Crushed

I usually try to avoid the January sales but this year, I found myself accompanying my Mum to Selfridge’s as she had to exchange something she had bought there. We did not encounter the mad shoving and pushing that was captured by the BBC in the video clip below as it was just over a week after Boxing Day but we found it quite traumatic nonetheless.

Perhaps we are much too delicate but we found the barrage of bodies along Oxford Street a tremendous assault on our senses. No one was pushing or being aggressive but it was the sheer numbers of bodies packed into the canyon of shops that felt overwhelming. Many people were also carrying loads of shopping bags full of goodies and there were some people who were trolleying small suitcases, presumably stuffed full of bargains — and it all added to the crush.

Since we were in the area, I thought that we could pop in to John Lewis to buy a new digital camera with some vouchers that I had saved up. Having battled our way along the length of Oxford Street to Selfridge’s, we now fought our way to John Lewis and staggered up to the top floor where the gadgets live. To my dismay, we came across a long queue of people waiting to speak to the sales assistants and an even longer queue at the checkout counter. I wanted to turn around there and then but we’d come this far… So I gritted my teeth and joined the first queue.

I had checked online earlier that day to see that the camera I wanted was in stock. But something prompted me to stop a harassed member of staff to ask him quickly if that model was in stock. He shook his head and told me that not only was that model out of stock, they didn’t have any other models in the range at all!

I stepped out of the queue, completely disheartened. The only consolation was that, at least I had not waited till my proper turn despite the glares of a number of people behind me in line.

So we battled our way all the way down to the street again and headed home, crushed in more ways than one… I wonder if I was the only person who went to the January sales and didn’t buy a thing!

I don’t suppose it is only in the UK that there is such mayhem during the January sales. There was that tragic story of the Wal-Mart employee who was trampled to death by marauding bargain hunters in the US only a few weeks ago. And the next video shows people being shoved to the ground in another Wal-Mart through the sheer weight of the stampeding crowd - frightening!

Does this kind of behaviour happen anywhere else in the world over shopping?