Sunday shopping

Daily Life, Swiss News and General Topics
41
So don't go. Some of us work during the week and a single Saturday is often not enough for all shopping, especially if you wish to catch up on a little sleep.

42
Maybe the reason for the manic activity is people rushing to do shopping since the hours are so tight. In Canada, Sundays tend to be pretty quiet despite the open stores.

43
Saturday shopping is a nightmare. Longer hours equate to much less madness in my opinion.

44
Well, even if Switzerland takes till 2050 to have full Sunday shopping, Germany has already relegated Sunday shopping to the state level so I'm sure you can get yourselves over the border.

Sarkozy also want to free up Sunday shopping laws so the chance of being able to shop in France on Sunday has gone up.

When travelling in northern Italy, the shops there are open on Sundays.

If you're stuck in the middle of CH without a car, it's harder. Otherwise, nip over to France and buy some diesel and knickers while you're at it.

45
In Germany it use dto be 2pm closing on Saturday. Shopping for food was literally a scrum with feisty old women pushing past you to get to the fruit and veg. What a nightmare that was. Now they can open until 2030 in certain parts, but only if Sunday remains sacrosact. I had not heard that this had changed...

dave

46
I think you misunderstood the intentions of my message. In the rush, rush, rush atmosphere of today's Western society it is a nice change of pace that Sundays are laid back, let's take a walk, visit the mountains kind of thing.

What I am in favour of is the shops being allowed to stay open later during the week and yes, I do work which is why I enjoy my lazy Sundays

47

people can choose not to be rushed

I don't understand the mindset of why stores being open or not dictate what you do on Sunday except of course for those poor employees who have to work, though perhaps that would be a good day for certain ones of them to earn money because they have school or something the rest of the week. I don't want to be a cultural warrior, I accept how it is and live with it like everyone else.

48
As someone who has lived a considerable amount of time in

1) UK

2) USA

3) Germany

4) Switzerland

I have the right, just as you do, to take my experiences and parlay them into an opinion that I enjoy the Sunday Swiss lifestyle that is currently in operation as opposed to other countries. Thus, I would like to see Sundays remain closed. I just don't see the need for Switzerland to become another 24/7 culture.

As someone who works I understand the need of being able to shop at a later hour. Simple: Don't close the "insert name of shop here" at 6:30pm!

49
And I have a right to not give a damn about your preferences and have the right to shop when I want to.

Just because certain stores in Moscow are opened 24/7, doesn't mean everybody is up at 4 am buying powertools on a Tuesday. For working people Saturday only shopping is hugely inconvinient.

Just because some pensioners want to have a quiet Saturday, doesn't mean we should have no shopping on Saturdays too. During the week, many, many people who actually have a career, might finish so late, that they have no energy left to go shopping and they would like to do so on a week-end. And 4 hours on a Saturday is not enough.

50
Thanks for reading and understanding my post

You have the right to shop where you want to and when you want to. But in Switzerland at this present time this right does not exist! When in Rome, do as the Romans do! Don't like it? Move to Moscow

51
I also enjoy lazy days but I'm not a morning person. I would rather have a break from the hustle and bustle on a Saturday so that I can lie in after a hard week and then shop when I'm less stressed on a Sunday.

Also, visiting the mountains on a Saturday may be more fun if all the locals are jammed in a scrum at Migros.

52
How true that is. I think this whole issue would be a moot point if the shops could open when they want. Due to the low unemployment rate you would probably see a lot of the bigger shops deciding not to open on Sundays due to the time and a half that would have to be paid. But, you would probably find a lot of local places open that normally don't see much traffic such as the places in my town run by small merchants.

Ironically, when my town made the "Altstadt" traffic free they killed a lot of the business in the Altstadt and sent it in the direction of the Migros/Coop boon. If they were allowed to be open Sundays I could imagine them taking Mondays and Tuesdays off as most of the local merchants already take Monday off to get the 2 days a week break. Currently most Sundays the Altstadt is "packed" with people just taking a leisurely Sunday stroll. Everyone from kids to teenagers to Generation X to Pensioners....

I think I just hark on about this because places like Walmart just downright piss me off by what they've done to local businesses, and I've seen it first hand back when I lived in the States.

53
Exactly, so if the shops were able to open then the only difference would be that they would be actually shopping instead of window shopping.

54
If it becomes unlimited it worries me because of the Walmart effect which seems a little inevitable. I just read a heartwrenching story in our local paper about the local stationary store that will have to shut down after 30 years. If I remember right he's down about 80% in daily customers from 5 years ago. What's happened in my town in that time? We went from having a rerlatively small Coop to it being expanded to twice the size. A shopping center with a large Migros was opened and in the last few months an Otto's of all things!

I actually do my shopping at a local satellite Denner as it has fresh produce from the local community and all the other basics that I can need. From time to time I will also shop at Coop & Migros. But before they were here I survived just fine. I continue to use my local Butcher, stationary store (for now), & hardware store. But if they go, off I pop into the car polluting the atmosphere just so I can get a couple of nails.

I just fear for the Walmartisation of Switzerland and hope it never arrives.

55
I know what you mean, there have been many good business destroyed by the good intentions of town planners. The problem is that there are just too many people jammed in to cities to rely on small corner shops. Sure we would all like to shop there but we would be queueing all day for a loaf of bread if that's all that was available.

56
Coop Pronto has solved most of my problems.

57
A local stationary store is probably hurting more from people using electronic mail more than people shopping at WalMart. Don't get me wrong, I hate WalMart, but in this case I don't think they deserve the blame.

58
The problem with small stores is that they never have anything it stock and that you have to travel from one to another on your shopping route. A bigger store has more choice, easy acess, all stores under one roof, you don't need to head out into the elements with heavy shopping bags etc.

Case in point. There is a stationary store downtown, but... if I want to go there, I have to find parking... then walk to the store... go in but find they only have half of what I need, order the rest, then come back at a later date, carry the 10kilos + of stationary to my car. Or... I can just go to Bureau en Gros out of town, park right in front of the entrance and buy everything I need.

What we need is a shopping mall full of corner stores, no?

Besides, most of the corner stores sell useless stuff. In Fribourg, I think 2/3 rds of stores have no customers EVER in them since they don't seem to be selling anything usefull to anybody... yet many stores that can be usefull are not open or have closed.

59
walmart sucks, i totally agree. However, on the other hand, if consumers prefer Walmart to a local store, who am I to say the local store is better than Walmart. What I see now in the US, is a rebirth of more local markets in areas where people actually care to have local markets and stores (or keep Walmart out, if people don't want them there).

60
In a way it's the corner shops that have originality to them. Case in point: Sihl City. No originality to the whole place, just a matter of time before tenants move out or sub-lease the space at a loss.