Shorter hours and personal service

WITH major supermarkets now having self-service checkouts, and trialling a mobile app that can be used to scan your items and charge your card/account thus meaning even fewer people being employed, one has to ask, do they really deserve the right to trade for seven days a week any more?

Would it not be better to return to late night Friday until 9pm and only until 12pm as on Saturdays of old? This would see the return of the once thriving small businesses who were crushed under the weight and run out of town by the buying power and predatory actions of these monopolising companies.

Small businesses would see more local produce sold, less waste and fairer prices for farmers, graziers and producers. The local store would once again become local with customers known by name, their custom rewarded and more variety. For those not old enough, it was the norm to have your trolley unloaded for you, priced and packed properly into paper bags or boxes and even carried to your car. For us oldies it would be a welcome and practical bit of nostalgia.

It’s time to put these companies on notice that only making a few hundred million or so whilst charging higher prices, paying farmers sweet bugger-all to boot with less staff and less service has consequences. Who among the politicians and local government will stand up to them, I guess none while they write cheques for political donations.