Supermarket websites struggle as as new lockdown announced

Retailers experience high demand as country enters new shutdown

Customers reported issues with the websites of multiple supermarkets last night as Boris Johnson announced England’s third national lockdown.

Social media users reported experiencing problems and delays while shopping online with Sainsbury’s and Tesco on Monday evening.

Others suggested the shutdown may have led to a resurgence in panic buying as they reported waiting with thousands of others in a virtual queue for Ocado, amid an apparent shortage of delivery slots.

And Morrison’s responded to a customer’s complaint that the website was down by saying that the supermarket was “experiencing very high demand” for its website and app services.

Less than an hour after the prime minister announced a return to the strict “stay at home” orders first seen in March in a bid to stop the NHS being overwhelmed, Tesco tweeted: “There is a high amount of traffic on our website at the moment and this is causing the website to run slow.”

While some shortages of food and other essentials were forecast for early 2021 as a result of Brexit, these briefly materialised nine months early in March as people began panic buying during the first national lockdown – despite assurances from retailers that there was no need to do so.

In response, both Sainsbury’s and Tesco have since established a priority system for customers deemed vulnerable to Covid-19, and have reported doubling the number of delivery and collection slots they have available.

But responding to complaints on Tuesday morning from people struggling to find slots and check out, a member of Sainsbury’s customer service team wrote on Twitter that “delivery slots have been in high demand this year and availability is low”. 

In another message, they wrote that the supermarket had been experiencing “technical issues with the site”.

On Tuesday morning, a Sainsbury’s spokesperson told The Independent in a statement: “We temporarily limited access to our groceries online service last night so that we could manage high demand for slots and updates customers were making to existing orders. We’re continuing to monitor the situation and are sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.”

One social media user joked: “You know it’s lockdown again without reading the news when you can’t access Sainsbury’s website and Ring Fit Adventure goes out of stock in a matter of minutes.”

And chair of the High Streets Task Force, Mark Robinson, tweeted: “The only thing increasing more exponentially than Covid cases is the queue on the Ocado website this evening.”

Tesco and Ocado did not immediately respond to requests for comment.