Store sites under pressure as demand for deliveries surges
SUPERMARKETS have seen websites come under pressure after shoppers raced to book deliveries ahead of the new national lockdown in England, as figures showed a record December for grocers.
The major chains experienced problems with their apps and websites on Monday evening after Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the third English lockdown would begin on Tuesday.
Sainsbury’s app is said to have gone down temporarily on Monday night, while Tesco also experienced issues with its online operations and Morrisons and Ocado were forced to place shoppers in virtual queues.
Websites appeared to be running largely as normal yesterday, but customers in the Bristol region reported that there was little availability left for home delivery slots.
Sainsbury’s said it had temporarily limited access to its online groceries service on Monday night to “manage high demand for slots and updates customers were making to existing orders”.
Tesco said bosses were holding discussions to review the item limit for online baskets, as well as product restrictions across popular items such as toilet rolls, antibacterial wipes and pasta.
The sector has been flooded with demand amid tightening restrictions over the past two months, with industry figures showing a record month for supermarkets in December.
Britons spent £11.7 billion in supermarkets throughout December in their busiest month ever, with trade boosted by the closure of restaurants, bars and cafes across most of the UK, according to Kantar.
The data revealed the record December helped sales jump 11.4 per cent to £32.7 billion over the 12 weeks to December 27.
Morrisons also reported festive trading figures showing sales soared 9.3 per cent year-on-year in the past three weeks, which included the key Christmas trading period.
Like-for-like sales were up 8.5 per cent over the nine weeks to January 3 and were up 8.3 per cent in six months to the same date, helped by strong sales online and increases in its wholesale business.
Kantar said supermarket trading was boosted by the £4 billion that would normally have been spent on food and drink outside the home over the Christmas season.
The report also showed online grocery sales accounted for 12.6 per cent of total spend in December, compared with 7.4 per cent in 2019.
Online specialist Ocado ended the year as the country’s fastest growing retailer after a 36.5 per cent sales surge over the festive quarter.
Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar, said: “December is always an incredibly busy time for supermarkets, but take-home grocery shopping is usually supplemented by celebrations in restaurants, pubs and bars – with £4 billion spent on food and drink, excluding alcohol, out of the home during the normal
festive month.
“This year, almost all those meals were eaten at home and retailers stepped up monumentally to meet the surge in demand.”
He added that the port disruption ahead of the Brexit deal deadline meant shoppers brought forward their Christmas shopping, with Monday, December 21 the busiest shopping day of the year.
“Fifteen million households – more than half the entire population – visited a grocer at some point that day and spent a collective £819 million,” he said.
The data showed that among the Big Four players, Morrisons was one of the Christmas winners with a 13 per cent rise in sales over the festive quarter and an increase in market share to 10.4 per cent from 10.3 per cent. Tesco’s market share slipped to 27.3 per cent from 27.4 per cent, but sales rose 11 per cent.
Sainsbury’s saw sales jump 16 per cent to £5.2 billion, though like Tesco, its market share dropped to 15.9 per cent from 16.0 per cent.
Asda’s market share fell to 14.3 per cent from 14.8 per cent as sales lifted 7.8 per cent.