Video: Shoppers battle for bargains on ‘Black Friday’ in Asda Dagenham
A still from a video taken in ASDA on Black Friday - Credit: Archant
WARNING: VIDEO CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE FROM THE START WHICH SOME MIGHT FIND OFFENSIVE
Chaos descended on a supermarket as shoppers desperate for a bargain battled for budget priced electrical goods.
There were frantic scenes at Asda in Dagenham with some eager customers waiting outside the Merrielands Crescent store from 7am on Friday.
The day had been dubbed “Black Friday” in reference to the traditional busiest shopping day of the year in the USA following Thursday’s Thanksgiving celebrations.
But a video filmed by Floyd Drew, of Becontree Avenue, which was shared on Facebook more than 500 times, shows people pushing and shoving each other to get hold of discounted televisions.
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“People were pushing and pulling each other for something they don’t even need,” said Floyd.
“There was a woman crying because she didn’t get what she wanted and it was just chaos.
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“Asda should have had a better system in place for the protection of staff and customers.”
In the video, a shop assistant attempts to hand the televisions out to members of the public but the crowd swarms towards him and one person is overheard saying: “I knew this would kick off”.
Samantha Dinsdale, 26, of Becontree Avenue, said: “Everyone was waiting around near the televisions pushing people out of the way to get to the front.
“One woman was even pushing my cousin who is 31-weeks pregnant, she had no respect for anyone but herself.”
An Asda spokesman said: “This is the first time Black Friday has been done on this scale in stores across the UK and our customers were eager to take advantage of the great offers available to them.
“We planned for high demand and the half a million Black Friday products on offer to our customers sold quickly from 8am.
“Throughout the event the safety of our customers is of vital importance and to ensure our stores can cope with the extra footfall we have full security teams in our stores and extra colleagues to help assist customers in the aisles.”
