Tills ring 24 hours a day

Shop-around-the-clock becomes a reality for seven more cities today as the Asda chain introduces 24-hour shopping at chosen hypermarkets around England and Scotland after a trial scheme launched at the company's Minworth store in the West Midlands proved a success. When doors open at 8am today there will be a total of 134 hours non-stop trading until 10pm on Saturday.

Asda says the trial of five nights a week opening showed that it was not only shift workers and insomniacs who welcomed dawn to dusk shopping. Figures showed that more than 50per cent of customers between 10pm and 1am carried out a full weekly shop. From 1 September, stores at Reading, Trafford Park in Manchester, Eastleigh, Wakefield, Watford, Wigan and Govan in Glasgow will join the sunset-to-sunrise scheme.