Longer opening hours in December would 'make sense' for a lot of retailers who've lost weeks of business, a retail group says.
Retail Excellence spokesman Duncan Graham says extra trading time is also more COVID safe, and will allow customers more easily avoid peak shopping times.
With level five restrictions due to expire on December 1st, retailers will be left with just over three weeks before Christmas.
Penneys has previously confirmed it's considering opening hours when stores re-open to "spread potential shopping hours over a longer period of time".
The Irish Independent today reports that supermarkets such as Tesco and Aldi are also planning extended trading hours at more of its stores post-lockdown.
Speaking today, Retail Excellence spokesman Duncan Graham says the lockdown means there's little time to prepare for the festive season.
He explained: "I think when you get into a situation where non-essential retail has closed down for six weeks, then clearly you need to be making the most out of the only three weeks that they'll have to shift all the Christmas stock.
"If you can open up an hour or so earlier in the morning and trade a little bit later at night then it does enable people to shop in a little bit more safety than perhaps they would do at peak times.
"We [also] need to be encouraging people to shop earlier in the week - Monday-Tuesday is probably a lot quieter."
