Tesco Direct, the retailer’s non-food online operation, has buckled two weeks before Black Friday and with Christmas still a full six weeks away.
The retailer has been forced to apologise to customers and impose a five-to-seven day delivery estimate on all items from Tesco Direct, claiming it has been subject to the “unexpectedly high demand.”
Tesco blames the popularity of its Clubcard Boost promotion, which launched on 2 November and for the first time was extended to cover items including gaming and electrical items.
The scheme allows Clubcard holders to cash in by exchanging every £5 worth of vouchers for a value of £10 off items and The Grocer understands there has been a flood of orders for products including laptops, TVs and iPads.
Tesco has been forced to shelved all Express next day deliveries and click and collect services as a result.
“Due to unprecedented customer demand on our Tesco Direct website, we have temporarily changed our delivery options to ensure we can meet all our orders,” said a Tesco spokesman.”We have temporarily put in place a 5-7 day delivery period for all Click & Collect and home delivery orders to guarantee timely delivery.”
The only exception to the rule are Tesco’s third party sellers on the site.
It is an embarrassing blow for the retailers coming almost a year after the site ground to a halt under the volume of Christmas orders.
At the time, it introduced a temporary halt to its “next day” service on Tesco Direct and issued a warning to customers that it would take them nearly three days to collect their orders.
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