The Age yesterday has a report about a push by the Australian Retailer’s Association on retail pays. With governments supporting an open all hours policy, they need to provide businesses with the ability to operate viably under these conditions. In a newsagency with an average overall business GP of 32%, paying $40 an hour 9and more) on a Sunday is not viable.
That’s why we now do Sundays ourselves and have moved our Sunday Staff to Saturday.
This also allows us to set the shop up for the coming week while working a shorter day.
We closed our Sunday trading completely. We used to do it ourselves but our lifestyle was worth more than the profits from the days trade.
i wish i can close on sunday , but centre will fine me
We could not justify Sunday wages about 2 yrs ago and closed down. We were the only SHOP in our CBD to be open on a Sunday apart from a bakery so the sales just could not justify it.
If businesses were not hit with such high penalty rates then I’m sure more retailers would open, I feel sorry for shops that are forced to open even though they lose money.
Retailers should be able to work staff 5 out of 7 days without penalty except for public holidays. It’s no wonder productivity is going backwards as there is no incentive for hard work any more.
After looking at our bottom line for the last few months, I’ll be reducing staff hours across the board today. It breaks my heart because they are good hardworking staff who love their jobs, but sales are struggling and the money is just not there to sustain my current staffing level.
Really not looking forward to telling them…