Tesco’s delivery chaos after IT meltdown
TESCO’S home delivery service went into meltdown yesterday after an IT glitch left thousands of customers without their shopping.
The technical hitch affected around 10 per cent of Tesco customers who were expecting deliveries from more than a hundred stores across Britain.
Many of those who had waited in for their grocery shopping were left angry as their orders were cancelled, with little explanation or alternative delivery times provided.
The blunder affected the software which tells supermarket staff which items to take from stores and bag up for online orders, bringing the process to a standstill. Normal service is expected to resume today as the glitch has now been fixed.
Yesterday morning dozens of affected shoppers took to social media to air their frustrations, with one saying: “What do we do about no grocery deliveries today? How do we get a reschedule? My number’s not on system and I’ve had no email.”
Another said: “Just had a call to say all Tesco home deliveries have been cancelled today because of a national system failure.”
Last night experts warned that the incident was part of a string of problems with home delivery of consumer goods.
Jason Shorrock, vice president at supply chain analyst JDA, said: “The problem suffered by Tesco was not an isolated one. Research has shown that issues with online orders are on the increase, with more than half of UK shoppers experiencing a problem with an online order in the last 12 months.
“These issues continue to hinder stores’ efforts at a time when consumers are becoming increasingly intolerant of poor service. Today’s shoppers expect retailers to offer a high-level of service across all channels – those retailers that fail to keep up put themselves in serious danger of being left behind.”
A Tesco spokesman said: “We’re currently experiencing an IT issue which is affecting some Grocery Home Shopping orders. We’re working hard to fix this problem and apologise to customers for any inconvenience this may cause.”