Is it time to stay open past 9pm?

[JoeTarheel]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

They did last year.

I remember going to a different location that was open until 10p and commenting that I wish the HD by my house was open that late. The cashier told me they just extended their hours to 10p because the clocks moved forward and all the stores should have done it. She was right, the one by my house was then open until 10p. I hope they don't go back to 9p when the clocks go back.

That's the dumbest hours strategy ever. Talk about confusing your customers. Taco Mac has it right. They are not allowed to close before 2am ever, even if they haven't had a customer since 11p. They're right to do that.

You can't really compare Taco Mac's hours to Home Depot's...a bar/restaurant has a totally different type of customer base. I guess most businesses have set hours and do not close early even if there is little to no customer traffic. They keep the posted hours consistently so people will know when they are open.

[ATLTJL]

I didn't mean HD should stay open until 2am.

I mean that to change your hours over something as bizarre as daylight savings time is really strange and causes confusion. Most customers probably wonder why they close at 10 sometimes and 9 other times.

[David1502]

Stores will be open later if and only if there is a market demand which is profitable for them. Apparently that isn't the case as most Atlanta area malls used to be open until 9:30 PM until the late 1980's. They decided that with their overhead (security in particular) it wasn't worth it for the volume of shoppers.

However, the situation has changed in the last few years as all Macy's stores are open until 10 PM on Thursday, Friday and Saturday Nights and Nordstrom is open until 9:30 PM on Friday and Saturday nights.

As far as the question of stores being open 24 hours, during the two weeks before Christmas, several Macy's in large metro areas are open 24 hours a day for about a week. The flagship Macy's at Herald Square in Manhattan is one of this group. For whatever reason, Macy's decided that opening their flagship store at Lenox Square for these extended hours was not worth it. I think we have to keep in mind, that crime is a more significant factor in the the malls of the Atlanta area than what it is is in other parts of the country and this is probably a reason preventing the 24 hour opening before Christmas. The area Macy's are open until Midnight several nights during this period, however.

The Home Depot stores in the metro Atlanta area which were open 24 hours back in 2000 were their two best selling stores - the Buckhead store (on Sydney Marcus) and the Vinings store on Cumberland Parkway (also called the corporate store because of its proximity to their HQ.)

What is disappointing is that most Wal-Marts in non-urban settings are open 24 hours whereas most of their stores close to or inside the Perimeter close at Midnight and often have only one door open. I would imagine this is due to crime concerns.

[ATLTJL]

I would imagine this is due to crime concerns.

I'm not sure why some are 24 hour and some aren't, but I highly doubt the Wal-Mart on Ashford Dunwoody is more dangerous than a lot of the ones that are open 24 hours. I don't know how WM figures out which stores to close early.

You're right about Macy's on weekends, and it is great.

I seem to recall when I was a kid the anchor stores typically stayed open later than the rest of the mall by a half hour to hour. They usually closed the gate to the mall and you had to enter and exit using their dedicated doors.

[PedestriAnne]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

What about big box retailers? Target closes at 10pm. When was the last time you were at a Target and there were no people there that needed to be kicked out? I don't understand why a store would ever kick a customer out.

I've got to assume that these stores have done their research and some calculation has shown that the additional revenue gained after 10p doesn't make the overhead of salaries and lighting worthwhile to pay. But what if that's an outdated notion that nobody has bothered to update? What if it was created as an aggregate for a national scale (since every Target in America closes at 10p), but doesn't necessarily make sense for a city like Atlanta? Don't you think Lenox mall could support healthy business until at least 11pm most nights?

Maybe Atlanta isn't ready to be a true 24 hour city yet. But haven't we at least graduated beyond being a 9pm city? I know a handful of places stay open later (believe me, I know them all), but wouldn't Best Buy sell a lot of TVs and computers between 9p and 11p? Doesn't it make sense for Home Depot to not start closing at 9p instead of 10p when we set the clocks back in the fall? When did we become such late night pansies in this country?

Target (the Lindbergh, Edgewood, Buckhead, Atlantic Station and Dunwoody ones, anyway) close at 11:00, except on Sunday, when they close at 10:00. I would know.

[JoeTarheel]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

I didn't mean HD should stay open until 2am.

I mean that to change your hours over something as bizarre as daylight savings time is really strange and causes confusion. Most customers probably wonder why they close at 10 sometimes and 9 other times.

I just called a Home Depot to ask about this...I was told that they do not adjust their store hours due to dalight savings time. I know they didn't do it when I worked there and was questioning whether it's something they currently do.