No customers visit supermarket during extended hours before Xmas

[Loppp]

Worked in the supermarket for 11 years. We close at 9pm 6 days a week (not Sunday). The week before Xmas, head office insists that the store opens til 11pm. I have not heard heard of any colleague mentioning they had customers entering after 9pm. Not even 22/23 Dec

It’s very frustrating as we have to change our hours from moving from busy hours 10-2 then 5-7 to nobody turns up. There are 3 colleagues per night taking it in turns to stand in the kiosk bored, for security reasons. The other two put out delivery or check the overs. There are other colleagues but they are not trained on the kiosk/CSD.

Surely head office have the breakdown of sales of each hour. They would see zero or a few quid from colleagues buying milk etc after their shift (they could ignore colleagues as the discount shows).

Its my day of 11pm finish tonight and hating it

Honestly, they clearly need to advertise it better. From a customers perspective being able to shop til 11 is much much easier for me as a shift worker than it closing at 9, so I’d suspect the public just don’t know

I find this hard to believe, are you in a very small town or something?

When I used to work in retail we did extended hours over the Xmas period, but we did an analysis each year to see whether it had been worthwhile vs other costs. It surprises me a business would continue to offer something that cost them more than it earned.

I find it almost impossible to believe that no one visits the store between 9-11 unless people don't actually know it's open at that time?

It's it a supermarket if it's only 3 staff? Surely that's a local/express/convenience store. I left Tesco at 10pm last night and it was busy. Our small local Sainsbury's, co-op, Tesco express etc are always open until midnight and the Tesco express garage is open 24hrs.
Your shop needs to advertise properly

Must be a very small supermarket in an unusually quiet place. But it sounds like this has been normal
practice for a long time, pointless getting annoyed about it, we all have to deal with stuff we don’t want to at work.

There's benefit for the morning shift as there’s stock being put out for two hours 9-11.

I imagine there’s more stock being delivered at this time of year too.

Where is this supermarket? The moon?

One time my DH did exactly that - shopped late and the shelves had be pillaged and half of what we wanted wasn't there.

Clearly the shelf elves hadn't got the memo either (or in fairness the distribution centre).

It was the same in the Sainsbury's I used to work at and that was a big store in the town centre. In January people couldn't do any overtime because they'd spent so much money in December. I worked in the café so didn't need to do later hours (thank goodness.)

I worked boxing day once at an Opticians on the Strand. We'd never opened boxing day before and I reluctantly agreed to work short hours - I'd told head office it would be a complete waste of time and money.

Anyway, the only person who came in was someone wanting a refund as their prescription sunglasses hadn't arrived in time for their skiing trip!

Thankfully they never tried opening again.

Tell us how busy you are.

I suspect nobody realises. I often nip into my local supermarket at 9.30 (they close at 10) year round and there’s customers. When I lived I the city, it was open 24 hours a day bar Sunday and at midnight there were customers if I went in on the way back from somewhere, but that’s their usual hours so people know

Sounds like you just don’t want to work, who cares if it’s empty, you still get paid.

Also find it odd, I use to work shifts and would often nip to “TESCO 24 hour” after a late shift, especially this time of year.

Did you complain about this last year as well? https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5232118-extended-opening-hours-before-xmas-in-retail

Odd - DD1 worked in a tiny local Spar and people would be coming in as she was trying to lock up! Christmas Day 10-1 was also always rammed

Strange to have 3 staff in a supermarket as well but as others have said, they can replenish stock and do date checks if bored

Maybe you live near me

My nearest supermarket (not tiny express) closes at 9pm. I've just checked online and apparently they are closing at 10pm for the week before Christmas and I had no idea. And while it normally closes at 9pm, they stop you going in after 8.30pm, so I wouldn't bother rolling up later on the off chance and can't imagine they'll get much custom during the extra hour. I'm just used to their opening hours and arrange things around it. I never even thought to check for extended hours.

We live in a quiet area with an independent supermarket chain. Normal hours are 8-9 but in the week leading up to Christmas opens from 7-11pm. It's busy early in the morning and specially after 9pm. Lots of working young families preferring to shop in person later in the evening than buying online and dealing with the nightmare of delivery slots.

You either live in a very small town and shoppers prefer travelling a few extra miles because you don't stock what they want, or the supermarket hasn't done a good job of advertising the extended hours to the locals.

NO they need to respect staff and close earlier

We're open 6am to 11pm 364 days a year. Closed on Christmas day only! Your opening hours are unusual, is it independent/ a franchise?

Well done on sharing the till duty at least, I usually end up there for my whole shift

Yes, the OP created a post to lie about something this ground breaking. Probably a Daily Mail journalist chasing that world exclusive to make a name for themselves 🙄

No only 3 on the evening are trained on the kiosk/csd. There are about 5 others

Opening hours are on a poster and on website for each store