Stores closing earlier than advertised time

geordie_joe

Middy wrote: »

Also, why can't supermarkets have a small chiller at the front of the store for milk?

Because it would be too much work to keep it stocked up.

Everyone who came in for milk would take from that chiller and it would soon be empty.

Milk is usually kept at the back of the store, so you have to walk past lots of other tempting offers to get to it. If there was a chiller at the front of the store people would use it rather than walk past it and run the risk of getting to the back of the store and finding the "normal" milk chiller is empty.

Also, people who only came in for milk would not need to walk past all those tempting offers to get to it.

PenguinOfDeath

geordie_joe wrote: »

Also, people who only came in for milk would not need to walk past all those tempting offers to get to it.

Exactly why bread is usually right at the back of the store too!

charlie-chan

I worked until 6pm on Christmas Eve at Sainsburys and there were no end of customers with large trollies trying to get in after closing time to do their shopping. The manager told them that we were closed and they said "aren't you open until 7?" Well, if we were open until 7, we wouldn't be stopping people coming in lol.

They used to do it in my old job too on a Sunday as they would come in at 4:55pm to buy something. It was frustrating to go around the store and to tell customers the store was closed when they still carried on shopping lol. We have a life too.

Have you also seen customers try to get into closed stores as well? My local Tesco Metro closes at 10pm yet there are people still trying to get in at 11pm because they see staff working.

juno

anamenottaken wrote: »

No law for Christmas Eve (unless it were to be a Sunday). My local large Tesco advertised being open until 10 pm.

USDAW recently arranged an agreement with some of the big supermarkets that staff get paid a lot of overtime if they work after a certain time on Christmas Eve. So stores won't open late because they don't want to pay it.

Gillyx

When I worked for a well known supermarket, we weren't allowed to tell customers we were closed/closing, which was frustrating when you're not being paid any longer and they're faffing about not even buying anything in particular.

On Christmas Eve though I can see the stores point, plus if my store was anything to go by, there would be no bread or milk left by about 3pm because people go crazy and bulk buy, because we were closed for 2 days. Even when working at the cigarette kiosk we'd run out of certain brands of cigarettes because people would be buying 400 at a time :eek: Crazy.

rising_from_the_ashes

Gillyx wrote: »

When I worked for a well known supermarket, we weren't allowed to tell customers we were closed/closing, which was frustrating when you're not being paid any longer and they're faffing about not even buying anything in particular.

thatguy1 wrote: »

I work in Sainsbury's and normally some staff are scheduled to work past the time when the store shuts. We close at 4pm on Sundays and I'm contracted to work until 4:30pm.

It must depend on the sm then .... when I worked on checkouts, the store closed at 10pm and we were only paid until then - regardless of how many people still had to get through the checkouts.

Yes, it might be "a pain" for those who turn up at the last minute if the store doors are closed - but, they've been open for several hours & people have had all that time to come & do their shopping - why wait until the last minute?

Spare a thought for the poor person stuck on the till who's not getting paid - why should they do it for free because someone's decided to leave it until the last minute to go to the store?

Gillyx

rising_from_the_ashes wrote: »

It must depend on the sm then .... when I worked on checkouts, the store closed at 10pm and we were only paid until then - regardless of how many people still had to get through the checkouts.

Yes, it might be "a pain" for those who turn up at the last minute if the store doors are closed - but, they've been open for several hours & people have had all that time to come & do their shopping - why wait until the last minute?

Spare a thought for the poor person stuck on the till who's not getting paid - why should they do it for free because someone's decided to leave it until the last minute to go to the store?

We were paid half an hour after the store closed, but we done all our own cleaning, so all the checkouts had to be cleaned, all the floors swept and mopped (around the checkouts and inside) before we left for the night, so if customers didn't leave until 8.15 say (if we closed at 8) it could take us half an hour to get the rest done, so we wouldn't be paid after half past. Obviously for health and safety reasons even if there was only 1 customer left in the shop we couldn't start mopping.

We'd have to keep tills open too, to let people get served, and keep open the cig/lotto kiosk as it was at the end of all tills incase people wanted anything from there. Was a bit of a nightmare. In my area also there was another major supermarket open 24/7 about a 3 minute walk from us, so could never understand the last minute sallys.

Last New Years Eve, we had one man wandering around for 15 minutes after the store had closed, had a basket over flowing with goods, perishable too (think luxury ice cream, large joints of beef etc) then when he came to tills and realised it was only self service open, he put his basket down, and walked out :eek: now there was nowhere else open by this time, so did he really need the stuff he'd picked up?!?

sunflower_2

my mam used to work for asda and only got paid until closing time.
she was expected to continue serving customers until the store was empty!!!

they werent allowed to turn people away or put up a "till closed" sign.

my mam didnt drive and often missed her bus.

obviously the selfish customers didnt realised this - they just wanted an extra 5 mins infront on the tv before going for their wine.

sunflower_2

ellies_angel wrote: »

Christmas eve I begged at my local Tesco store (live in a small village and know most of the staff by name) to let me in at 6.55 tbecause we had come home to discover the dog had eaten the turkey and I needed something anything for dinner the following day, turkey, chicken joint of meat. I was told sorry, not letting you in, no turkeys left. I said I would take anything but told no.

now this is different altogether - a genuine Christmas emergency

shame on them for not letting you in. if i was a member of staff i would have gone and got the meat for you and sorted the deal outside

Middy

We have 10 self scan tills at the store I work at. Every day, we flight the notes and remove the coupons that were scanned on them. Three days a week, we empty the coin overflow bucket. We cannot do this until there are no customers in the store as its a security issue. Then once the tills are flighted, the late night supervisor and duty manager do the pods in the cash office.

We are only given 30 mins after the store is closed to do this as the supervisor is contracted to end 30 mins after the store shuts. If some moron is still packing their bags at 15 mins after the store closes, we will be late. The checkout staff cannot go home if its past 30 mins after store shutting as we need to be on the shop floor just in case one of the pods hasn't gone to the cash office.

I probably guess the OP has NEVER worked in retail based on their moans. The bigger the store, the more time managers have to scour the store, the more tills that need flighting etc.