I think you really need to bare in mind that in today's society, a lot of people work all hours of the day now. People working funny shifts and nights may only be able to get their shop done, or need to pickup a few bits on say a Sunday night....
Say for example the Paramedic who comes to attend you in the middle of the night and the Doctors and Nurses in a hospital... or Firemen etc etc.....
(Though I'm not sure how the law works specifically, as there is a Tesco Metro or Express or something near me which is open till like 11pm on Sundays).
I don't work in retail (Haven't since I was a student) and I mostly have my weekends free, yet weekdays I have to work a fair amount of overtime, which I won't be paid for. This means for shopping, I either have to make a dash out when I get home, or pick up small bits and bobs at lunchtime.
I never go Supermarket shopping Saturday during the day, as it's so busy, that goes for my local Waitrose and Morissons. I tend to wait until the evening, when they are open till 10pm, unless Im doing something else.
Sunday tends to take a while to shop also because there are less staff on and with limited opening hours there are more people.
For the customer, it's a pain in the arse, they are the driving force and with Supermarkets, which are the monopoly in the British retail sector these days, they would happily trade all hours if they could.
If you've accepted any job in retail in recent years, I'm sure it's stated in whatever contract you have the hours you work. As far as Supermarkets go, I'd be very surprised if there were people working full on seven days. Surely as full time, you work five days, regardless of what day of the week you start, anything extra has to be agreed as overtime. Retail sucked when I did it, and the general concession of everyone I know seems to be the same.
I was always under the impression that Supermarket in particular tended to be part full time career types, and the rest students... people who will work weekends, so they cover the hours that the full timers aren't working.
Sure Xmas is likely to mean working more hours... but many other jobs also require people to work overtime, not necessarily at Xmas, but everyone has their deadlines. Xmas is the most important time of the year for the retail industry, so it's to be expected.
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