Shopomania by Paul Berton;

Author:Paul Berton;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Consumption, Economics, Environmental aspects, Social aspects, Shopping, Sustainable development, Social Science, Popular Culture, Humour, Celebrity, Business, Consumer Behavior
ISBN: 9781771623353
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc. (Tier 1)
Published: 2022-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Shopomania

What happens when desperate, overenthusiastic shoppers get together.

They call such things a shopping frenzy or a shopping stampede. Shopomania could, of course, describe all day every day everywhere. For most of the world, shopomania is our lives. But it most accurately describes a single event in which a crowd of people jostle for bargains or hot items all at once. Sometimes, perhaps, it’s the latest fashion that takes hold over a season or more: bell-bottoms or ripped jeans, top hats or wide lapels. As such trends spread across continents, it doesn’t take long for everyone to look the same. But in more acute cases, it involves a sudden rush by the mob for a certain item like toilet paper, hand sanitizer or flour during a pandemic. People are trampled in such situations, especially when there is limited supply and bargains that generate demand.

When the coronavirus pandemic took hold in North America in early 2020, various shopomania reports kept police busy. In Peoria, Illinois, police were called to the local Dollar General store when someone phoned about “many people fighting” over a “run on toilet paper.” “Everyone is on edge now,” Sheriff Brian Asbell told a local TV news reporter. In Chino Hills, California, deputies arrived after getting calls about a disturbance over shortages of toilet paper and other items. “It’s been nuts,” said Costco CFO Richard A. Galanti in an earnings call with investors in March 2020.

In 2019, shoppers stampeded during an event that mall operators in Sydney, Australia, called the Ultimate Mega Balloon Drop, in which shoppers competed (to say the least) for balloons filled with gift certificates. Free stuff or an advertised bargain often causes a stampede, and this was no exception. The resulting mayhem sent five people to hospital. Organizers were clearly unaware of a similar incident in 2006 in Torrance, California, where two thousand shoppers fought over five hundred falling prize-filled balloons, leaving nine with minor injuries and sending one person to hospital.

On Long Island, New York, in 2008, a Walmart employee was trampled to death by enthusiastic shoppers seeking treasures such as a Samsung fifty-inch plasma high-definition TV for $798, a Samsung 10.2 megapixel digital camera for $69 and DVDs such as the Incredible Hulk for $9. “The crowd was out of control,” a police spokesperson told journalists at the time, describing “utter chaos” as the thirty-four-year-old employee opened the doors for a waiting crowd of some two thousand people. Some noted it was a “doorbuster event” in which the door was actually busted. Several people, including a pregnant woman, were taken to hospital after the incident.

In 2011, a woman pepper-sprayed other shoppers at a Walmart in California in what police described as “competitive shopping.” As many as twenty customers were hurt. “This was customer-versus-customer shopping rage,” a Los Angeles police spokesperson told the Los Angeles Times. Newspapers recorded shoppers being trampled for laptop computers, pinned against the doors in the rush for faddish toys and game consoles and shoved aside by overzealous shoppers on the hunt for discounted materials.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.