Why do most shopping centers and shops close everyday (except only on Thursdays) at 5:30 or 6:00 pm in Sydney?

Question

Unlike most, if not all big cities in the world, Sydney is nearly a desert after 6:00 pm. You can see people wanting to continue shopping after 5:30 pm, but being shown the way out of the shops because it is time to close!

Answer 1

Hey

If you worked in one of those stores I bet you would not mind about those hours.

I used to live in Germany where it used to be the same and it would annoy me as I could never get any grocery shopping done.  But now thinking about it , it makes sense.  It is a quality of life issue and obviously Sydney values their quality of life!

People who own shops in the US are forced to be open really long hours because the big corps keet those stores open long hours and they have to try and compete.

but if you are only open certain hours then you have as much of a chance of attracting joe shmoo as the next Walmart.  I know there are other factors - location, price, quality, etc.

Answer 2

But they are!

If you are in the Inner City (Ultimo, Pyrmont, Glebe, Newtown, Marrickville etc), most shops and shopping centres are open until 7pm for clothing and specialty stores, 8/10pm for department stores, and midnight for groceries.

Because Sydney really isn't a huge city in terms of population, so many of the suburbs function just like small towns - most people like it this way I suppose - if you really need anything urgently all of the big chains are open later anyway (IE Westfields, or Coles etc), if you don't mind travelling to the nearest one.

Answer 3

This is not limited to Sydney.  In Australia there are (or were) minimum conditions for businesses - and their employees.  Australia had historically been a bit of a 'nanny' state - state health care, state funded welfare, and regulations about operating hours etc.

I remember when Late-Night (Thursday) Shopping was introduced - it was a huge deal.  Perhaps one day Sydney might become the New York of Australia, but not yet.

Meanwhile, rural centres in central NSW don't have anything except the supermarkets and the pubs open from noon Saturday until Monday morning ...