STORY BY MAXINE LOWE
Hundreds of people, massive sales and enough cleaning to last for hours. Many of you might be have been a shopper in the madness we call Black Friday. I was on the opposite end.
I work at Forever 21, one of the newest stores at Lime Ridge Mall. It’s one of the few stores in the GTA (and areas close to it) that has two floors.
Our Black Friday sale started on Wednesday. Many of the deals went up, so I was expecting a crowd similar to the crowds I’d see in the news in America. But, nothing seemed outrageous for a Wednesday.
According to blackfridaydeathcount.com, a total of seven deaths and 90 injuries have occurred on Black Friday in the U.S. since 2006. Luckily, there were no injuries or deaths that I heard about in the mall.
Thursday was a bigger crowd, but nothing like the amount of people I saw on Friday.
I left my house an hour early for my shift, knowing that it would take me a bit of time to find a parking spot. When I got in, it was madness. There were at least 80 people in the store, grabbing all of the deals they could find, which were everywhere.
Six of our visual merchandisers, as well as all three of our managers were running around the store, making sure all sale tags were marked and the store remained clean.
“It’s very, very busy. It’s a lot of upkeep as far as ensuring that the product is always full so that customers have it readily available to them,” said Marianna Tarsitano, the head visual merchandiser at the store.
Purchases ranged anywhere between $50 and $300. Most people told me that they were doing their Christmas shopping early, while others wanted to catch the sales while they could.
Some customers were ecstatic about the deals, while others wanted to buy their clothes and leave. At the end of the night, it took all of the employees (about 30 of us) almost a full two hours after the mall closed at 9 p.m. to get the store cleaned and prepared for the next day.
I feel like my expectation for Black Friday this year was closer to those of retailers in America; I was actually a bit disappointed with the outcome of the crowds.
I kind of wanted to see with my own eyes the craziness of American Black Friday. Anybody working in retail should experience this event at least once in his or her life.