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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Business
Zlata Rodionova, Matt Murphy

Black Friday 2016: Riot breaks out over toilet rolls in South African supermarket

Footage has caught the moment a large group of people tussled over toilet roll in a South African supermarket during the Black Friday sales. 

Bargain hunters descended on a storage container as an employee handed out the discounted family packs in Checkers store in Roodepoort, Johannesburg.

The worker can be seen shouting "wait, wait" as she is forced backwards into the container. 

Shoppers, hands raised, continued to force their way towards the goods, pulling the cage in different directions as they do. 

There was more chaos in Durban, where there have been reports of multiple people injured during a stamped at the Pavilion shopping centre.

In the UK, a police officer has been stabbed in a Leeds HMV after he confronted a suspected shoplifter during the Black Friday sales. 

He was slashed across the neck, face and hand just after 9am. 

The officer's injuries are thought to be non-life threatening and he is being treated at a local hospital. 

The attack was an isolated incident it a fairly quiet Black Friday in the UK.

A surge in online sales during the early hours on Friday, left high street stores looking deserted compared to the previous years.

Black Friday is increasingly becoming an internet bonanza, shoppers are predicted to go on a £1.97bn spending spree - setting a new record - with more than half spent on the internet.

John Rogers, the new chief executive officer of Argos,told  the BBC that there had been 500,000 visits to the retailer’s website in the first hour of online trading, between midnight and 1am.

 

Jo Causon, chief executive of the Institute of Customer Service, commented on how Black Friday is changing:

"Black Friday in its original form – the manic one-day, in-store shopping experience – has already changed significantly over the past three years."

"We’re seeing the continuation of that evolution in 2016 with retailers extending their sales either side of Black Friday, and the term ‘Black Fiveday’ becoming more commonplace, as well as a continuation of the trend towards online."

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