Christmas shoppers struggle with mammoth Tesco queue and crashing site

People looking to secure a Tesco Christmas slot this morning have complained of a queue of over 100,000 by 6am and a crashing site.

Delivery Saver customers were told they could book a slot from 6am on November 15, but some complained that the queue was opened before the advertised time.

Posting on Twitter, one customer said: “I logged on at 5.59 (am) to get ready only to find over 135,000 in the queue already.”

By 6.13am, users were posting screenshots that showed the queue was up to 180,000 people.

Shortly after 9am a customer posted: “I got on after a 2.5 hour wait. Managed to get a slot on the 21st (22 and 23 already fully booked).”

Others complained they spent time waiting in the queue only to be kicked out: “Hey @Tesco just sat for half an hour in your xmas queue and as soon as I reached the front of the queue I got kicked out and now the wait is an hour.”

Another said: “I was 38,000 in the queue and the app ‘refreshed’ itself and now I’m number 178,000. You’re having a laugh.”

A Tesco spokesperson said: “We’re currently seeing a high number of visits to our website and Groceries app and some customers are temporarily having difficulty logging on or placing orders.

“We’re really sorry about this. There are still slots available for both home delivery and click & collect over the Christmas period and we’re working to get things back up and running as quickly as we can. In the meantime, we recommend that customers use our website to place their order.”

Tesco is relatively late to open bookings for its Christmas delivery slots, with most other supermarkets having released them last month.

Shoppers had been expected to take the slots in greater numbers than usual this year as they set tighter budgets and seek to spread the cost of Christmas in an effort to cope with cost-of-living pressures.