Independent retailers warn against extending trading hours
Posted
Independent retailers say extended trading hours at major supermarkets on the Gold Coast would wipe them out.
A group representing Coles and Woolworths has applied to the Queensland Industrial Commission to allow stores in the south-east Queensland tourist strip to trade from 6:00am to midnight, seven days a week.
Scott Driscoll from the Retailers Association says if approved, the supermarkets could apply to extend trading in other areas of the state and that could put smaller shops out of business.
"This is just yet another grab at increasing their 80 per cent market domination in the supermarket sector and it'll be at the expense - if it gets through - of independent retailers who are serving consumers on the coast and indeed consumers who will have less choice when competition's destroyed," he said/
But Gary Black from the National Retail Association says extended trading hours would have little impact on small businesses.
"There may be some small residual impact but generally speaking it would be very unlikely," he said.
"I think that anyone who represents smaller convenience stores could sustain an argument that their businesses are going to be substantially or significantly affected."
