Usual shove as sale doors open at iconic city store

The average shopper is a retiring type when lurking outside the locked doors of a mid-winter sale.

But as the entrances are opened, baser instincts take over, and the unseemly shoving begins.

An overwhelmingly female crowd jammed the doorways of Smith & Caughey's department store in downtown Auckland yesterday, as its six-monthly sale got under way.

"You won't put my name in the paper?" said one shopper in the moments before 9am. She and her friend, who also wished to remain anonymous, had booked their day off work well in advance.

The mortgage broker and the office administrator had rung beforehand to check the sale's opening date, and were preparing to spend hundreds off dollars on "make-up and perfume, mainly ... don't name us, we don't show the receipts when we get home".

Shoppers had begun lining up outside the Queen St entrances about 8.30am, though some seemed distinctly unenthusiastic.

"Nothing better to do," said one man when asked why he was there.

"If it gets too busy, I'm out of there," said a Papakura woman, who had ventured into the central city only to drop her daughter at university.

But as the number swelled, and the moments to opening time ticked by, one could feel the tension building.

Inside, an assistant could be seen standing by the door, a long stick in hand. It is not known if the rod was meant for reaching high locks, or fending off overenthusiastic customers.

As shoppers clawed the cosmetics and mauled the menswear, managing director Andrew Caughey could be found wandering the aisles of the second floor. "It's a storewide event, and basically every category is involved," he said. "I think it's part of the history [of the store]."

Down on the ground floor, a burly security guard kept an eagle eye on frantic shoppers.

Apparently, sale time sees more than the usual number of shoplifters attempting to add a five-finger discount to the existing sale reductions.

The sale runs for two weeks, but all those shoppers who missed the opening-day bargains need not worry - after all, the whole thing will happen again in February.