Shopaholics on frenzied consumer binge
IF YOU thought Black Friday madness was nuts yesterday, brace yourself for more crazy shopping this weekend. There’s also Cyber Monday to start off the new week, because retailers and e-tailers are making sure they cash in on bargain hunters who have been swept up in the hype.
Yesterday the big retailers that took part – Checkers and Pick n’ Pay – experienced chaotic scenes at their stores throughout the country. Shoppers crushed into stores, fought over limited stocks, and stood in queues for hours to pay for everything from booze and cooldrinks to tech toys and toilet paper.
Shopper Grace Cooper from Fourways was pleased that she managed to get dramatically cheaper shoes for her husband: “We came to get as many deals as possible, but it’s been more of a nightmare… Everywhere we’ve been we’ve just had to stand in queues,” Cooper said.
Caroline Mandeline from the Sandton area said that, while she appreciated the specials, she wasn’t sure why South Africans were joining in on Black Friday, which is an American shopping tradition linked to Thanksgiving:
“I actually prefer not to be here on this day, because of the chaos. It’s just become a big thing this year, and I find it very weird, because we don’t even celebrate Thanksgiving.”
The i-store’s 20 percent discount on certain products drove many feet through the door. Store manager Ruan Buys said:“Our preparation for today started at 7am, and we opened our doors at 9. It’s been so crazy that we haven’t even had a chance to see whether we’ve made target. We will be running these specials for the entire weekend, however.”
Sports apparel store Sportscene’s assistant Manager, Tumelo Mochisane said they’d reached the day’s target, and were chasing even bigger numbers by lunchtime.
“We started planning for today from Monday; we knew that Friday would be a big day. We opened at 7am, and by 1 pm, we’d reached our target,” Mochisane said. The fact that Black Friday fell on payday, also pushed up sales, he said.
For the retailers it was all about the bottom line. In a statement, Checkers said: “Black Friday was, without a doubt, even bigger and better this year. Every year there’s a significant increase in the hype and excitement around this one-day sales promotion. With Black Friday the Christmas shopping season has kicked off with a bang. We’re looking forward to the next five weeks of trading.”
Several online stores had their sites crash yesterday, under the increased traffic. Takealot.com apologised for down time by the early morning but were back to normal operation by 2pm. The online fashion store Spree extended its delivery times, and will also do so on Cyber Monday, thus encouraging consumers to shop online.
Tinabo Majaye-Khupe of Mass Discounters (which owns Game, Game Liquor and Dion Wired) said the retail company looked forward to Cyber Monday: “Customers can expect to see unbeatable deals, that will be publicised on Sunday.”
Dave Blakey, CEO of Snapt, a technology software company that works with e-tailers to assess and manage online trading, says businesses are often faced with dramatically increased traffic during this period, and warned that downtimes or sluggish websites are the main reasons for abandoned purchases.
Gauteng Police Spokesman Colonel Lungelo Dlamini said the police had deployed additional officers to various shopping complexes in the province: “During the day there haven’t been any major incidents reported. We will however, still be deploying additional officers at shopping complexes throughout the weekend – and continue this right through the festive season.”
Shoppers have enjoyed big savings – but at a high price; of standing in queues and fighting off the crush of bargain hunters. Yesterday evening, the Twittersphere was abuzz with #BlackFriday tweets about standing in the taxi line waiting for transport home, after marathon shopping trips.