No lengthening of shop opening hours in Bavaria

Your personal gripes about your experiences of shopping in the UK really don't have much to do with the topic at hand. None of what you mentioned is a result of 7 day shopping

I'm sorry, that's a very, very sad story. No really. But what in hell does that have to do with retail hours? Do you somehow manage to tie everything back to the dirty practice of selling groceries on a Sunday?

Hazza says that small shops could hire students on minimum wage rather than the owners working themselves into the ground, I've said what the result would be.

Anyway whatever, I'm off to the pub.

Of course. A thesis is a position, and mine was that in general, an open and free market is good and since market forces had led to the advent of the 24-hour store in a land where such forces were allowed to operate, that the same forces and general consumer demand would help in Europe. It's the only time I ever supported any supply-side idea in economics, but only because the demand was there and the supply was artificially removed. I was arguing with a Prof. Dr. in economics and held my own.

You write a long thesis to make your point, showing as many points of contention and answering them as possible. Then you defend your thesis as professors try to find any and every little, niggling point you missed. You get your degree if you succeed and I have mine.

woof.

That's a load of shit Monkstown, and you know it. So all minimum wage paid students will render the shopping experience to be shit? Sorry buddy, WRONG.

FFS! Moaning about service levels in the UK is absolutely ridiculous, especially as you pretty much referring to places like Tesco and the like. Sorry, but what in God's name do you expect for the money. Specialist shops will never alow these "clueless idiots" work for them other than to stack shelves and the like... Sorry, but thel evel of cluelessness in larger stores in Germany is just as high if you ask me.

Smaller shops who hire these students will ensure that they are properly trained up and able to help their customers as there is a lot more at stake for them. I would not expect yer average student working in the fruit and veg section of any large supermarket to know about the farming practises for the "on the vine" tomatoes I wanna buy. They think they are selling well cos they look well nice innit...

When I worked at Dixons, I always advised friends not to go shopping on a Sunday because that's when all the inexperienced, spotty-faced teenagers were working (me, for example). I said they should go during the week when the experts are working.

@BD: Well, the two theses I wrote were approached from a relatively neutral standpoint. Only during the course of research and writing did I make my mind up, and even then with major caveats.

That, again, has nothing to do with 7 day shopping, it is a lack of training which is the responsibilty of the employer. If they were trained properloike, then it's no different from shopping on any other day of the week

Strange. I have gone shopping in Australia and the US on Sundays and never received poor service.

Must be incompetence among the youth of Britain then.

I didn't start off saying "Fuck the Ladenschlußgesetz". My first question was "Why is there a Ladenschlußgesetz? What's it for?" The answers were quite interesting. While it started out in England as a religious measure because Richard II thought that markets should be closed on the Lord's Day, it quickly became the first easily enforceable worker protection measure. If all businesses were closed on Sundays, workers were certain to haev the day off.

The British Embassy in Berlin were kind enough to get me copies of all the original laws (delivered in a diplomatic courier pouch!) and had assigned some poor sod in London a weeks' work digging through it all, simply because I'd rung them up and asked for a copy of the original law and anything they might have off-hand succeeding it. Once I'd also studied the Arbeitszeitordnung I had proof that the LSG wasn't needed as a worker protection method. After that my economics background made it pretty clear where my position on the subject was.

woof.

I'm just going to borrow a quote that Izabella used in another thread. I've heard a lot of talk here about choice, but we often fail to realise that freedom of choice often limits the freedom of others. A friend of mine (late thirties) works in Asda six nights a week including Sundays for 170 quid nett. What sort of choice is that? His choice is a result of the so called free market. So I say fuck choice and keep it the way it is.

Edit maybe I should have put that in the vent but it really winds me up when big business takes advantage of people.

Your mate should thank Asda that they open on Sunday so he can work 6 nights a week and not just 5 then.

Oh very funny, but don't laugh too hard cos life can even bite you in the ass...

Not another "sour grapes", are you an Aussie or a Kiwi, I bet it is one of the two.

Sorry, but I agree with the 60% on this one and do not see why a few ex-pats that feel the need for a 24/7 opportunity to visit Obi should have their way or even be listened too.

Monkstown is correct about the standards of staff on a Sunday. We were ripped off once by Vodaphone (in the early days of analogue mobiles), when we complained about the absolute lie we were told, the shop manageress said "oooooooooooooh, you came in here on a Saturday, you must have spoken to the Saturday and Sunday girl. Well, you shouldnt listen to her she is a student and does not actually know much but she only works on the weekend!!!?"

Have you another line apart from "sour grapes" that you could perhaps use when you've run out of logical arguments? I don't see the correlation between where I come from and the topic at hand. The reason I made that comment is that you are obviously not willing to get off your high horse and get a bit of perspective. €100 per day is a lot of money for some people and some people do not feel forced to work for that kind of money (as you claim) and will do it more than willingly, sunday, monday or any day of the week.


Once again...what the fuck does this have to do with 7 day shopping? Bad service is bad service regardless of what day of the week it is and this is the fault of either the individual(s) that you are dealing with or poor training by the employer, nothing to do with being open on a sunday. I hope your crap logic is down to the fact you haven't had a morning coffee.

It wasn't meant to be funny at all. If Asda didn't open on Sunday then that's 1/7 less work for everyone (well a bit less as it's only open 6hrs). What would your mate do then? Struggle with even less money or find another job?

Again (must be the 20'th time) we don't feel the need. No one has said that.
We are asking why you consider retail businesses should have a different rule to other kinds of businesses. Keep twisting it to suit your "I don't think they should open Sundays because I don't feel like shopping on Sunday's" sing song if you want, but you still haven't answered the question.

I don't think "we" are necesarilly saying that.
Just we don't get wound up about the law as it is.

The people tearing their hair out about the shopping hours are the big retailers who want to make more money
and a relatively small group of inner urban dwelling expats.

How exactly are the big retailers planning to make more money then, if it's only the small group of expats who will shop after 8pm or on Sunday?

"We" being those of us who keep asking why you think retail should be different.

And the question is to those like yourself who's only reply so far is to keep referring to the bad service in UK or to the fact that we live in inner city Munich as if that lessens the question somehow.
I do like the endearing little stories about how some people like to spend their weekends, but they are kind of missing the point.

No ones tearing their hair out. Just curious and wondering when you'll get around to an answer.

Becasue the large retailers will be the ones who would find it easiest to make full use of longer opening hours and they would take the market share of smaller traders.

Fred Müller who lives in Furth-im-Wald and wants a litre of milk on a Sunday would DRIVE to (say) an out of town mall in Regensburg but tend to do a week's shopping there taking his trade aways from the local store he could walk to. There's consumer choice to be balanced against other issues. If the local shop ends up closing where do all the local grannies go shopping? Not much "choice" for them then is there?

Smaller traders generally don't seem to want longer opening hours. They think the marginal costs too high.
For the Nth time, outside of the malls and the inner cities, retailers already trade for less hours than the law allows them too.

Well diddums for the small retailers, it's a tough world out there, if they can't keep up with change, they fail. See Hazza's previous posts regarding competition.

That's a grand theory Monkstown, but you've already been given examples of why that's not true overall. We can look at any other business not offering retail goods.
Why do you think a small retail store would suffer more than any other trade and why do you not want restrictions on other trades for the same reason?

That's true if you accept the thesis of "free market" capitalism.
The good survive the weak go under.

That's wrong though in 2 ways.

It's been pointed out 101 times that the large retailers who would gain form a further liberalisation of the law engage in legal but morally questionable practices to drive out the competition. They then charge more once they have a dominant market position.

Secondly, there is the argument (also applying to such services as banks and public transport provision) whether people have a right to be able to shop. If the out of town malls or the distant city centre shops expanded at the expense of the local shops, where do the elderly or the poor go shopping?

I don't have a link sorry but there's already been some reporting about how people in the UK are denied access to basic food shopping. It's long been the case (Orwell wrote about it in the 1930s) that people for example on low incomes living on estates end up paying more for food becasue they can't access the loss leaders etc at distantstores.

In EVERY segment of the economy there is a level of government regulation.
Even in the "free trade" world of drug dealing the government regulates supply by nicking people.
Why should retail also not have a level of government egulation if people decide it is for the general good?

We have offered a solution to that problem. If you hire someone to look after your shop 1 day a week, then you can still have your day off. If you cannot make enough money on this extra day of trading to cover the cost of the extra staff and a little extra in utilities, then you are going out of business anyway


So if Fred Müller wants a litre of milk on Saturday, he would go to his local shop and do a weeks shopping there instead?? I want to know why Fred Müllers behaviour would vary so much from Saturday to Sunday when he needs a litre of milk.


Well any change that requires a shift in mentality on how you do your business is scary - particularly for the small family run businesss that has run for a generation with the Sunday closing law in place. They don't exactly know how it's going to work and how it will affect them. It is easier to be against such a change than to look at the extra possibilites. The larger chains and multinationals are already open on Sundays in different markets and know of the benefits this brings them and business in general.

Nail on the head.

One of my friends is part of a committee that is fighting for 24/7 (he works for Microsoft and is German but believes all things American are best). During the world cup he went to a couple of stores that had opened for 24hrs and expressed how great it was. The reason he liked it was that "there was no one else in the store (and he meant no-one except for a couple of staff)". The store was supposed to have a few of these nights but it only did the one because so few people turned up. It seems that people, even when given the opportunity, do not feel the need to buy a bag of doughnuts at 2am.

I think experience from the UK has shown that small shopkeepers tend not to hie extra staff for the extra day but work themselves or wthin the family. I doubt whether shops could/would hire new staff for one shift a week on a Sunday. Would some small shops be going under anyway? Maybe. Perhaps the government should be keeping this sector of the economy going through the shopping laws to avoid a welfare bill and to keep retail available locally in rural areas?

Again, the UK experience shows that when people travel for convenience and choice to a larger retail unit that happens to be open late/on Sunday etc they tend to increase the ammount they buy there over and above their "out of hours" needs and take trade away from local shops.

Shift in mentality? Yeah, sounds great here in inner Munich. Don't disagree to an extent.
In Furth-im-Wald it's a wee bit different. They are wary of change.
They don't like Ausländer or gays or whatever out there either.
It's not right, but it's the way it is.

Monkstown, I find it funny how you think there are enough people who would go out of town shopping on a Sunday to put small shops out of business, yet you also think it is not profitable for small shops to open on a Sunday.

That's great Canaryman. And some people don't always feel the need to buy McDonalds at 2am either, whether it's because it's American or not. Maybe they want a kebab or a pizza from the little store next door.
So why should that change whether any single business is allowed to open or not?

Once again - completely missing the point. It's the stores right to close if they don't make any business. But if they feel they can make extra business, then they should be allowed to stay open.

Nobody is suggesting fo a minute that the local butcher be open 24/7. He's not going to get very much trade at all on a Wednesday at 4am.

But maybe he'll get a few customers in on Sunday at 4pm and he'll feel that he can do a bit of extra business by opening then. Denying him the OPPORTUNITY to open is wrong.

I'd still like to know why Fred Müller reacts so differently to not having any milk on Saturday than not having any on Sunday...

It is patently not profitable for small shops to extend their opening hours.
If so they would do so already underthe law as it stands.
Despite being able to trade until 8PM six days a week, most shops outside the inner city close at 6PM and 1PM Saturday.

It would not be profitable for individual small shops to trade on Sunday.
The shops that would trade would be large inner city and in rural areas, out of town malls near motorway junctions. They would take the whole trade from a whole Landkreis.

There's no different reaction Hazza whethe you need milk on a Saturday or a Sunday.
But on a Sunday you'd only be able to buy it at an out of town mall or the inner city stores and then a greater proportion of your trade would go there.

Some local councils in the UK have had to restrict what the out of town stores sell as they were taking the business of the smaller shops in the town. John Lewis in High Wycombe is a good example. They were refused to be able to have a food and drink line (except for near Christmas).

No - small business people are scared of change. It's like introducing new technologies to someone in an office who has been doing the same job for 30 years. They are resistant to change - even if that change is going to make things easier for them.

And again - the tedious argument is made that shops already don't open to the limit of the law now. That is completely irrelevant. It is a matter for the individual store to judge. Do you think that they are going to repeal the 24 hour trading law in the US because Esprit are shut at 3am Wednesday? They aren't using the law in full, so we'd better prevent them from opening. That argument makes no sense.

So what makes you think all these people who don't even want to shop Saturday afternoon at their local shop would suddenly get in their car and drive to a further away shop?

"Grunhagen et al (2002) sought to compare how consumer perceptions of Saturday shopping
developed in Germany in conjunction with relaxed restrictions by conducting a survey of German
university students over a three year period. In 1996, new legislation extended retail trading hours
on weeknights by one and a half hours and on Saturday by two hours (from being required to close at
2pm to 4pm). At that stage, surveys indicated that a majority of respondents had no preference for
longer trading hours and believed that they could do their shopping without major problems during the
trading hours that previously existed.
However, Grunhagen et al found that expanded Saturday shopping opportunities had a noticeable
effect on perceptions of Saturday as a shopping day, as well as consumption patterns. They found
that shopping on Saturday had shifted from necessity shopping (for example, groceries) to more
hedonic shopping (for example, fashion), which supported the theory that longer hours would lead to
an increase in retail sales. Further, the study concluded that this did not involve a major shift in
expenditure as consumers could now buy such items at lower prices due to the fact that mass
merchandisers could now open for a longer period of time."

full report

How does he do that if shops are closed on Sundays???

It's not irrelevent. It makes it clear that the deamnd for much greater liberalisation comes from a minority of shoppers and a minority of retailers.

SURE, minorities have rights too and I'm all for that.
But in this case, the CSU has decided that the rights of the minority are of less importance than what they see as the structural benefit is terms of economy and society of keeping the law as it is.

Well, my experience is different, and each shop is different also. But even so, why does this make you feel they should have blanket government restrictions on what they do?

That's strange. Last time I was in the UK I saw plenty of small shops open on Sundays. They would/could hire staff for a shift if it was beneficial for business. Or not, if not. Do they need a law to help them decide? no.

I could just as easily say plenty of small shops are operating quite well elsewhere where 24/7 freedom is the norm' and customers don't want to travel to larger retail units. In fact, it's often NOT convenient, and certainly not pleasant. Local stores will still do well in their own right, extra hours won't change anything.

Small shops are quite capable of adapting to freedom of trade hours, it's not like a herd of idiot sheep are running the stores.
Why do they need the government to keep competition in check when no other business does?

It's like saying no newspapers can have staff working on a Sunday because the little local papers might not be able to afford an extra person to come in.

It is irrelevant because it does not address why businesses should not be able to choose their opening hours and days themselves with greater flexibility. All it does is show that retailers adjust their own opening hours to trade when they think is the most profitable within the existing law.

If they don't like change, then they don't have be a part of it - much like they don't have to be gay, or have Ausländer as friends.

Of course retailers adjust their hours within existing law.
The ones who would make the most use of the new law would be the large chains.

No they don't have to be part of it, but they would be effected by it.

I don't agree. Is this the case in London (an example everyone loves to bring up). Which stores are open the longest there?

If extra hours would cause loss of income to small retail stores, and extra income to big ones, would your theory be then that if we restricted the hours further (say to 5 retail days a week) then this would tip the scale of current large-retail domination to the small retailers favour?

Or would you say that mathematically we are currently experiencing the perfect balance?

If not, I assume you would be all for cutting back shopping hours further because somehow this would benefit smaller businesses to only open 5, 4 or 3 days a week. (less days to compete, therefore better business??)

interesting. so laws restricting store opening hours basically serve to protect us from the dangers of hedonism.

The stores open longest in London are:

Tesco and Sainsbury 24 hour stores

followed by Asian run small shops in the inner suburbs.
These are family businesses where they owners and their families have to work VERY long hours = pay themselves a low rate of pay tp be able to survive. I don't have stats but I STRONGLY suspect they "pay" themselves and/or family members under the minimum wage.

They are called the 'disadvantaged consumer'. As shops and services close down or are relocated to out-of-town locations, the elderly and people who don't have access to cars, among others, find it increasingly difficult to live their lives. The social interaction found in a small family store, but not in Tesco, is also lost despite being very important to elderly people living alone.

In the past 20 years in the UK, the milkman has virtually disappeared from Britain's streets. Why? Because people earning fifty grand a year realised that they could buy their milk 4p cheaper from Asda. That's tragic, but the inevitable consequence of putting price above quality, convenience and local service is the clone town omnipresent throughout Britain.

The competitive advantage that these stores have is that they are open late. From my experience, they are quite expensive and don't have much variety in stock. They survive because they are allowed to be open late. Now, if they were all forced to close at 8pm and be shut completely on Sundays - you can forget about them getting under minimum wage. They would not survive.

I like those things in small businesses, with me its mostly pubs.

If you run out of cash you can get a slate, you can gossip with the neighbours, you need to find a bloke to paint your flat for cash etc, just ask in the pub. Local landlady keeps my emergency housekey too.

But they existed before when laws were more restrictive innit.