The new Croydon Village Outlet centre has remained closed today because it cannot handle the amount of people who visited the store yesterday.

Although the store was due to reopen to the public at 10am today, the store has remained closed and will reopen tomorrow.

Security yesterday was not deemed sufficient, and the tills struggled to cope with the huge amount of transactions.

The store closed within two hours of opening for the first time yesterday, after the tills stopped working.

The store said it has decided to change the “configuration of the store”, use extra security and sales staff and barriers for Saturday’s reopening.

Hundreds of shoppers attended the grand opening of the UK’s biggest designer outlet store, opened at 1pm by Harry Derbidge from The Only Way is Essex.

But barely an hour afterwards the tills in the store stopped working and staff announced they were closing for the rest of the day.

Chief Executive Marco Cash said: “We were overwhelmed by the popularity and sheer numbers of people arriving at the store today. When we opened the doors there was an incredible rush of excitement as people sought to get the best bargains.

“As advised, we had taken on additional security but no one could have estimated the enormous enthusiasm of the public in welcoming the store. In 40 years of retail I haven’t seen anything this huge.”

He added: “As a result of the mass volume of people and the number of transactions on the tills we decided it was safest to close the doors and let shoppers already inside filter through the store, complete their purchases and leave.”

 

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