With only five weeks to go until Christmas, we’re well into the swing of the festive season.
Last week, we welcomed the New South Wales Government’s landmark decision to allow retailers across New South Wales to open their doors on one of the biggest trading days of the year – Boxing Day.
Previously, Boxing Day has been a restricted shop trading day in NSW, meaning only exempt stores or those within the Sydney Trading Precinct or certain “tourist zones” had been allowed to operate.
This Boxing Day, which falls on a Saturday, should prove to be a positive one not only for retailers, but also for locals and holidaymakers alike, who will now be able to reap the benefits and snap up their post-Christmas bargains.
The Government’s decision is a big win for our industry, but it’s important to remember it is only a two-year trial.
So if you operate a store in NSW and you will be opening your doors for the first time this Boxing Day, we’re asking you to pay close attention to how your business performs and make a record of your experiences. That way, when the time comes for the government to review this trial, we will have the evidence to back up our view and hopefully make this a permanent fixture.
We’re also putting the call out to our members who operate stores in Victoria, in the wake of legislation passed earlier this year making the Friday before the AFL Grand Final Day a public holiday. This law was passed on the back of the Labor Government’s 2014 election commitments to introduce two additional public holidays – this one, and Easter Sunday.
These public holidays were introduced on a one-year trial, so please send us your feedback and any evidence of the challenges your business faced on this year’s AFL Grand Final Day public holiday.
We are acutely aware of the pressures small businesses already face in staffing public holidays and have been lobbying hard for a more equitable system for the retail sector on these days.
We depend on your feedback in order to continue to advocate for our industry, so please contact us if you are available to provide evidence and case studies about Boxing Day trading in NSW or about trading on the public holiday before AFL Grand Final Day.