SHOPPERS were gripped by “Black Friday” fever yesterday – and have been urged to leave their cars at home and use public transport instead today.
Aberdeen’s malls were packed, car parks were full, roads were gridlocked and people queued for taxis and buses as what is already a phenomenon in the US hit the north-east.
The day after Thanksgiving in America is when retailers traditionally offer big discounts to tempt Christmas bargain hunters into stores.
The trend has caught on in the UK and there were even reports of fights between customers at shops in England yesterday.
One shopper described the scenes in Aberdeen yesterday as “bedlam”.
Jennifer McLachlan, marketing administrator at the Trinity Centre, said: “It has been extremely busy since first thing this morning. The car parks have been full all day and people have been queuing to get in.
“Many of the stores have sales on and Black Friday is becoming much more prevalent in the UK.
“You hear customers talking about it, which they never used to before.”
Irene Wood, a pensioner from Mannofield in the city, said she had been forced to take her car home after failing to find a parking space and then waited 25 minutes for a bus to take her back to the shops.
She said: “I couldn’t find anywhere to park, all of the car parks were chockablock and the streets were full of traffic.
“It was quite dangerous because cars and people were everywhere. It was manic.
Alex Palmer, 59, a marine engineer from Peterhead, described the city centre as “bedlam”.
“We were lucky to get a space, it’s just hectic,” he said.
There were also long queues for buses in Union Street yesterday afternoon, with the lines of people stretching twice the length of most bus shelters.
Taxis were in high demand and one elderly disabled woman said she and her friend had been unable to order one because no more bookings were being taken.
They were forced to walk to the rank on Back Wynd where they joined a queue of more than 20 people.
Most of the car parks were declared full at lunchtime by Aberdeen City Council and the local authority warned that the city was “extremely busy”.
It has advised people planning to the city over the weekend to car share with others or opt for public transport instead, “as they may experience difficulty in finding parking spaces”.
However, city centre manager Tom Moore insisted that although queues would be unavoidable, motorists should be able to find spaces if they remained patient.
He said: “You’ll always get 20 or 25 cars waiting to go in but the exits are just as busy as the entrances.
“Look at the electronic signs and they will tell you where there are spaces.
“People will always try to get to the car park closest to where they are going but the best advice is the first car park you come to at the edge of the city centre, go in it.”
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