Local Bass Pro short 60 workers during Black Friday shopping - WAVE 3

Clarksville, In. (WAVE) - Black Friday shoppers searched stores for deals amid staffing and supply shortages.

The Bass Pro shop in Clarksville is short 60 employees on one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

In the dark of Friday morning, eager shoppers waited in line at the store until the five a.m. rush began.

Bargain hunters streamed in for a solid three minutes, looking for deals on clothes, guns, and fish finders.

During the first rush, 528 people came into the store. That's 50 more people than last year, which surprised General Manager Mike Benningfield.

"We started our sale earlier, it started on Monday, instead of waiting until Friday. It really spread the sales out, spread the traffic out, and that's helped us out this year," Benningfield said.

He said on top of the staffing shortage this holiday season, getting product into the store was a challenge too.

"We're sending a lot of things FedEX, UPS, that normally would come on our truck from the distribution center to try and speed that up," Benningfield said.

But shoppers said the shelves looked good to them.

"The boxes upstairs, shortages I can see that it's not like years prior where you come in and they're still stacked you can see a lot of them are empty, which is a good sign if they're selling out, not a good sign if they're short," Louisville resident Danny Perez said.

Perez said he's always at the Bass Pro Shop for Black Friday, buying sweaters for his family. He found plenty to buy, including trout bait for himself.

"We have a thing, an agreement with my wife, she kind of runs out of things to get me, so I'll get it and say she gave it to me," Perez said.

"My friend's dad likes Bass Pro so we're getting him some Christmas presents," Alivia Basinger from Indiana said.

Basinger said her family normally shopped after Thanksgiving dinner, but she prefers Black Friday shopping instead.

"People having to work on the stores on Thursday, they shouldn't have to do that, so I think just making it all on Friday is pretty much just better for everyone," Basinger said.

Better at least, if shopping is your thing the day after Thanksgiving.

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