Shops to open every Sunday :-)

[jas_rho]

Tiwaz:
I think that the prices going up in Estonia have a bit more involved than the fact that their stores are open on Sundays. Maybe its cause they joined the EU and have to raise many other standards etc. But I'm no expert on this stuff.

My opinion is that if a store wants to be open on Sundays then they should be allowed to be open. If it puts someone else out of business, thats too bad, but thats life. I still go to the larger stores anyway because they are usually cheaper.

[Tiwaz]

Tiwaz:
I think that the prices going up in Estonia have a bit more involved than the fact that their stores are open on Sundays. Maybe its cause they joined the EU and have to raise many other standards etc. But I'm no expert on this stuff.

It is combination of factors. But they still have to pay for their workers for sunday work. And in Finland they pay double for sunday work. 200% salary expenses per hour compared to average day. They have to make that difference from somewhere! Estonia is different country with different situation so pointing out how they do stuff is idiotic.
By the way, while Estonia experiences 16% price increases, Finland has only 6-7%. Different country, different situation. Cannot be directly compared.

My opinion is that if a store wants to be open on Sundays then they should be allowed to be open. If it puts someone else out of business, thats too bad, but thats life. I still go to the larger stores anyway because they are usually cheaper.

So do you want to pay more? You already said you go to big stores because they are cheaper. How long do you think they are cheaper if they are only options you have AND they have to cover their increased salary expenses for sundays?

I am stunned how few people appear to apply logical thought. Is logic somehow forbidden in most parts of the world?

Every hour workers work they are paid, every sunday hour workers work they are paid 200% (this is partially why places like ABC-stores have higher prices. They have to have people there to serve you for every opening hour, even if no customers are there).
Stores work for profit, either they have to accept loss of profit or they have to find another ways to get money if their expenses go up but income does not. And anyone thinking that Finns will suddenly have huge urge to go shopping on sunday and still shop same amount at weekdays, they are delusional.

And if stores are permitted to be open on sundays, every store will be. Else they give competitive advantage to competitors. And it costs. Where will they get the money to cover the costs? Tell me...

[rinso]

My opinion is that if a store wants to be open on Sundays then they should be allowed to be open. If it puts someone else out of business, thats too bad, but thats life. I still go to the larger stores anyway because they are usually cheaper.

Which eventually leads to a Wall mart type junk mono culture.
In high density area's, there will be enough business for specialized and high quality shops. But in the low density area's the choice will disappear.

[jas_rho]

My opinion is that if a store wants to be open on Sundays then they should be allowed to be open. If it puts someone else out of business, thats too bad, but thats life. I still go to the larger stores anyway because they are usually cheaper.

Which eventually leads to a Wall mart type junk mono culture.
In high density area's, there will be enough business for specialized and high quality shops. But in the low density area's the choice will disappear.

Wanna talk about junk and wal-mart? Wal-mart has way better stuff than all the crap that halppa halli, Tokmanna, MiniMani, Tarjous Talo, etc has ever had. There is so much crap here already that that point has already been crossed.

Are we so socialistic here that people aren't allowed to run their business how they want to? I will stick to my opinion that if a store wants to be open, and they find workers willing to work for them on Sundays then let them. If you don't want to shop on Sundays or at those stores then don't I won't force you and wouldn't care if you did or didn't. If a business wants to be closed on Sundays and I need something from them, I guess I'll have to make sure I get it on another day, it won't make me like them more or less.

[annekmc]

Well as much as it is really not fun to work on a Sunday, I will take my double time Sunday pay quite happily and go out and spend it on something I would probably not be able to afford otherwise, so yes I will probably spend over and above my normal because shops are open on a Sunday. Maybe the real winners here are the shopworkers

The worst time to have to work Sundays (and I'm sure most shop workers would agree) is during summer when it would be much more fun to be at the summer cottage or doing something fun in the sun, and since the shops are already open then, it doesn't really matter to us if are open the rest of the year, that just means more of us with more money to spend

[Tiwaz]

Wanna talk about junk and wal-mart? Wal-mart has way better stuff than all the crap that halppa halli, Tokmanna, MiniMani, Tarjous Talo, etc has ever had. There is so much crap here already that that point has already been crossed.

Are we so socialistic here that people aren't allowed to run their business how they want to? I will stick to my opinion that if a store wants to be open, and they find workers willing to work for them on Sundays then let them. If you don't want to shop on Sundays or at those stores then don't I won't force you and wouldn't care if you did or didn't. If a business wants to be closed on Sundays and I need something from them, I guess I'll have to make sure I get it on another day, it won't make me like them more or less.

Yes.

You see, we can look at USA and Iceland how things turn out when you let people run business like they want. They end up going bust and hurting the society as whole.
Market force is not intelligent nor is it reliable. Only a fool presumes that market forces run business "right" without regulation.

But what you fail to grasp, is that opening possibility to be open takes option away from store. Every store has to be open on sunday if they can, even if it hurts them because else whatever meager money they make would go to someone else and strengthen the competition. But this is of course too complicated concept for some people...

Or haven't you noticed that EVERY store is open as much as they can... (with some exceptions on small, specialized outlets) They cannot afford anything else because outside niche stores there is just too many competitors to afford such thing.
And since many of us would not start spending more, stores would make less profit with sunday expenses, so they hike up the prices or go bust. First one resulting in you paying more money for joy of shopping in one more day, which you do not really need. And second one leading to situation where there is no proper competition, again leading to disadvantage of consumer. Why is this logical situation difficult to grasp?


You can't just open up sundays and presume nothing else changes. Because it will.

[annekmc]

Or haven't you noticed that EVERY store is open as much as they can... (with some exceptions on small, specialized outlets) .

Halpa Halli don't open and they do ok

[jas_rho]

Yes.

You see, we can look at USA and Iceland how things turn out when you let people run business like they want. They end up going bust and hurting the society as whole.
Market force is not intelligent nor is it reliable. Only a fool presumes that market forces run business "right" without regulation.

But what you fail to grasp, is that opening possibility to be open takes option away from store. Every store has to be open on sunday if they can, even if it hurts them because else whatever meager money they make would go to someone else and strengthen the competition. But this is of course too complicated concept for some people...

Or haven't you noticed that EVERY store is open as much as they can... (with some exceptions on small, specialized outlets) They cannot afford anything else because outside niche stores there is just too many competitors to afford such thing.
And since many of us would not start spending more, stores would make less profit with sunday expenses, so they hike up the prices or go bust. First one resulting in you paying more money for joy of shopping in one more day, which you do not really need. And second one leading to situation where there is no proper competition, again leading to disadvantage of consumer. Why is this logical situation difficult to grasp?


You can't just open up sundays and presume nothing else changes. Because it will.

Hehe, yeah the whole world financial situation all comes down to the fact that stores are open on Sunday. Why didn't the rest think of that??? How do you know Iceland has its stores open on Sunday anyway?

I haven't said that I NEED stores to be open on Sunday. I just think that business owners should be able to decide opening hours on their own. Not according to how many square meters their store is or what's the population of the municipality where they are located.

[Tiwaz]

Hehe, yeah the whole world financial situation all comes down to the fact that stores are open on Sunday. Why didn't the rest think of that??? How do you know Iceland has its stores open on Sunday anyway?

I haven't said that I NEED stores to be open on Sunday. I just think that business owners should be able to decide opening hours on their own. Not according to how many square meters their store is or what's the population of the municipality where they are located.

And you still haven't managed to make logical conclusion that if it is up to them when they are open, they are open as much as they can. Because if they are not, someone else will grab the customers who would feel like shopping at that particular moment. Stores cannot afford to lose customers like that. So they stay open as much as they can. Or have you still not figured out that every Stockman, Sokos, Anttila etc is open maximum permitted hours. It doesn't matter if they can voluntarily close, nobody gives competitors advantage over them by closing up. Yes, Halpa-Halli is exception (due to being owned by some biblethumpers) but it can afford it because it sells crap which has long shelf life.

Most stores cannot go that way. If Prisma is closed, people go to Citymarket. And that hurts Prisma while giving CM competitive edge and opportunity to strengthen customer binding. So Prisma is open as much as CM to combat it. It does not matter if they make loss from that sunday, they just can't afford people to start preferring another store. They just take the lost money from sunday and put it in prices so that they make profit. So everyone pays regardless of shopping on sunday or not.

[sinikala]

The idea of a 2 day weekend has only been around since the mid-1800's. Before that it was a 1.5 day weekend, and prior to that a 6 day working week in most of Europe.

As has already been discussed on here, this Sunday trading is at worst a kind of zero sum game and at best may even result in increased trade.

Needing to employ people at a higher (overtime) rate on a Sunday will be balanced either (a) by increased revenue from increased sales or (b) if sales are flat and you only get people switching their shopping days it means staffing requirements for other days will go down.

My guess is that in the big chains it will be a re-distribution of the usual Friday evening and Saturday lunchtime rush that we currently see. And the worry about small shops... what small shops?!

Finland lost it's highstreet traders long ago... the butchers, fishmongers, greengrocers, delis... outside of the Kaupahalli where are they? They seem to do a decent trade as market stalls. Bakers seem to have survived as they are often combined with a cafe... but I heard that the rest had disappeared in the 80's and '90s. The hypermarkets tend not to compete with those who remain.

And incase anyone wants to point out the obvious that I didn't mention, It's hard to believe increased opening hours would cause an overall drop in sales.

You see, we can look at USA and Iceland how things turn out when you let people run business like they want. They end up going bust and hurting the society as whole.

To find a relationship between the sub-prime collapse and sunday trading is rather quite impressive. Can somebody pass Dishwash his dunce's cap?

[jas_rho]

Tiwaz: What logic am I not getting?

Hehe, this is fun. I have only said that stores should be allowed to choose. Maybe I should say you aren't getting the logic. There are other stores besides Halpa Halli that are still closed on Sundays. And you mock those that stay closed on Sundays by calling them bible thumpers? You should be happy that they are doing what they feel is right. Good for them.

There isn't anything you can say that will change my mind about this. By try if you want.

[TampereOwl]

Aren't the K-stores individual shops under some kind of franchise that sells them their own brand stuff too?

[riku2]

Grocery stores are just among the first, because it's easy to harness public opinion for this cause, and the worker pool is vulnerable (a lot of young people temporarily in the field, or else somewhat uneducated people, i.e. low wage jobs).

this could lead to a nice discussion about what's so wrong with paying low wages to low skilled people, they can always pack their bags and work somewhere else (halppahalli where there is no sunday trading? ). As it is retailers in Finland stock their shelves during the day and even prepare for sales during opening hours with a large percentage of the store covered off with yellow plastic just before the sales start- does that happen in the UK, USA or Asia ? they do it overnight since then they don't want to lose revenue.

but Finland could be a lot worse .. In france they have perfected the art of retail laws to "even things out":

no advertising of books - in case big publishers would dominate the market with translated american/british novels.

dates of sales - strictly controlled to two periods a year so they are the SAME for all retailers. and during the sales price reductions carefully controlled to avoid the shop deciding it's own discount or even (shock horror) selling things too cheaply !!

I predict that little by little, the weekend tradition will be eroded until it disappears, in all fields.

well it's a global world and the more you work in the big wide world and not some little backwater where the office can close for the whole of july then the more you have to adjust to what everyone else does. In dubai they just moved their weekend from thu/fri to fri/sat - so even weekends can be moved to somewhat match the rest of the world. In my IT based company more and more work is done in India with Finns put out of a job - no doubt because they had the habit of all taking their holiday in july meaning that all projects and deliveries must pause for 6 weeks during the finnish summer. So they have gotten what they deserved a little - and there is certainly no legislation that will reverse these changes.

[TampereOwl]

It'd be a right pain in the arse if they moved my local 7-23 to India.

[Pursuivant]

In france they have perfected the art of retail laws to "even things out":

indeed, makes me giggle when people say Finnish laws are something strict...

no doubt because they had the habit of all taking their holiday in july meaning that all projects and deliveries must pause for 6 weeks during the finnish summer. So they have gotten what they deserved a little - and there is certainly no legislation that will reverse these changes.

[/quote]

no, you need global warming to change Finnish summer being the 6 weeks around July