The trend, which began several years ago, seems to have become the norm: to survive in the retail sector, it is essential to open shops on Sunday mornings. The latest example is Carrefour, which has just reached an agreement with the unions to this effect.
This agreement will allow the French retailer's integrated stores to open on Sunday mornings from 8 am to 12 pm, starting on 18 January, and will guarantee "job security and the non-franchising of stores."
This means that 40 hypermarkets and 43 Market supermarkets will be open, in addition to around 600 franchised stores, which were already open on Sundays.
Intermarché also already offers this (morning) opening, as does Delhaize, where the vast majority of supermarkets (previously integrated and now franchised, which has enabled this change) are open on Sunday mornings.
Economically viable
Within the Colruyt Group, many stores have been opening their doors on Sunday mornings for some time. This is the case for Okay City stores, Okay Direct branches, the four Cru markets and certain Comarché stores.
Additionally, more than 200 Spar Colruyt Group stores generally open on Sundays, depending on the decision of the independent entrepreneur who runs the business. From 4 January, all Okay integrated supermarkets will also be added to this list.
Excluding hard discount chains such as Aldi and Lidl, which do not open on Sundays, only Colruyt Meilleurs Prix still refuses to open.
According to the group, opening on Sundays is not currently economically viable because it is too costly.
"An average customer shopping in a Belgian supermarket on a Sunday spends an average of €27. This amount is €35 on other days of the week. And even €70 at Colruyt. With receipts of €27, Colruyt cannot open its stores profitably on Sundays."
The Colruyt Group advocates harmonising and simplifying the existing joint committees in the retail sector in order to restore a level playing field in terms of wages and working conditions. "Small retailers should still be able to operate, but for the big Belgian players, there should be simplification in order to reduce the differences."
The sector's trade unions are saying the same thing and also want such simplification and harmonisation via a sectoral agreement, rather than for each individual company.
However, this harmonisation of joint committees would lead to half of independent operators working at a loss, Buurtsuper.be, the organisation of independent supermarkets within the Flemish employers' federation Unizo, recently warned.
