Source: Dailymail
Australian supermarkets are struggling to keep up with online grocery orders, with Woolworths’ website crashing on Monday due to high demand from Sydneysiders in Covid lockdown.
As customers race to book delivery slots, the supermarket chain’s online shopping website and app was under such high demand that the systems went down on Monday morning due to ‘technical issues’.
Customers attempting do their grocery shops were greeted with a message after they were unable to place their orders after employees shared TikTok videos showing how busy they have been with the influx of online orders.
‘All available staff to the checkout please! It seems our site is a bit overwhelmed at the moment. We apologise for the hold up. Try refreshing shortly,’ the website read.
However, a Woolworths spokesman has confirmed the ‘website and app’ have since been ‘back up and running’ for customers to place online orders.
‘We know our online services are playing a key role supporting the essential needs of many customers across the country right now,’ the Woolworths spokesman told Daily Mail Australia.
‘We’re very sorry for the inconvenience the outage caused our customers this morning and thank them for their patience as we worked to resolve it as quickly as possible.’
Daily Mail Australia understands the supermarket giant is still investigating the root cause of the incident after the online store was down for several hours.
Coles shoppers have also reported issues with online orders, with many claiming the earliest delivery time slot they could get was a week later.
‘We are experiencing a high level of demand for online shopping in parts of Sydney,’ a Coles spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia.
‘To provide additional capacity to fulfil customer orders, where required we have reallocated some customer orders to be fulfilled by stores in areas with lower demand.
‘Customers in home isolation can also send friends and family to pick up their Click&Collect orders. We thank customers for their patience and assure them our team are working hard to fulfill their orders as quickly as possible.’
Supermarket employees have been sharing TikTok videos showing what it’s really like working on customers’ online orders during lockdown.
Coles worker Tara shared a ‘behind the scenes’ clip of herself getting up in the early hours of the morning to do Click&Collect.
She wakes up at 4:30am to get ready for her 6am shift where she goes through customer orders and places all the items into bags and baskets to have them ready for shoppers to pick up at the store.
Meanwhile Woolworths employee Daniel shared a video of himself, saying: ‘We have so many online orders. How are we gonna get them all done?’
