Kaufland joins the group of chains that will open shops on Sundays

Changes to the Sunday trading ban: the government removes a loophole in the current legislation

Wpis dostępny jest także w języku: polski

The ever-increasing number of competitors opened on Sundays pushed Kaufland to follow the trend and make part of the stores available seven days a week, starting from 5 September. Such units will open in locations, where the competitors are already operating full week. For this reason, Kaufland launched postal services at all branches – a decision, previously implemented by competitor chains, which allows circumventing the Sunday trade ban.

Retail chains that do not trade seven days a week are at a disadvantage and risk losing customers. For this reason, many players expanded the range of services to include postal outlets, since under the law, postal outlets are allowed to have employees behind the counter on non-trading Sundays. The very first chain to take advantage of this option was Zabka, which obtained the status of postal outlets back in 2012, and when the law “on the restriction of trade on Sundays and holidays and on certain other days” came into force in 2018, the company encouraged franchisees to open outlets across Poland. Recently this option was used by, among others, by Abc, Euro Sklep, Polomarket, Intermarche, Chata Polska, Stokrotka Express, Lewiatan, Biedronka, Delikatesy Centrum and Sklep Polski.

Kaufland was one of the last chains to join the trend and started including the postal points at the end of May this year. From 5 September at least 30 of the 227 Kaufland shops will be open every Sunday, before all in those towns where the competition also has stores open seven days a week. The project will be thus tested for the first few weeks, and then the number of stores open seven days a week is to increase.

Willingness to shop on Sunday stronger in urban than rural areas

According to the CBRE survey, 55% of consumers want the Sunday shopping option to return. This number was 51% in the previous study, conducted in June 2020. As a result, there was a 4 percentage point rise. One out of every three respondents is of an opposite opinion, and 14% have yet to come up with an opinion on the topic. There is a clear distinction between rural and urban dwellers on this subject. In the countryside, 48% of respondents support restoring the ability to operate stores on Sundays, while the number in cities with populations of over 500,000 people is as high as 64%. In smaller cities with a population of 20,000 to 500,000, between 56% and 60% of people believe that shopping Sundays should return.

With equal zeal, both the young and the old want shopping Sundays back. Specifically, 62% of 18-24 year olds and the same number of 55+ year olds prefer to shop on any given weekday. More than half of 25-34-year-olds and 45-54-year-olds want trade Sundays to return. Over 40% of those aged 35 to 44 are in support of shopping Sundays being reinstated. There were also no significant variations between men and women with regards to Sunday shopping preferences, with 54% of women and 55% of men preferring shopping Sundays to return.

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