There's a fair degree of point missing going on here. Having taken the time to articulate the precise focus of my point it is disappointing that folk have just skimmed through and not got it.
It isn't the NORMAL opening hours at issue here, they seem perfectly reasonable for a NORMAL out of season/non matchday Saturday.
However this weekend saw masses of people needing to collect their orders, staff needing to be freed up this week to get membership packages out and the website putting out a "limited availability" message about non pre-ordered shirts. That all made this weekend ANYTHING BUT NORMAL.
It represented an ideal opportunity to clear the backlog of orders from the shop at a time more convenient to the customers (but also convenient for Argyle as with those orders gone the staff can concentrate on the ST's today onwards). They also should have forseen that by putting out there that stocks are low for non orders a HIGHER THAN NORMALfootfall was going to occur...and the quicker you sell out the quicker you can start a preordering list for the next batch. More sales equals more profit.
But having created greater demand they neither created any greater availability for sales nor reminded anyone of the store opening times. THAT is my point.
To use the Currys analogy, I wouldn't expect Currys to close at lunchtime on Black Friday. Book/phone shops/cinemas have NORMAL opening hours but upon the release of anticipated mass demand products they open at midnight on the release day to maximise revenue. UNUSUAL demand dictates UNUSUAL opening hours.
Apologies for 'shouting' so often in this post but as the point has been missed already, it emphasises it..
PS - Nothing contained above addresses the other issue, the sheer numbskullery of locking out customers while the staff are still working inside. If they're there anyway then use them to take money and shift orders for collection too.
