Are you really saying that some people buy less food because a shop might shut at say 10pm, whereas if the shop was open 24 hours they would pop down at 3am and buy some food, which they will later throw away ?

No, that is not what I am saying or what I typed. I’m saying folk might buy more because the opportunity is there because the SM is open all night. And because they have that opportunity some of the food they previously bought may become spoiled and have to be thrown away.

Have you never looked in the fridge / cupboard and thought I don’t fancy any of that, I’ll nip down the shop for something I do fancy?

I have seen no evidence that the quantity of food, cleaning products, coffee, catfood, etc, people purchase, is based on whether shops are open 24 hours or not.

Neither have I, but SMs wouldn’t stay open longer if it didn’t make good business sense.

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Gary glitter plus 1, and they give you clubcard points as well.

Out of interest if I was selling land that say Tesco was buying, would I actually know that I was selling it to Tesco, or would they be using an agent to make the process somewhat less transparent?

It depends. There are a number of possible scenarios:

1. The retailer, let’s use Tesco as an example, buys your land. Even they have their own development arm – Spenhill Ltd – but it wouldn’t be difficult for you to find out that it was Tesco.

2. A developer buys the land speculatively, knowing they can get planning approval for a retail unit, but with no firm tenant or eventual buyer. This would be the most difficult scenario in which to predict the eventual tenant, especially if it’s a one off development company.

3. A developer buys the land already having an agreement with a retailer in place. Some developers do much of the same work with the same retailer. A little bit of googling can tell you a lot in this instance.

ah spenhill.. named from when tesco bought hillards in the 80’s. these developers etc usually pay well over the odds for opportunities. my family’s business had agreed to buy a business lock stock employees the lot for 3.5m and keep it as a going concern. on behalf of tesco someone turned up offered almost 3 times that for the land alone.. job done.

There are a number of possible scenarios:

Or 4. They use a trojan horse

An elderly man and woman were having a full-on argument about this outside the tea room at Roman Lakes this afternoon 🙂

I bought another carton of orange juice just so I could spectate for longer.

SMs wouldn’t stay open longer if it didn’t make good business sense.

Well of course they stay longer because it makes good business sense. But how does that equate into automatically assuming that they have “created” more jobs ?

Supermarkets are non-labour intensive retail outlets – that is central to the whole philosophy behind them. And until today at least, I thought everyone understood that.

Have you never looked in the fridge / cupboard and thought I don’t fancy any of that, I’ll nip down the shop for something I do fancy?

What, the local shop ?

I’ve certainly never thought at 3 in the morning, “I think I’ll nip down to Tesco and do a load of shopping which I don’t really need”.

I distinctly remember when my Tesco went 24 hours, and no I didn’t suddenly start buying more stuff, I carried buying exactly the same amount of sugar, catfood, bog paper, etc.

Of course people “buy more” when facilities are open at different hours!

The perfect example of course, being the Kebab shop – if it wasn’t open, you’d stagger home from the pub, think about cooking some food but instead just fall asleep on the sofa – however with the kebab shop there, offering a world of meaty goodness – you naturally get the urge buy a kebab, its called impulse, and it works.

Do you see many kebab shops open 9am-5pm round your way Ernie?

Next thing you’ll be telling us that supermarkets don’t need to put chocolate bars near the checkout, because if you wanted to buy a chocolate bar, you’d go to the chocolate aisle and get one… 🙄

Well of course they stay longer because it makes good business sense. But how does that equate into automatically assuming that they have “created” more jobs ?

I’m not arguing the jobs creation line.

Supermarkets are non-labour intensive retail outlets – that is central to the whole philosophy behind them. And until today at least, I thought everyone understood that.

As, I said, I’m not arguing the jobs creation line. Why do you think I am?

I’ve certainly never thought at 3 in the morning, “I think I’ll nip down to Tesco and do a load of shopping which I don’t really need”.

Doesn’t need to be a load of shopping . Could just be a couple of things – which may replace stuff already bought.

I take it that ernie doesn’t do much in the way of unsocial hours at work; having a Tesco open 24hrs can be useful when your local hospital doesn’t have any kind of canteen overnight…

Or perhaps he goes to bed early.

So crikey, you eat more, use more bog paper, buy more pet food, etc, just because Tesco is open 24 hours ? How bizarre. And it certainly shoots my argument to pieces.

Having 4 kids at home between the ages of 19 and 24, I can assure you that 24hr supermarkets sell lots of food in the middle of the night that wouldn’t have been bought otherwise – 🙂

Particularly pizzas, burgers and curry, I often get to clean up the fallout before their mother surfaces and we’re all in trouble for the rest of the weekend 🙂

I’m not arguing the jobs creation line.

That was the only point I was making. Someone offered supermarkets being opened 24 hours as an example of how they “create” jobs.

Personally I like supermarkets, I particularly like Tesco, including the fact that mine is open 24 hours. But I am not going to pretend that supermarkets “create” jobs, they don’t. In fact supermarkets do the opposite – they destroy jobs. Of course whether that’s good or bad is another issue.

So crikey, you eat more, use more bog paper, buy more pet food, etc, just because Tesco is open 24 hours ? How bizarre. And it certainly shoots my argument to pieces

I can’t help but think you are being obtuse.
No, I don’t use more, or buy more just because they are open 24 hours…

…but what I do use or buy, I buy from the place that is open when I need it to be…

If, for the sake of argument, we accept that there is a finite amount of money available to be spent on such things, what becomes important is where that money is spent; open for 24 hours and you become the most obvious place to have said money spent within.

See?

Convenience and cost wins the argument for me. Ofc we’ll all be in trouble if the supermarket chains stop competing against each other and drive up prices but can’t see that happening any time soon in a big way (yeah I know the recently got caught at it :p ). If there was a local butcher close to me I’d still choose to buy meat there but there isn’t which is a shame but I can live with that for the added convenience that having a large supermarket brings.

As for jobs, I’d expect them to be fairly neutral vs local shops. As for pay, you can’t tell me local shops pay staff much more than minimum wage (assuming it’s not family run and any profits are put into wages).

The Internet is killing the high street anyway and will continue to do so, local artisan shops will survive but random greengrocers won’t and why should they? They’re offering something that not many people want or are prepared to pay for, that’s not a good business model.