Discount promotion turns into a melee

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

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The launch at Istanbul’s Kurtköy region attracted thousands because it was the first appearance of the MOL brand, causing traffic jams all around the Atlantis Shopping Mall where the shop was located, daily Hürriyet reported.

The brand MOL is an umbrella brand for 340 textile and 78 clothing producers around Turkey.

The scheduled launch time at the shop was 12 a.m. but this had to be ignored when crowds waiting outside forced opened the doors two hours early, with the planned ceremony being canceled due to disturbance.

The shop door was broken and people were trampled underfoot as many tried to get to the clothes before the others. As mothers tried to keep their crying children safe, young women were seen getting up on tables in order not to be assaulted. After a few minutes, some of the enthusiastic shoppers became looters, removing the barcodes off clothes in order not to pay for them.

Clothes on manikins were removed and some even stole the potted plants in the shop. Looking on were employees of the shop left helpless to do anything and those shoppers who regretted ever coming. Only an hour after the unscheduled opening, there were no clothes left to sell with those who came late complaining about not having the opportunity to buy any. According to Anatolia news agency, there were 150 security personnel and 130 salespersons working at the shop during the chaos.

There were 150,000 items on sale for 15,000 different models of clothes, costing between 5 and 5,000 Turkish lira.

The chief executive officer of MOL, Oktay Özdemir, told the Anatolia news agency that they were happy with the interest generated, adding: "This shows Turkish public is turning to local brands due to the financial crisis."

They had sold a record 300,000 lira worth of clothes at the launch in Kurtköy, he said, adding: "We also gave 100,000 lira worth of clothes to customers as gifts." He described the sale on Saturday as a success and promised to follow it up with similar projects.