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Last Friday (23rd November), I decided to get in on the Black Friday madness. It would be my first trying to enjoy some of the enormous discounts advertised by Shoprite and Game stores in Kampala. One of my workmates who was an earlier participant in the previous year narrated to us his ordeal at Shoprite Entebbe Road on Thursday afternoon.
"I had gone there just to purchase a flat screen TV since I had been told a 50% discount was likely. I reached at around noon but the place was packed so they couldn't let all of us in at once. We were let in by security in herds. Despite that there was enough pushing and shoving to lift to you in the air. I was sandwiched between many bodies trying to force their way in that my feet hardly touched the ground. Security did not have the luxury of checking us as people just burst in like a flooded river breaking it's banks. We finally made it inside but there were no TVs. Perhaps they were finished."
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"I realised most people were there for the sodas and alcohol which had the biggest discounts. Up to 75% I was told. The 2L soda that usually costs about ugx 4,500= was being sold at ugx 1,900=. A bottle of beer normally retailed at ugx 3,500= was at ugx 1,900=. Absolutely disgusting."
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"Whaaatttt???" chorused everyone
"Yep"
"Are you going back this year?" I asked him
"Yiii definitely. But this time I'm going for discounted essentials only. And I want to be early this time. By 6am I should be there"
"Eh! I should also go and do my christmas shopping now. There's no better time" I thought to myself
Since Shoprite Lugogo usually opens at 8am as I was told, I planned to get up at 6:30am and be there by 7:30am. Being a Kireka dweller this was no problem.
At the sound of the first alarm at 6:30am I was up. Got myself ready and took a boda boda up to Lugogo. On reaching the place which was at around half past 7, I noticed people carrying cartons of soda and crates of beer.
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"What? They opened early today? Damn it I should've known" I thought to myself
I rushed in and I was suprised to find no huge crowd at the entrance as my colleague had narrated. Perhaps that was the case on Entebbe road only and not here. But still there was a crowd and getting from point A to B was no easy task. So if you left point A, there was no going back. All the shopping carts and baskets had been taken up and so I had to do my shopping in my hands and risk breaking things on the floor or improvise. I finally found myself an empty wine carton and that became my shopping basket. First in, a bottle of wine. I pulled out my shopping list that I had made the previous night and went around picking out the things on the list.
But then I realised that only a few(less than 10%) of the items in the supermarket were on Black Friday discount. A capitalistic ploy to lure people in and when they're unaware they'll buy just about everything. I decided to buy only things on discount that I needed which were incidentally very few because I needed mostly clothes and shoes and these were nowhere in sight.
As I was headed for the counter, I happened to see almost everyone with atleast a carton or more of the 2L sodas. There was soda on every isle no matter what the isle was meant for. Hand tools and electronics and then soda on the floor. But this was only Coke and Coke Zero. Fanta ran out and people had to queue up for it at the exit to the warehouse/store in the back. This is where it was being brought in from. Some people were businessmen and women buying stock for their shops so they bought around 10, 15, 20 or even more cartons of the 2L sodas. Then the party animals hauling crates and cartons of liquor. Phew!
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I decided to get myself one carton of soda because well, "what the hell... why not?" The Black Friday madness hadn't been as fruitful as I had hoped.
Then came the queuing up at the check-out desk. I was in that queue for almost an hour. Everyone had tonnes of stuff to check out but everyone seemed so patient.
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Then it got hot because of the crowding that I almost opened a fridge to get in and cool myself. But I survived and finally made it out. I'll be more ready next year and if i get the chance I'll make the most of it.