Despite a drop in sales, chaos still reigns in Black Friday sales

By

Kate Dingwall

Published
Nov 29, 2016

Although consumers spent 3.5% less than in 2015, stores still saw bedlam break lose among customers looking for a good deal. Net sales fell 5.0% and transactions fell 7.9% at brick-and-mortar stores over Thursday and Friday, but that did not stop the chaos of Black Friday, with several deaths and much destruction being attributed to one of the biggest retail days of the season.

At the Nike Outlet in Seattle, shoppers completely trashed the store during the first few minutes of Black Friday in order to take advantage of the deals the store was offering on some of Nike’s hottest sneaker styles. Social media videos showed customers throwing the signature orange boxes off the shelves and discarding the boxes and the contents on the floor if they weren’t what they wanted.

Friday night in Vancouver, Adidas was set to release the much-anticipated Bape collection as part of a black Friday promotion. The release was canceled at the last minute when the crowds outside got violent, with one man removing his clothing and using his belt as a whip in one of the fights that broke out outside the store. The police were quickly called to the Granville Street Adidas location and Adidas postponed the release until after Black Friday.

The traditional shopping day took a tragic turn when three shoppers were shot dead outside a San Antonio Walmart after a gunman open fired on customers leaving the retail location Friday afternoon. Two more shoppers were injured outside a Chattanooga mall when a separate gunman opened fire early Friday afternoon. One man was left dead in New Jersey after a shooting in Macy’s. 

Instead of camping out overnight or rushing to stores, many consumers turned to online deals to get deals this year. Macy’s website experiences glitches from overuse while Macy’s stores saw lower foot traffic than past years.


Surveys found that more shoppers were spending on the day than in previous years, just not in brick-and-mortars, with 154 million consumers making a purchase on black Friday in comparison to the 151 million from 2015.