Tesco customers have been left furious after having to wait hours in a virtual queue to secure a Christmas delivery slot.
- Tesco's delivery slots are already available, but you'd better move fast as they are beginning to fill up for some postcodes. The supermarket has released slots for delivery up to and including.
- Tesco’s Christmas delivery slots opened on 13 November for people on its delivery saver scheme, and are now available to everyone. Deliveries cost between £4.50 and £5.50, or you can choose to.
Shoppers waited for two hours in a virtual queue for Christmas delivery slots with Tesco in the first signs of chaos amid increased demand. The grocer had anticipated a rush for slots as online. Tesco has increased the number of its delivery slots from 600,000 to 1.5million a week - which is more than double what was available at the start of the coronavirus lockdown.
© Ooyala - Sky News UK Tesco released delivery slots for subscription customers at 7am on FridayThis morning the supermarket released slots for the week starting 21 December - but only to their delivery saver customers who pay a subscription fee.
But after waking up to log on at 7am, many complained they had still not been given a slot after two-and-a-half hours of waiting.
One person posted on Twitter: 'What an absolute joke. Been a delivery customer for years, have delivery saver.
'Went on at 6.45am. Been in the queue for two hours and 20 minutes. What is happening? Should I just shop elsewhere this Christmas?'
Another user posted: 'Been waiting 2.5 hours now (since 6.59) in a queue for Christmas slot. What's happening? Am I lost in cyber hell somewhere?'
Customers were faced with a message that read: 'You are currently in a queue - we'll put you through as soon as we can.'
On its Twitter page, the supermarket posted: 'A lot of customers are using our website and app at the moment. So we're temporarily using a virtual waiting room to help manage the flow.
'We're sorry if things take a bit longer than usual.'
While some were given slots after a long wait, others were unsuccessful and forced to shop for their Christmas dinner supplies elsewhere.
Those who did manage to book complained festive essentials like turkeys were not yet available.
There was also no mention of people on the government's vulnerable list, who are entitled to priority delivery slots because of coronavirus.
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A Tesco spokesman said: 'Demand for online slots over the festive period is high, and we have more slots this Christmas than ever before.
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'We are experiencing high volumes of traffic to our website and groceries app and are temporarily limiting the number of customers using it.'
They apologised for the inconvenience and claimed home delivery and click and collect slots are still available for the Christmas period.