Re­tail­ers at Gulf City Mall were forced to im­ple­ment crowd-con­trol mea­sures yes­ter­day as bar­gain hunters surged as they sought to cap­i­talise on Box­ing Day sales.

Out­side the She Rocks store at Gulf City Mall, hun­dreds con­verged, cre­at­ing a rush so in­tense that man­age­ment was forced to tem­porar­i­ly close the en­trance and lim­it ac­cess to just 50 cus­tomers at a time. “There is enough for every­one, but we will have to close back the bar­ri­er if you con­tin­ue to push,” an ex­as­per­at­ed work­er shout­ed. Ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty guards were hired as the crowd pressed for­ward, dri­ven by the promise of mas­sive deals on high-qual­i­ty dress­es, jeans and jumpers.

Store su­per­vi­sor Kirstin Ram­roop said so­cial me­dia played a ma­jor role in fu­el­ing an­tic­i­pa­tion for the sale. “Once the posts went up, peo­ple start­ed com­ing out in large num­bers,” Ram­roop said. He not­ed that high-qual­i­ty dress­es were be­ing sold for $200, while jumpers were priced at $150.