To think Next should not be starting their sale at 7am on Boxing Day?

[Sherbert37]

The poor staff. Are more shops going to be open on 26th this year?

I'm with you Norbert. Next is nafftastic. You buy something there and the next day you see 400 other people wearing it. Wtf?

Yanbu about thinking about the staff but for the chain it makes sense as people are queing at 5am for the Next sales so there is clearly a demand for it.

Dh went to their last summer sale, at the "normal" time of 10ish and there was pretty much nothing to be baught anymore!

World 's gone mad I'm telling you!

"People would bang on the doors as we were trying to leave and insist we let them in to buy a Christmas card or a box of eggs. There was no telling them that we had cashed up and turned the tills off so we could not serve them"

ha ha i remember that well from my days of working retail when i was in college but i worked in an offie so it was a weekly occurence although it became nightly around christmas. TBH i felt better about it when they started going mad as at least then i could just think "fuck 'em I'm glad we're closed". Always felt much worse when someone just accepted it and said "no worries mate/not your fault/just doing your job etc"

Mayorquimbly, my parents used to own a little grocery shop in the village and the only way to have a peacefull day off was to go away from the house when the shop was closed (shop in the same building as house IYSWIM) In the evening there would ALWAYS be someone knocking at the door because they "urgently" needed some yogurts or crisps it was hell!

Yes agree to two consecutive days everything closed. It is sad that everything has to open.

I'll admit I've queued up early and been to a NEXT sale - but I was baffled as there was nothing that they usually stock but some cheaper quality stuff?? Was a bit peed as I had a 'wish list' of things I wanted for my kiddies but couldn't get anything....
Don't get how their sales work...

I worked in Next over Christmas about 3 years ago, it was utter madeness.

I had to go in at 3pm on Christmas eve to take most of the stock to the warehouse area and then reduce the sale stuff or bring out piles of old tat that hadn't been sold in previous sales. We worked until it was done.

Boxing Day we were in at 5am for the sale, was actually very good for me as I got the whole shop to myself to bag the best bargains but people were just mad grabbing 3 of everything as I know most of it goes back after the sale anyway.

I have queued up in the past but not doing it this year as I haven't been impressed with their Autumn/Winter range and have ordered a few bits from the VIP online sale.

Not too many years ago,(25 -30 maybe), shops used to close at lunchtime on Christmas Eve and re-open the day after Boxing Day. Now, it seems like they are only closed for the bare minimum time they can get away with.

My son,and many of his friends, have part-time jobs in retail. ( They are in sixth form) and without exception, they are all having to work their normal hours on Boxing Day, as well as the Sunday and the Monday. These days shops make it part of their contracts that they have to work on bank holidays so there is no chance of them opting out. They are also not allowed to book any annual leave from the start of November through to the end of January. And being kids, they only get the absolute minimum wage. I don't have a problem with them working, it is good for them to learn that they have to work and that money doesn't grow on trees, but it is a shame when the work impinges on family times like Christmas. I just feel sorry for the kids who are having to work in the middle of the day. At least my son will be finished in time to join the rest of the family for lunch.

I used to work in Next. We used to really really look down on the, in our view, crazy people who started queuing at 4am for the start of the sale, and have a real giggle about the worst eg. there were regular punch-ups and women crying if they thought someone else had picked up "their" dress. And people would just go nuts grabbing three of everything, as sweetkitty says, and leave with more stuff than they could carry.
I didn't mind working the sale TBH as I'm not really into Christmas, and we got the pick of the stuff before the shop opened. It was very full-on but more interesting than the long long slow days when we had barely any customers at all.
When we shut on the first day of the sale, we used to turn to each other and say- we'll see it all when it comes back tomorrow. The rates of returns were phenomenal.