New York: Walmart U.S. has reported its best ever Black Friday events
despite of protests by its workers in atleast nine states demanding higher
wages and better benefits.
In a news release, the retailer said it saw larger crowds
than last year and a huge response to its first ever one-hour guarantee on key
electronic items.
"I'm so proud of what our more than 1.3 million
associates have done to prepare and execute our Black Friday plans, giving our
customers a great start to their Christmas shopping season," said Bill
Simon, Walmart U.S. president and chief executive officer. "The work of
our associates is even more impressive when you consider they served
approximately 22 million customers on Thursday."
Walmart's Black Friday plan included three events this year
at 8 p.m., 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. During the high traffic period from 8 p.m.
through midnight, Walmart processed nearly 10 million register transactions and
almost 5,000 items per second.
During the 8 p.m. event, customers filled shopping carts
with gaming consoles, video games, DVDs, Furbys, fashion dolls, board games and
Crock-Pots. At 10 p.m. it was all about electronics, including
big-screen TVs, tablets, laptops and digital cameras.
Since its events began at 8 p.m., Walmart sold more than 1.8
million towels, 1.3 million televisions, 1.3 million dolls and 250,000
bicycles.
"We had very safe and successful Black Friday events at
our stores across the country and heard overwhelmingly positive feedback from
our customers," Simon said.
In response to the UFCW's planned protests, Simon added,
"Only 26 protests occurred at stores last night and many of them did not
include any Walmart associates."
In addition, the company claimed that it did not experience
the walk-offs that were promised by the UFCW.
"We estimate that less than 50 associates participated
in the protest nationwide. In fact, this year, roughly the same number of
associates missed their scheduled shift as last year," Simon said.