The Black Friday incident at Walmart where a worker was trampled to death and several shoppers where injured was a major topic of discussion at my house, but probably not for the reason you think.

If you hear most people talk about it, they sound shocked and saddened by the whole ordeal… and it is very sad indeed.

But I’m not shocked at all. In fact, I believe that this kind of behavior is completely predictable. Before you start sending me hate mail, let me explain…

Mob Mentality Shopping

First of all, you just can’t put that many people together with a common antagonist (waiting to get into a store and snag some deals) and not see some mob behavioral traits rear their ugly heads.

In case you don’t know what mob mentality is, it’s basically when a group of people do things as a group that they would never do or condone as individuals. Usually mob behavior is destructive and often violent.

If you watch an old western movie and see a group of towns people storm the jail and string up a bad guy, that’s mob mentality.

But it also happens in the modern world more often then we’d all like to think… just watch the news. You can even get a close up view of mob mentality if you go to a wedding dress closeout sale… watching hundreds of brides fight over wedding dresses is certainly mob behavior.

This latest incident at Walmart is just the latest mob violence that we can point a finger at.

So here’s my point… if you go out shopping on Black Friday, you’re not going to see many people at their best. They’re tired, frustrated, and often desperate. Not humanity at it’s finest – but still not mob behavior.

There’s one thing missing… an antagonist!

Retailer Responsibility

On Black Friday, retailers purposefully create difficult situations for consumers. They advertise limited quantity items at ridiculous prices to lure consumers into stores… often limited to less than a dozen of some items. This creates a situation where consumers are pitted against each other to “win” that item and bring it home for their families.

Gee, how can that cause hostility among shoppers?

What makes it even worse is when shoppers have to wait in long lines for hours to get in the door to get those “limited” items. By the time they get in the store, they’re so juiced up on the excitement and the need for those limited items that some shoppers would just about shoot their own Grandma if she got in the way. (I’m highly against shooting Grandmas by the way.)

We’re not just talking about elbowing the guy next to you to get ahead… we’re talking about pushing, shoving, knocking down, stepping over and stepping on people.

But I bet the owners and managers who were looking out the doors of their stores early in the morning on Black Friday were only seeing the dollar signs when they happily saw the herds of people lining up outside their stores.

Who’s To Blame?

I think everyone is a little to blame. I once took my daughter to a Harry Potter book release party where it was very clear that mob behavior was developing among the other kids (and their parents too). Initially, I thought it would be fun for her to get caught up in the excitement of standing outside the store at midnight to buy the book, talk with other Harry fans, and have some hot cocoa (plus she begged me until I couldn’t take it anymore)… but it started to turn ugly at about 11:50 pm.

I was sure that there would be plenty of books to go around, so I didn’t feel it necessary to be the first one in the store with Harry in hand. Seeing where things were going (you know, being the worldly type that I am *grin*), I pulled my daughter to the back of the group and kept her out of the way until the danger passed.

We watched as the bookstore doors opened and the kids and parents started pushing through the too small opening. Within seconds of the doors opening, people started elbowing and pushing, then crying and screaming, until we could see through the store window that they were just about trampling each other to get the the humongous pile of books. Sadly, I saw grown women push youngsters out of the way so that they could get their own copies first.

After about 5-10 minutes, the crowd lost it’s zeal and my daughter and I calmly walked in and picked out our own copy.

Luckily, no one was hurt and there were still hundreds of copies left on the shelves weeks after that initial release. My story is just to illustrate the point that each of us is responsible for our own behavior. There’s no need to let ourselves get wrapped up in Christmas shopping to the extent that we’re willing to trample our neighbors just to get that flat screen T.V. first.

That’s not exactly the Christmas Spirit.

But retailers have a lot of responsibility in this too. They shouldn’t set up situations, like the one at Walmart, that incite mob behavior. They know they’re doing it and they often plan it out so that they can get their portion of the Christmas shopping pie. At the very least, they should have extra security on hand to handle the problems that are bound to crop up.

After all, consumers should have a basic expectation of safety when they enter a retail store.

Walmart completely failed at living up to their obligations and responsibilities… and I hope they take care of all the people that were trampled over the weekend, including the family of the employee who died.

As for me, I do about 99% of my holiday shopping online. There’s never a mob at my computer!

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