Shoprite’s much talked-about Black Friday discount offer ignited the Palms Shopping Mall on the popular Ring Road and Cocoa Mall in Dugbe axis of Ibadan on Friday but the malls recorded unnecessary losses.
As much as expected, people from different parts of the state trooped out en-mass to take advantage of the opportunity.
However, the mouth watering offers aiming to promote the outlet turned to be an abuse of opportunity by some unscrupulous customers, who bombarded the mall taking advantage of the heavy traffic shoppers to perform their evil act.
This set of customers as monitored by PMParrot’s reporters, who were on ground at the mall to monitor the situation reported that these people were seen moving from one section to the other pretending to be interested in purchasing items.
Some of the products according to our reporters these people were caught wasting included perfumes, drinks, chocolates, yoghurt, ice cream, salad and many other items which they could not take out because of the presence of security officers at the door ways.
One of the attendants at a certain time was seen lamenting that a perfume worth 11,999 naira was wasted and no traces was found of those that committed the offence.
Also, there empty bottles of different drinks, nylons of chocolates, empty plates of salad, bowls and cups of ice-cream were seen all over the place.
In another development, our reporter also informed that there were series of announcements of missing kids by the managements of the outlets as reported by security personnel.
PMParrot discovered that the likely cause of the odd developments was lack of proper arrangements by the managements of the malls.
Repondents spoken to by our reporters submitted that the crowd at the programme could have been well managed if there was orderliness in the arrangements by the management of the malls.
Said one of the customers who spoke with us “that the traffic of customers increased today because of the ‘Black Friday’ is no big deal. Management ought to have known better. There are many more ‘Black Fridays’ to come. They should have a template to deploy to make customers’ visits to the malls more rewarding to all.”
Packaged by Susan Adeleke Susan and Wuraola Adedeji
