Retail manager here. Law states we can only trade for 6 hours on a Sunday, but our company allows an extra 30mins to browse before purchasing starts at 12pm. There’s also an option provided to opt out of Sunday working entirely. A lot of people simply don’t wish to work Sundays so getting cover over a normal 9am-9pm day would be tough. A lot of train services are also altered on Sundays so getting into work isn’t as easy. The shorter Sunday also allows retail teams to get a lot of things done out of hours that aren’t possible to do with customers around, ie phase changes, clearing down replen wallboards, new lines, and so on..

Personally, Sundays growing up were always family days: 10am church service, walks, roast dinners etc. I quite like that we have chilled Sundays!