Shop till you flop

By Carroll du Chateau

Maybe change starts like this. It might look like just a few desultory shoppers wandering down the aisle of an almost empty supermarket at 3 o'clock in the morning, but really it's a revolution. A social change that will transform life as we know it.

Not that it's come out of the blue. Only a few decades ago, people faced the reality of five days without fresh bread over Christmas, and it was perhaps at such a time that rebellion stirred in our shopper's heart.

By 1980, the trolley wheels of change were rolling forwards. Despite Bill Rowling's taunts about the National Government's "rhinoceros mentality," Saturday trading was pushed through in the stampede for longer shopping hours to cater for working couples.

Shoppers and shopkeepers alike loved the change. Within another 10 years - and despite another round of what was perceived as a threat to family life - Sundays were also moved to the shopping list.

But in the small hours last Tuesday, as Woolworths New Lynn pushed the barriers yet again with its first night of 24-hour trading, it would seem that our voracious appetite for fresh-baked bread right now is met at last.

But despite the lure of free cappuccino between midnight and 2 am - plus friendly security guard Vladimir Bacarji to ensure safety as shoppers push their trolleys to the carpark - the gleaming, empty aisles are almost bereft of customers.

Only Paul, who works as a security guard, and his friend Peach, a chef, cruise the freshly stocked shelves for bargains on their way home from work. Their choice, of course, is bags of fresh rolls for lunches.

The director of strategic marketing for Woolworths, Des Flynn, who has watched weekend trading take off, is certain that 24-hour shopping will be a winner.

The company already has some experience with day-night trading through its joint-venture convenience stores at BP service stations in Herne Bay and Swanson.

"A couple of things have shown up," says Flynn. "A high degree of shift workers in West Auckland buy food - and not just food to consume then and there - on the way home.

"Our Lynmall store, which is one of the busiest malls in the country, is under increasing pressure for carparks and that is constantly pushing business later into the evening. So if this is going to work we've got the best chance of success in New Lynn."

Perhaps more important from a business point of view is that 24-hour opening can be achieved with only 12 extra staff working through the night for the usual "almost $10" hourly rate. As store manager Jason Griggs points out, a supermarket of this size is open 24 hours anyway.

Certainly this morning, "fillers" such as Natalie in her crisp green and white striped shirt, who works the 11 pm-5 am shift four nights a week, are flat out restocking shelves. It's a heavy routine. "I go home and peel the veges for tea, get the lunches ready and then the day starts like a normal housewife with breakfast at half past 6."

Later, when Peach and Paul have headed home for bed, the bakers will be turning out hundreds of loaves of bread, buns and foccacia. Before you know it, it will be 5 am and the early shoppers will start trickling in.