Sunday Shopping

Just picking up on the comments about Sunday opening in the "Germany is fab thread.

As far as I know, shopping on a Sunday is basically illegal here. In Cologne this year the shopkeepers have got together and persuaded the council to allow 3 Sunday openings. The 1st one will be during the Confederations Cup in June. This means, of course, that lots of people will have to work an extra day. The (shoe) shop where I work is pretty small, with 2 full-time and 2 part-time assistants. Do the Maths and you'll see that Sunday opening means a 6-day week for the 2 full-timers. Given that it's a whole new ball game, and that they get paid monthly, not hourly, you can understand why they're not keen. And if the experiment is successful...

What do people think: keep Sunday special/protect the workers or let the shoppers loose?

I sometimes have to work on a saturday and sunday. It sucks, yeah but I'd rather have a job than no job at the moment

If you do it 3 times a year, it's a problem for the employees. Do it every week and the employer has to find a solution. It works in the UK and the US so why can't it work here? Free the market up, get rid of the legislation, let businesses decide themselves. They're all adults, they'll soon figure out what's best for them.

The whole problem is workers' attitudes here - they have this ingrained perception that certain times of the day/week are sacrosanct. My personal trainer was trying to hire 2 chiropractors for his fitness studio. None of the people he interviewed were prepared to work evenings despite being unemployed (they all came via the Arbeitsamt). It's a gym - the busiest time is the evening!!

As an avid sunday shopper in the UK. I was personally annoyed that I had to cram all my weekly shopping before 16:00 on a Saturday. It's a bit better now with many supermarkets closing at 20:00.

However I don't go sunday shopping as (in our area) they don't do it very often and there is a big demand, which results in massive crowds of people having a 'nice' sunday afternoon shopping. Last time I went with my young son, there were cars all over the place because all the car parks were full. It took about 15 minutes just to find a space (I don't just dump my car in a field like some people!). Then we waded through the crowds of people 'having fun' and gave up and went home in a bad mood!

So if it's a bad idea and so many people want to keep sunday special, why the hell do they come from miles around when the shops are open? Seems like some people actually do something different to what they say! There is obviously a lot of people in Germany that find sunday shopping 'attractive'. If they opened more often I think the novelty factor would wear off and people might be able to shop, rather than just look and 'try to enjoy'.

From my point of view, sunday shopping is inevitable, just like in the UK. There were endless arguments about staff problems and why B&Q could open, but not Tesco's, small shops lose out, big shops win, etc. I see the same arguments here. If the stores can just work out a pay-plan and rota with the employees that means proper wages for the extra work, and no-one is FORCED to work without an agreement, where's the problem? All my own opinion :$

It's my opinion as well ...

Initially I think the , " NO Sunday Trading " law was gotten around when , if you had a garden centre as part of the business, then it was permitted. Very soon all of the major chains sprouted "garden centres". Who's kidding who.? ... JUst get on with it and give the public what it wants.

Some good points you’re making there Alien.

I remember when they first introduced the open till 8 policy and the discussions among the locals were mainly all concerened about the poor verkäuferin having to work all those hours – strange, the people I spoke too didn’t seem to realise it’s all about creating jobs and increasing the ‘angebot und nachfrage’. However, I have heard of people being forced to work longer hours because the supermarkets just couldn’t find enough people, and to be honest I think it’s disgusting.
I have worked in several firms in the twenty years I have been here, and I swear, not once was I in a company that could boast they had enough employees to do the job properly. There seems to be a tendency of ordering extra overtime at short notice and putting on special shifts at the weekend and on public holidays. All with the permission of the unions of course. There is something seriously wrong with the arbeitsmarkt here. Everyone knows it and you can turn on the telly anytime you like and find some so called expert telling us all what we have to do about it. But nothing happens.
Clement’s reform has turned out to be nothing but false promises, with the government urging the employers to do something and vice verse. This has been going on for years.
Of course the statistics have shot through the roof since the people recieving welfare are now included in the numbers of those recieving unemployment benefit, but they were always there anyway so the problem hasn’t changed.

Sorry I’m ranting ...basically what I’m saying is that I’m all for Sunday Shopping ( not for my own comfort, I’d much rather laze about doing as little as possible on a Sunday ) if it creates new jobs, but the way I see things going till now, I’m very doubtful.
: )lb

In the case of a small shop, such as ours, Sunday opening means an extra day's work for the same pay. It would take a brave owner to "miss out". The 2 full-time girls are mosltly annoyed by the fact that they haven't even been asked if they can work on the "experimental" Sunday: it just seems to be sort of expected. It's a pain enough as it is hanging around till 8, although I do understand the need for shopping outside office hours. I didn't work under the old Saturday rules, but apparently the extended opening has not brought more money over the counter, just spread out the time that people come.

Slightly off-topic...but talking about saturday shopping...

The recent opening of Media Markt in 'downtown' Nienburg caused a bit of a stir.
All the shops used to close at 12:00 on a Saturday, leaving the 'Lange Straße' a bit empty, to say the least! The supermarkets were the only places open.

After Media Markt plonked itself directly next to the main street, with shiny new car park, things changed a little. Most of the shops are now open until about 15:00 on a saturday. Media Markt itself is now open until 20:00 every day except sunday, it used to be just until 18:00 on a saturday. At least 40 people seem to work at the new store (according to the list at the door), so that has probably helped the local unemployment situation. I don't see many of the other shops shutting down, not even Expert which competes for pretty-much the same business.

Most of the existing shops in Nienburg are clothes, jewellery, books, toys, nick-nacks, etc. I don't think Media Markt directly threatens them. OK, the little Quelle stores might have a problem! So why do the rest of the shops now open longer, maybe it's just more people going shopping? I have always been told that Germans are not interested in shopping, it's a nasty habit, like watching too much TV ( )

So why are the shopping times gradually getting longer and longer if no-one is interested? Knock it off, of course everyone wants to shop, people need to buy unwanted things, even if they don't know it yet!

But it is tricky to find the right structure to make it viable and flexible for all stores, both large and small. I suppose that is where the local authorities are trying to 'help' with the occaisional sunday shopping days we have now.

I decided that if I owned a store in Germany, it would be a "bakery" -- with souvenier shop / grocery tucked in a corner. Then I could stay open on Sunday and rake in the money for all the people who needed things on Sundays. Other alternatives would be to own a "gas station" that had a pump or two attached to a very large "convenience market." Or to own a store in an airport or train station. Unfortunately, our train station isn't big enough here to have stores, so we're stuck with drastically understocked adn overpriced gas stations when we discover we're out of something.

And on a side note, for all those folks who think it would be terribly unfair to work on Sundays. Nobody ever seemed to care that I always had to work on Sundays. (I was a nurse.) And restaurant wait staff work hardest on Sundays.

..well we had a "sunday open day" today in the neighbouring town
and I've never seen it so busy, it was hand-to-hand combat for
parking spaces (reminds me of another thread ) and the place
was absolutely packed (the shops were doing good business too).
I too have to work antisocial hours on a regular basis and there
are ways of doing this without imposing slave labour conditions,
and as some one mentioned it really is getting to the state where you
have to be gratefull that you actually have a job.
If the government would stop over-regulating everything and let
the business community decide for themselves and give the
economy some stimulation (not to mention giving some of the
5 million unemployed a chance to do something) it might just start
to pick up.

Exactly.

Am tages ende, it's the business community that runs a country... about time certain German politicians took note.

For many years here in Germany I worked Saturdays , Sundays, evenings and Holidays. I was in the leisure business which was used by most people after their normal Mon-Fri 9-5 work week, it was interesting that almost all of my staff were Brits, Americans and Canadians as the Germans did not want to work unsociable hours (their words). I got to like it I could shop during the week without the usual Saturday free for all, go skiing on uncrowded slopes and visit places without getting in traffic jams. Of course it would't work for everyone but with all the unemployment here I would think the government would really go for the idea.

Yep me too, but it our case it was always the Germans that wanted to work on Sundays & get the Sunday pay, and same as jwn I also liked to work weekends so I could ski during the week. If all businesses just gave a bit of extra pay Sunday, they probably wouldn't hear any bitching about having to work!

We also had Sunday opening here in Heidelberg yesterday, along with a fest, seems that it was very busy judging by the number of cars parked illegally.