A women's fashion handbag company has cancelled the sale of its latest model, after people queuing outside a department store in Nonthaburi late last night, waiting for the store selling the new item to open this morning, ended up in noisy squabbles, pushing and shoving.
Most of those in the queue had apparently been hired to stand in line and secure a queue ticket.
The company’s concession inside the department store had planned to start selling the handbag at 10am today and had advertised on numerous social media platforms that sales would be limited to 300 handbags per day.
Those wanting to buy them were required to obtain one of only 150 queue tickets available, with a limit of just two handbags per ticket.
The problems reportedly began with verbal disagreements over who arrived first and how the queue should be formed. This soon escalated into physical altercations, culminating in fistfights. Footage of the incident went viral on social media.
The department store’s security guards had to intervene and they eventually dispersed the crowd.
A man, who only identified himself as “Supiratpong”, told a TV show’s website that he and his friends had been hired to obtain queue tickets for the actual handbag buyers and was paid around Bt700-Bt800 for the task.
He added that most of those involved in the chaos were women of various ages.
"I’m puzzled as to why they had to quarrel on such a scale, when the handbags only cost 2,000 baht each," he said.
Meanwhile, Nonthaburi police said officers arrived at the scene after the fighting had already subsided, but those involved in the incident can file complaints if they so wish.
