In a move that raises the bar for customer service among hardware and household goods retailers, Home Depot has opening its first 24-hour store in Canada.

‘This is our way of showing the customer that we are responding to their needs,’ says Diana Spremo, public relations manager for Toronto-based Home Depot.

Spremo adds that the change makes sense because more and more people are working outside the standard nine-to-five schedule.

Located in Toronto’s east end, the 24-hour, seven-days-a-week store already had staff working the night shift, but to accommodate the extended shopping hours, workers have been added as have parking lights and five more security cameras.

While there are no immediate plans to turn the remaining 36 Home Depots in Canada into 24-hour stores, Spremo says Atlanta, ga-based Home Depot already keeps 17 of its 613 u.s. stores open around the clock.

Another retailer that has long understood the benefits of serving customers 24 hours a day is Kinko’s Canada.

The printing and computer services chain, which has 11 stores in Canada, rolled out the 24-hour concept back in 1986.

Kinko’s General Manager Alvin Le Bourgeois says, ‘The customer never needs to say ‘I wonder if they are open?’ [because] we always are.’

Le Bourgeois says the majority of Kinko’s customers are not university students, as one might suspect, but mobile and home-office professionals working at all hours.

Le Bourgeois says that while a majority, about 60%, of Kinko’s’ business comes in from 9 am to 5 pm, about 25% comes in from 6 pm to 10 pm and 15% comes in from 10 pm to 6 am.

But using a computer to finish off a business proposal is one thing; tiling a floor is completely different.

Le Bourgeois says the product type doesn’t matter, if stores already have staff stocking shelves in them, during the night shift, why not just add some cashiers and stay open all night?