Everyone remain calm

Otherwise normal people have a tendency to act quite irrational on Black Friday as they approach shopping with their ears pinned back and fangs bared. It can be a jungle out ther,e and it looks like this year will be worse, or better, depending on your perspective, than last year. A Citigroup survey shows that nearly 54% of people plan to shop on Black Friday this year compared with about 49% last year.

To deal with the onslaught of humanity, retailers have become much better at crowd control to ensure shoppers flow into stores in an orderly manner, find the desired feature items and then quickly complete their transaction. Increase staffing levels is the most obvious measured, but Target this year is making sure shoppers have the information they need to plan their trip. Those who sign up on the retailers website can begin receiving information about featured items beginning on Nov. 17. To avoid confusion while in the store, two days before Black Friday the company plans to post store maps on its website showing the location of featured items. And for those who don’t view or download the maps prior to arriving Black Friday morning, store employees will be working the lines outside stores and handing out store maps showing the location of featured items. Additional employees will be located at the front end to expedite the checkout process.

“Target is committed to providing a convenient and safe shopping experience and we have worked hard to ensure our guests can get in and out of the store easily,” said Kathee Tesija, EVP merchandising at Target.