A supermarket chain's new move to keep two of its stores open all night has gone down a storm in Oxfordshire.

Tesco is opening its branches at Oxford Retail Park, Cowley, Oxford, and in Marcham Road, Abingdon, from 8am on Mondays until 10pm on Saturday nights.

The move was designed to give customers more choice of the hours they chose to do their shopping and to try to increase trade by offering a service to nightshift workers.

Two weeks into the initiative, the stores say it has been a success, with customers coming into the shops even in the early hours to get their groceries.

Last year Sainsbury's started opening its stores in Oxford and Kidlington all night on Fridays, but Tesco decided to offer the service through the week, apart from Sunday, in a number of selected stores nationwide.

Jim Loxdale, store manager at Tesco in Abingdon, said his shop is one of 43 outlets offering the new service and said it has been a hit with the paying public.

He said: "It is going very well. We have had a very positive response so far. More people than we expected have come in during the night and no-one has complained about it at all."

The type of shoppers taking advantage of the new hours have been shift workers at nearby Medicare, nurses and even farmers who visited the store late in the evening after harvesting. Mr Loxdale added: "We have been getting quite busy around 6.30am with workers coming off their shifts and doing their shopping before they go home to bed. That way they don't have to get up and do it before going to work again.

"Other people include people coming in for emergencies, getting nappies or Anadin and also we have parents coming in singly during the night when their children have gone to bed and are at home with the shopper's partner.

"This is a permanent thing. Tesco opened 20 stores through the night last November, but the nearest one was in Swindon. It was successful so now bigger stores near to places with shift workers are opening too."

Tesco in Oxford can take advantage of trade from shift workers at the nearby Rover plant and the John Radcliffe Hospital in Headington.

The store's customer service manager, David Piper, said: "It is early days but it is going well and it is a benefit to our customers."

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