Downtown Napier during Boxing Day sales. Photo / File
Downtown Napier during Boxing Day sales. Photo / File
Editorial
THREE KEY FACTS
Napier City Business general manager Pip Thompson believes shops need to move away from the traditional 9 to 5 model.
Some businesses see the benefits of staying open late during particular events.
Late-night shopping could be a solution to revitalise city centres that have gone quiet since more people started working from home in recent years.
The problem of how small businesses around New Zealand can stay viable in the midst of tough economic conditions has become acute.
Shops have been in survival mode for years now after the cost-of-living crisis followed Covid and caused people to tighten their spending. Costs and unemploymenthave risen and regular bills have gone up in difficult times for the population and overall economy.
It has caused some to consider how retail and hospitality outlets can adapt longer term.
Napier City Business general manager Pip Thompson wrote in an opinion piece published in the Hawke’s Bay Today that shops need to move away from the traditional 9 to 5 model and consider staying open later so that New Zealand’s small towns, in particular, don’t become “ghost towns” after 5pm.
Thompson argued that this was necessary if “retail, business, hospitality, and tourist attractions ... want to remain viable in the future”, particularly during the summer months with more daylight hours.
The workforce could be opened up to more teenagers and tertiary students (who can work after school/study), parents available for shifts once their partner got home and retired part-timers.
Pip Thompson on Napier's Emerson St. Photo / Gary Hamilton-Irvine
Adjusting opening hours to suit foot traffic around the store’s location should not be seen as a far-fetched idea.
In fact, some small businesses do that. One example, in the same region, is Adore Collection, a gifts and souvenirs store in Napier, which extends opening hours to suit cruise visits and summer tourists.
Towns that rely on tourism — as so many small towns across Aotearoa New Zealand do — should consider more flexible opening hours in order to suit their target market.
However, even if tourists aren’t their main audience, longer opening hours could be a solution to revitalise city and town centres that have suffered during the downturn or from the adoption of remote working practices, which has seen fewer office workers in CBDs across the country.
If that customer base is no longer there, the solution is to find a new one — and the evening strollers could be that new target market.
As many businesses point out, though, this will require an orchestrated effort from a number of businesses.
One lone late-night shop will not attract a crowd to the city centre. Several late-night businesses and attractions might just do that.
It also needs to be done well to be an experience that people enjoy and want to regularly revisit.
At a basic level it needs a campaign to promote these late-night businesses, perhaps backed by local councils, so that people actually know shops are opening later.
A bustling town centre with plenty of places for locals to go when they’re not at work but also not at home will make for a healthier community.
