Opinion: Tauranga CBD retailers closed at weekends bad business all round

Tauranga - home to 130,000 people who can't shop in the CBD on a Saturday afternoon. Photo / File

I'm on the hunt for a small, good-looking coffee table.

It needs to have a shelf or drawer and not be longer than 100cm, so it fits nicely in our small lounge.

Hubby and I were running errands last weekend and decided that, while we were out, we would nip into a few shops in Tauranga to investigate their selection and prices.

We had a few stores in mind to check out, so off to the city centre we went.

We managed to find a carpark and walked towards the first store - only to discover it was closed.

Huh.

Odd on a Saturday afternoon. Or so we thought.

Off we trotted to another shop we like. Closed doors.

We weren't the only befuddled ones - a young couple approached from the other direction and looked as puzzled as we did at the locked entrance.

We exchanged looks and, uttering one word - "Tauranga" - we shrugged and went our separate ways.

It astounds me that a CBD in a city with a population of more than 130,000 doesn't cater to weekend crowds.

Ten, 20 years ago, this would have been par for the course, but in this day and age, closing early on a weekend is bad business.

People like myself who work during the week have two days they can shop on - Saturday and Sunday - and if all the CBD stores are closed, we're going to take our business to the malls and big-box retailers.

Tauranga's CBD is my preferred shopping destination. Many of my favourite stores reside there, and it is closest to home.

But if closed doors keep preventing me from shopping there, I'm going to have no choice but to take my money elsewhere.

It's a choice many others seem to have accepted. Bayfair was busy.

I still haven't found the right coffee table.

But, hopefully, the right one is waiting for me behind some of those locked doors, and I'll actually get a chance to find it.