LET'S HAVE A DAY WITHOUT SHOPPING

These days it seems everybody’s lives revolve around shopping. No matter what day it is, we go shopping. Even on Christmas Day people are online looking at what they can acquire next.

That seems really sad when you stop and think about it. Are our lives really so dull that the most exciting thing we can do is shop?

Apparently not.

During the Olympics, Sunday trading laws were relaxed, allowing retailers to open their doors for longer. That move was expected to provide a much-needed boost to the economy, but, as it turns out, it didn’t.

When I heard sales were actually down 0.4% on the same time last year, I was strangely pleased. It meant that instead of shopping around the clock, people had found something else to do. Admittedly, most were sitting in front of the TV watching the Olympics, but still, they weren’t shopping.

But despite the fact sales fell when stores were open longer, many people still want to see the laws relaxed permanently, saying it would be more convenient for consumers, it would help the economy, and it would give people more choice about what to buy and where to buy it.

But doesn’t online shopping already address those concerns?

If you really want to shop, you can at the click of a button, no matter what time or day it is. We don’t need supermarkets to open all day, taking trade away from small retailers, destroying our high streets and harming family life, just to give people that ‘choice’.

Why can’t we have just one day a week when all of the big shops are shut? Surely that would make people find something else to do. They could relax, go for a walk, go to church, cook, spend time with family... anything!

There are so many things to do other than shopping, but maybe we need to be forced to find those alternatives by shutting the shops. After all, it's just for a day and whatever you want to buy will still be there on Monday.