Black Friday 2009 at Walmart will be safer

Black Friday 2008 was not a good time for retail giant Walmart, but they have now changed a number of their practices to ensure Black Friday 2009 will be much better. Wal-Mart is changing their rules to make certain that they do not repeat the stampede that took place last year, where a security guard sadly lost his life.

One change that Walmart have made is with its opening hours, the retail giant will now open their store for longer, which we discussed in a recent post. The security guard who died worked in the Valley Stream, Long Island WalMart store as shoppers rushed to get their bargains. The guard was crushed to death in the stampede and another three were injured, they had to then shut the store.

According to huliq.com, Walmart will be working harder on its crowd control, the first thing that they have done is to change its opening hours. Stores will now open at 6 a.m Thanksgiving morning and then stay open all the way to Friday evening, these longer hours gives shoppers more of a chance to grab a bargain.

Wal-Mart hopes that by keeping the stores open longer, they can avoid the big queues that normally form outside every Black Friday. They hope that shoppers will now come in a steady flow, but not certain how well the new plan will work.

Walmart workers will also help in keeping the crowds under control; they will do this by handing out popular sale items by order of where a customer is in line. There will be none of this pushing and shoving to try and get the product first.

Walmart workers will also be at the front of the store to try and help with crowd control, let us hope that these measures will be enough to not have a repeat performance of last year.