Keen to get OzBargain's thoughts on this. As someone who's lived in NSW and VIC I was pretty shocked to see that only Thursdays in Sydney had extended trading hours considering Sydney is one of our most populous states. For reference in Melbourne we have extended trading hours on Thursdays and Fridays to 9 pm, and Chadstone is open until 9 pm on Saturdays.
I'm of the belief that extended trading hours simply makes life more convenient because it gives you more options (especially if you work an office 9-5 kind of job). For example:
- If you have an event on Saturday at 12 pm and need to obtain something for that event, instead of being forced to either go on Thursday night (i.e. the late night shopping night) or Saturday morning, you have the option of also going on Friday night.
- If you're working on a project on a Saturday evening and you realise you need something for it, you can head out to the shops instead of waiting until the next day.
- It's a nice Friday in the summer, you decide you want to wash your car after work but when you get home you realise that you need more car shampoo, you can quickly duck out to Supercheap Auto to grab some.
- When I was in Melbourne for work, I needed a suit jacket last minute and was able to buy one at around 6:15 pm on a Wednesday night.
I'm sure there have been studies on the ROI of having extended trading hours, I haven't read any but feel free to inform me on the details. After a quick Google I've found this simple document from a 2005 WA referendum on it although it seems to be very pro-extended hours and doesn't address the cons (and the referendum didn't pass).
So what are your thoughts on having extended trading hours in your state? Would you like extended trading hours even if it's just Thursday and Friday nights?
Note: I didn't bother including VIC in the poll since we already have it pretty good IMO.
I don't see the need for longer trading hours, the most supermarkets and other stores for bits and pieces are either close anywhere from 7 to 9, the only thing that would be more helpful is having GPs open longer since I work crappy shift work. Never really needed to go to a store suddenly at 11pm at night (at that point, I'm so settled in, I don't want to leave the house). My town is dead after 7pm most nights, despite supermarkets, bars and fast food being open way later, what could you possibly need outside of regular hours? The worst part is when a large mass of people decide to do their shopping 5 minutes before close, opening later won't help, they'll still come in 5 minutes before close (they're people who can't manage their time effectively).