Shops honouring advertised hours

[Randomneim]

I made a special post work trip to pick up a parcel from a shop and arrived ten minutes before the closing time posted online. The guy had the shutter half down and initially refused to serve me until I insisted. Then he couldn’t ‘find’ my parcel and said there was nothing he could do. Aibu to expect shops to be open and serve you when they’re advertised as open? Barring emergencies etc where of course you put up a little note and everyone understands. Or is this guy staffing the shitty off-licence so badly paid that you can’t expect him to do his job properly because he isn’t paid for a second after closing hours? Want to be understanding but also come on.

Yeah, my nearest Holland and Barrett is terrible for this. If they’re supposedly closing at 5, you’ll find that they’ve put the shutter down at 4:45. I understand massive supermarkets doing it, as it takes longer to get people out, but with high street stores it’s just lazy and unhelpful.

I work in a shop, it closes at 6 officially but our shift end time is 6:20 because of people still being in store and the time it takes to actually close up. We aren't allowed to start closing until after 6

Generally butchers will be open until the time stated but will start cleaning their equipment earlier, it just means they can only offer what meat is already cut and prepared. This is pretty standard in my experience.

If its a chain, do report to head office. I used to work in retail HR for a chain of charity shops, and we had a few unscrupulous shop managers who would close early so they could bunk off.

My father owns a small store. They will often change the time as frankly its a one man band. If he has to leave for some reason, there is no alternative staff.
His time is officially 9-5pm I think, but hes often there from 8.15am onwards. However in winter, when its dark and wet and hes had no customers since 2pm, you can see why he might be gone by 4.15pm. In summer hes often busy and remains open until 7pm or longer as full.

I know he closed the store 2 days the other week as he had to stay with my younger sister when she was rushed into hospital.

Its life unfortunately sometimes, especially for those small family run businesses

Ps our local butcher closes officially at 6pm, but in the summer with bbqs theres often queues up the road, and they are sold out by 2-3pm so close.

I work in a small supermarket. We close at 11.00. Our night staff have to stay behind at least 15 minutes to close blinds, get rid of waste etc. Unpaid. I very rarely work nights but i only stay 10 minutes as i'm not management and they really should pay people for the time they actually work. Apart from this it is a great p!ace to work.

l worked in an extremely well known Food Hall a few years ago. 12-9pm. We closed for customers at 8pm, and the last hour was spent stocking up and filling shelves. lf customers were browsing when we 'closed' and finished shopping after 8pm, of course we served them.
However. At 9pm we had a 'meeting' in the back of the store that usually went on for 15-20 minutes. After every shift. Which meant that over the working week (5 shifts) in effect, l was working almost 2 hours unpaid. At £6.85 an hour (at the time). That's roughly £50 a month they were saving in wages, for each person. That would have paid a fair chunk off my utility bills.
When you're treated like that at work, it doesn't really make you inclined to put yourself out. l agree that Google/online listings aren't always accurate re opening hours, but companies (especially larger companies who make a lot of money) can't really expect people to put themselves out for nothing. Especially when it happens regularly. Retail in general is all about upselling and making money for the company. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be a two way street.
One of the lads l worked with who was a sales assistant the same as me,was a 24-7 keyholder for the store 'because he lived closest'. He wasn't a manager, and he got no extra pay for the responsibility. He was off work after a suspected heart attack and they kept pestering him as to when he was coming back, as the managers didn't seem to want the keyholder responsibilities.

lazyarse123 This. Exactly this. You posted about staying back after shift as l sent my post. This is what happened to us, and it must save them a fortune in wages.
We could easily have finished stocking up 10-15 minutes earlier, then had the meeting, and finished on time, which is what we were paid for. But that never happened.

It is annoying but when I worked at Debenhams we used to have to tell people to leave at quarter to closing and not let anyone else in, otherwise they would be there until after closing.... when the staff are no longer being paid.

I used to work for them too. We had to stop people coming in at ten to closing as we'd not be able to close on time otherwise. Our pay only took us to closing time....anything after was unpaid and would include finishing any tidying up, counting up the cash and taking everything to the office. If you were a key holder you could easily still on the premises for 30 minutes after closing. All on your own time!

Looks like Costa are repeat offenders here then.

Is this not covered under the Trade Descriptions Act or some other form of consumer law?

It's happened to me a lot. My children go onto ballet in the town and are out just before closing times and most shops close 10/15 minutes earlier than they advertise. The amount of huffing and puffing that seems to happen if I turn up at a store in that time. I partly get it, I guess they are only paid until closing and not paid until lock up, which isn't really fair, but then they aren't really truly open the hours they advertise are they?

The car park is the same, it's open but locks all it's gates except the main road in and out, which mean despite being "open" for about 6 hours, makes it's massively a faff having to walk around the entire car park and walk in on the road. Infuriates me!

It is often the same for opening too. New Look, Superdrug and Holland & Barrett in my area. 10-15 minutes late opening, not just on one occasion. The last time One of them did it I tweeted them and asked them why xxx branched was regularly late opening. These were opening times advertised on shops themselves, not online.

Thanks for all the thoughts everyone. I reckon based on all your posts that shops should definitely pay staff after closing (which I thought anyway when I worked in retail we were paid for time after closing but that was in a different country and time), and as that's not going to happen here and now, maybe we should just expect the effective 'closing time' to be 15 minutes before and plan accordingly where possible, as some of you suggested. Update also: I went back today earlier in the day and I am now totally on cheerful terms with the dude I apologised for sounding impatient yesterday, and he, bless his heart, had rung through to hermes that morning to find out what had happened to the parcel and I now have it. As ever, the problem is capitalism, sigh. Anyway, I'm new to mumsnet having been a lurker for a long time and I'm v. grateful for all your perspectives!

I used to work for Next and say we closed at 6, we were expected (it was in the staff handbook) to stay being for 'up to' 15 mins at the end of the shift to tidy etc. Yep, shit. But I would never have dreamt of not serving a customer properly at 5.59. My employer was the one in the wrong, not the customer.
When I worked in a greengrocer's we would bring all the outside stuff in early, but we would happily help people get to stuff if they came in before we closed.
As a customer I do make a point of trying to be out in good time, but I'm unimpressed by people closing early.