Black Friday attracts shoppers to Ballito

The Ballito Junction regional mall had some of its anchor tenants unlock their doors at midnight last night, November 28, to usher in the beginning of Black Friday – where for 24 hours, most stores have both in-store and online specials.

While people queued up outside the likes of Game for their electronics and appliance specials or Checkers to stock up on the generously priced groceries, a long line of busy moms and dads stood outside Toys R Us to forsake the cheaper luxuries for themselves in order to stock up on Christmas shopping for their little ones.

Ballito residents Tamika Logan and Natasha Ross had been waiting outside the popular toy store since 5am to grab the best deals on every toy they could lay their hands on, as they had six children between them to think about.

“It’s not one thing in particular that we’re looking for, but with so many kids to think about we need to get whatever we can,” said Logan.

Also waiting to grab a few items among the hoards of customers were Ronelle Korsten from Ballito and Salina Naidoo from Stanger.

“It’s my son’s birthday next Saturday, so I’m going to get him something good,” remarked Korsten, while Naidoo admitted to being the guilty aunt that spoils her neices and nephews with gifts.

Toys R Us store manager Nicolen Pakkiri said that he expected the big ticket items such as Playstations and XBoxes to sell quickly.

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“We have to allocate numbers to customers because there are more people than units we have available,” said Pakkiri.

22 Jump Street, the indoor arcade for people to enjoy gaming and a trampoline park, opened their doors extra early on Black Friday to allow busy parents the freedom to shop and not worry about their kids being entertained.

“We opened at 7.30am today instead of 10am so people could drop their kids off and shop, and we may be staying open later than usual tonight as well as people close in before midnight for last minute shopping,” said store supervisor Janitha Pillay.

Ballito Junction marketing manager Amanda Howard was pleased with the events of the day and noted that everything had run as smoothly as possible with no incidents at all.

“We expect the mall to remain quite congested for the rest of the day until Black Friday is over,” said Howard.

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