Today, it was the first day of summer sales and many shops in the center of Athens were open despite the reactions of the Federation of Private Employees that called on shop owners not to open their businesses.
The Sunday holiday was first established in Greece in 1908 and since then stores have only opened on Sundays during holiday periods.
Nevertheless, the Sunday store opening has been among the prior actions demanded of Greece under the memorandum agreement for the bailout loans.
"It is an absolute absurdity in a market that is dissolved , with both workers and our people to be in a regime of closed banks and capital controls , with hundreds of thousands of employees unpaid and exhausted , employers to insist suicidally in the opening of shops and to call employees to work for another Sunday for free !" note the employees.
Store owners hope that opening their shops on Sundays will attract more costumers. In May, while negotiation with eurozone were still going on, the Sunday store opening helped the market and spring sales ended up with 5% earnings.
At that time though, there was still hope that there would be a better bailout agreement and costumers were not as cautious as they are lately.
According to official figures, the turnover of stores from June 10 to July 10 declined 5% compared to the same period in 2014. In addition, at the same time, food and fuel sales increased by 30%.
In many neighborhoods, Super Markets were also crowed today since taxes on food items will be increased 10% by tomorrow.
Instead, commercial shops were not that crowed in Kolonaki which is one of the most commercial spots in Athens.
This time, most shop owners decided to open their stores in order to cover the losses of the past weeks.
Throughout my walk on Patriarchou Ioakim street, though, I saw no customer in any shop. I only met employees trying to kill their time since almost no one even passed by.
The wisest ones didn't even bother to open their shops on such a hot Sunday in the city.
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