Dear friends and family (and spyware), today is a momentus day in the history of Perth and Perthites/Perthians/Perthers/Perthans/Perthies. Today (Sunday) is the official beginning of Sunday shopping in W.A.! This means that all stores that were legally obliged to be closed on Sunday now are legally obligated to stay open. So, now instead of complaining that the government is forcing businesses to lose revenue on a potential busy weekend shopping day, businesses are now complaining that they are being forced to stay open rather than spend time with their families.
What this means from a practical perspective (i.e. my point of view) is that there are slightly fewer time constraints on consumers. This will likely alleviate the pressure somewhat. As it stands now, most stores are open:
- Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday 9am-5:30pm
- Thursday 9am to 9pm
- Saturday 9am to 6pm
The results of this is that any household where all the adults work for a living have only Thursday and Saturday to shop. This includes most groceries, hardware stores and other relatively important shops. One of the notable exeptions to this is liquor stores. They are open 7 days a week with extended hours. If you know anything about Aussies this won't come as a surprise. So, for any shop that sells stuff besides booze, it forces one to spend at least Thursday or Saturday shopping. This also means that malls, supermarkets and everything else (besides the drive-through beer store) are packed to the rafters with shoppers on those two "shopping days". The new Sunday shopping will likely alleviate the pressure a little bit.
Let me be the first to congratulate W.A. on finally arriving to the year 1987. If this rate of innovation continues, before we know it they'll be insulating their homes and adopting daylight savings.
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