Tesco Direct is suffering serious availability problems, with nearly a quarter of its furniture out of stock just one month after the service was relaunched with thousands more products.

The supermarket's full non-food home delivery operation was launched on 19 March but this week 272 of the website's 1,121 furniture and garden furniture products - 24.3% - were "temporarily out of stock".

Bedroom furniture was one of the worst performers, with 45% of products out of stock, while 38% of children's and 32% of office furniture were also unavailable.

"This is a big deal for them," said one City analyst. "In one way it could be an indication of big demand, but, equally, Tesco did a soft launch of the catalogue last September to get rid of any problems. When Tesco released its results it said it had some issues in terms of delivery times as well.

"It has had to phone customers to let them know their order won't arrive in time. But it won't surprise me if Tesco gets it sorted out quickly as it has the ability to throw money at it."

A Tesco spokesman said availability was improving all the time, and added: "The supply has not been there because demand has been so great and our products are such a good price. We are getting the problem sorted and will reach our target soon."

Sales of non-food items now account for 25% of Tesco's total UK revenue and hit £7.6bn for the year to 24 February 2007. Group non food sales reached £10.4bn.

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