Seniors prepare for extreme shopping venture

Saturday, Dec. 1, 2018, was a day that changed our perception of shopping completely: one of the brands we shop at regularly, Brandy Melville USA, had a warehouse sale in San Francisco.

A warehouse sale can be described as a really big sale of leftover products. In the case of Brandy Melville, everything at the sale would be $5, $10 or $15, including all types of clothing from hoodies, to skirts, to tops and even sweaters.

We were ecstatic. Normally, clothes at Brandy Melville range from $25 to $50, so this sale was a pretty big markdown. We knew that we had to go and stock up on more clothes.

The sale was advertised to start at 9 a.m. and end at 4 p.m. However, after doing some research via YouTube vlogs of other people’s experiences with previous sales, we realized that we had to be at the warehouse hours before the sale even started to line up for entry.

We decided to leave home at 4 a.m. It was hard to figure out the logistics of getting to SF, but finally we convinced one of our moms to drive us.

We reached the warehouse location at around 5 a.m., and there was already a two-block line surrounding the building. Since the line was already so long, we got into the actual warehouse at 11 a.m — meaning we spent seven hours in line despite of early arrival.

The Brandy Melville employees let in only around 50 girls every hour from the line, and once inside the warehouse, each group of 50 girls got one hour to shop.

When we walked in the warehouse, we noticed the lack of organization. There were cardboard boxes filled with clothes lined up against the wall and in the middle of the room. Girls were sprinting and pushing each other to get to the clothes in the boxes.

Additionally, several of the clothes had stains or rips on them; hence, they were being sold at a warehouse sale instead of the actual Brandy Melville store.

After grabbing all of our chosen clothing pieces, we went to a side of the warehouse and started sorting through the clothes. Our incredibly large stack of clothes quickly became smaller after we realized many of the pieces were stained and needed to be put back in the box. We each had around 15 pieces of clothing at the end.

Once we had our final collection of clothes, we headed to purchase the clothes, which was another battle of its own. We spent another two hours just waiting in the “line,” which was loosely enforced and covered with clothes as young girls were throwing out pieces of clothing they no longer wanted.

All in all, we had a long, hectic, but worthwhile experience in our long day there. We managed to buy clothes for $5 or $10 that were originally being sold in store for $30.  And, more importantly, we had survived.