Tesco shoppers fury as ‘technical issue’ hits website

One Tesco shopper lamented: ‘A delivery of only apples and kitchen roll not helpful when having people over for supper is it?’

(AFP/Getty)

Tesco shoppers have been left perplexed and receiving depleted grocery shops after the supermarket appeared to suffer a major outage online.

Around 4,000 shoppers reported the outage issues on Downdetector all over the country but the majority in London as people tried to amend their orders before the deadline at around 9pm on Thursday.

One shopper complained on X he only received four items for his weekly shop.

Another posted: “A delivery of only apples and kitchen roll not helpful when having people over for supper is it?”

One customer wrote: “Please can I cancel this order due to deliver today. Currently the driver will be coming all the way out to my village for a 5-item order that I’ll just be handing back to him.

“We’re going to pop in store today instead!”

Another wrote last night: “I’ve only got 1 bottle of milk in my basket so will get extra charges against my delivery and I’ll have to go to the shops in the morning to get my shopping.

“I have been trying for hours to update my delivery for tomorrow as well. I am now on the phone to Tescos but in 25 minutes they haven’t answered.”

Users were met with this message (Tesco)

Customers trying to log in to shop online were met with a message that read: “There’s a problem at our end, but we’re trying to fix it right now. Sorry for any inconvenience. Please come back later and try again.

“Thanks for your patience.”

Several social media users also claimed that they were unable to checkout - with one complaining that they “left empty-handed” after spending two hours shopping in-store.

“Can’t get into app or website to finish my shop,” another X user said.

A Tesco spokesperson apologised to users saying the IT outage was resolved around Midnight.

They added: “Thanks for getting in touch. I’m aware, we were experiencing issues with our website that affected all our customers using it.

“We’re sorry for any inconvenience caused and our IT team did work hard to fix the issue as a priority.”

A Tesco spokesperson said: “We’ve fixed a technical issue that impacted customers using our website and app on Thursday evening. We’re sorry for the inconvenience this caused.”

The issues came days after it was revealed Tesco increased its market share to 27.6%, up from 27.5% a year ago, as sales lifted 7.5% after a bumper Christmas season.

Traditional players Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons and Waitrose accounted for a combined market share of 70% over the quarter to December 24, boosted by strong demand for premium own-label ranges.