It was a great opening of its first store in China for the United States based hypermarket chain Costco Wholesale Corp in the Shanghai city of the country if the interest and enthusiasm of the customers is considered. According to the Chinese state media, the first store in the high tech city of China had to be shut down prematurely on the very first day after huge crowds thronged the store and went past the door and caused traffic jams in the locality. This prompted the authorities and the company to close down the store for the day to avoid further disruption in traffic.

There are a number of videos that are making the rounds on the Chinese social media which show thousands of people gathering in the aisles of the store which is located in the Minhang district of Shanghai even though the store put up signs that those customers who come into the store could have to wait for as long as three hours to be served.

An advisory to parents was sent by a school nearby wherein the parents were warned of severe traffic congestions in the area which ostensibly was because of the huge crowd that had gathered at the store. According to the media reports, the message form the school read “Please expect the student dismissal this afternoon to be severely delayed due to the grand opening of Costco Supermarket”.

The news of the closure of the store before its scheduled time for closure was first reported on social media at 2:43 p.m. local time by The Paper which is a media outlet run by the Shanghai government. The social media post by the media quoted the local district government.

“Due to the extremely large crowds at the newly opened supermarket, for the safety of the public we urge that residents consume in a rational manner and choose to go shopping at an off-peak time,” it quoted government officials as saying.

There was no comment available on the issue by Costco.

The announcement of opening up of its first store in China was made by Costco last month. The US firm had however started business in China in 2014 when it has launched an online store on Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s online marketplace – Tmall.

This huge interest generated among Chinese consumers on the first day of opening of the store by Costco takes place at a time when some of the other large Western retailing brands such as Amazon, Tesco Plc and Carrefour have started to wind up and reduce extent of their operations in China as they have been unable to gain market share from the strong competition that has been provided by local domestic players in China.

(Adapted from USNews.com)