Online shoppers shocked by Black Friday chaos

Three weeks after Chinese netizens spent billions on their annual online shopping festival, many were shocked by videos showing American consumers swarming department stores and getting into fist fights during their Black Friday shopping spree.

Videos began circulating on Chinese social platform on Saturday showing a tsunami of shoppers flooding US department stores and quarreling and brawling over the last lowpriced item on the shelf.

Black Friday videos show people fighting over a cheap television or getting into a rumble that had to be broken up by security guards. People broke display cases trying to leap over them and two men are seen on the ground pummeling each other. Shoppers raced to the checkout in an attempt to avoid an hours-long lineup.

Many Chinese netizens said that they are thankful and lucky that China’s Double Eleven sales event on November 11 is conducted over the internet and is made possible by the country’s massive e-commerce platforms and express delivery services.

“Whenever I see reports like this, I wonder why anyone would go to a physical store to shop while a few mouse clicks get my purchases delivered to my door?” wrote a netizen in a comment that many others agreed with.

Other netizens wondered if such an unpleasant and even dangerous shopping experience impacted people’s holiday spirit and hoped they had enough time to recover to have a merry Christmas.