neverunderfed but they should also expect to walk out a shop the second it closes as you said openingtimes are the hours the shop is open . So it isn’t open 1 second after closing never mind 15 minutes past closing .