Shanghai bargain hunters out in force

A SHANGHAI version of Black Friday was staged at department stores over the weekend as a prelude to the upcoming new year promotions.

Bargain hunters elbowed their way to shelves and cleared out merchandise without even looking at price tags at Printemps Department Store, which launched the first overnight new year promotion in the city at four outlets on Friday.

During a promotion running from noon Friday until 2am yesterday, special offers, including up to 70 percent discounts and a free iPad 2 for people who spent a minimum amount of money, had shoppers in a frenzy.

Although the biggest discounts ended at 2am, the store remained open until 6am.

Starting from 10am on Friday, shoppers started lining up outside Printemps Department Store on Huaihai Road. More than 500 shoppers were lined up by 11am, which eventually forced the retailer to open at 11:30am, 30 minutes before it had planned.

At another Printemps outlet, crowds toppled the metal rails and knocked over wooden benches.

"Everyone just went crazy," a woman told her friend via phone in front of the department store's outlet in Wujiaochang area, Yangpu District. The store was packed with shoppers 20 minutes after opening.

To avoid stampedes, the retailer had deployed extra guards by transferring security personnel from four other stores that did not participate in the promotion. Up to 120 guards were present inside or outside its store on Huaihai Road on Friday compared with the usual 30. A dozen policemen were also out front.

The lines at cashiers were so long that they stretched from one floor to another.

"I could not even find where the queue ended," said one man.

Some of the stores had chalked up eight-figure sales during the promotion.

The one on Huaihai road had pulled in more than 2 million yuan in the first hour after the promotion started, the retailer said.

The retailer is planning to launch a similar promotion this weekend, Shanghai Evening Post reported! yesterd ay.

Traffic police also have to work overtime to direct traffic at the shopping sites.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

40,000 hairy crabs released in Yangtze

Image
THE city government yesterday freed 40,000 hairy crabs into the mouth of Yangtze River near the Qingcaosha Reservoir, the first step in a five-year campaign to repair the ecosystem to improve the water quality in the reservoir that provides tap water for millions of residents. The hairy crabs will help establish a complete food chain in the river to help more fish and other aquatic animals survive in the river, Zhuang Ping, deputy director of the East China Sea Fisheries Research Institute under the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, told Shanghai Daily yesterday. The released crabs, about half female and half male, will eat plankton while some of their offspring will become food for meat-eating fish higher in the food chain, said Zhuang, who is leading the water-improvement program. "The better ecosystem the water has, the better its water quality will be," he said. With a capacity of 438 million cubic meters, the reservoir is providing tap water to about 10 million
Keep reading

Shanghai port consolidates its position as world's busiest

Image
SHANGHAI, the world's busiest container port, will consolidate its title this year and leverage its record throughput to become a multi-faceted provider of port services. The city, which overtook Singapore as the world's biggest container handler last year, saw its annual container traffic volume surpass 30 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEU) yesterday. The figure hits an unprecedented level in the world's port history and marks a new leg in Shanghai's voyage to become a global shipping center by 2020. China's remarkable trade boom is reflected in the Shanghai port numbers, which went from 7,951 TEUs in 1978 to 29.05 million TEUs in 2010. The city's customs oversaw a total of US$790 billion worth of imports and exports in the first three quarters of this year - a 19.3 percent year-on-year increase. And its port handled 23.9 million TEUs over the first 10 months, ahead of that of 23.56 million TEUs at Singapore Port. Shanghai International Port (Group) Co,
Keep reading

Praise, scorn for teacher's odd command

Image
A middle school math teacher has stirred controversy after forcing 20 of his students to slap their own faces for three minutes because they made noise in class and scored poorly on exams. Angry local residents are demanding that the teacher resign and asking the school to announce a punishment. But some of the teacher's students, including some who were forced to slap themselves, are calling for leniency. The incident occurred in a class at Donglu Middle School in Pudong on Tuesday when the math teacher surnamed Yang ordered 20 students in his class to slap their faces after he was irritated by them making noise in class. The students said Yang was known as a very strict teacher, so almost all the students obeyed his order and started slapping themselves in the face for about three minutes. Those who slapped too lightly were told by the teacher to slap harder, students told the Oriental Morning Post. Yang's behavior has sparked anger among local residents, especially so
Keep reading