X Isle":1ayauvtz said: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.
Sorry X-Isle but that analogy does not stand up at all. Black Friday is a chance for people to purchase new items, not collect items that have already been paid for and pre-ordered. There might be a few extra sales for the club in this case but not many. Extra (or extended) staffing is never cheap once you have added on the on-costs which are usually four times the wages you need to pay out. If you can't guarantee getting the money back it's often not worth it.
As to your point about opening at unusual hours, I have arranged some of these in the past and they are massively expensive and disruptive to ordinary business. You have to either pay overtime (expensive) or give staff time back (often at time and a half) which has an impact on business when they take the time back. The less staff you have the bigger the problem is too.