The Coronavirus pandemic has half of India in lockdown. This has resulted in people using digital services and alternatives at a much higher rate than usual. Further, this has led to the disruption of many services due to overload. The website and mobile application of Indian online grocery seller BigBasket faced a similar issue. The service broke down on Monday due to a surge in demand amid the outbreak.
Following the breakdown, the company restricted the access of service to only existing customers. New customers could now no longer access BigBasket. “We are currently experiencing unprecedented demand. In light of this, we are restricting access to our website to existing customers only. Please try again in a few hours,” said the service.
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A BigBasket spokesperson said that both the company’s application and website are facing problem due to a surge in demand. “Over the past few days, we have faced an unprecedented surge in orders and traffic, which has put a corresponding load on our tech systems. As a result of this, our website and app have been intermittently failing to load for some customers. Our teams are working hard to fix this so that our customers are able to place orders as usual,” said the company.
Meanwhile, Social media firm LocalCircles claimed in a survey that about 35 percent of consumers have said they are not able to get essential goods from retail stores as well as e-commerce companies during the lockdown.
Indian state governments have locked down over 75 districts across the country. Meanwhile some states have even have even imposed curfew to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Unicommerce, which provides software support to e-commerce companies, said that due to the lockdown, grocery websites have seen a major surge in traffic. “The previous two weeks saw a massive 70-80 percent increase in the number of orders with order size increasing substantially by 15-20 percent. FMCG and staples are some of the most popular products ordered online,” said the firm.
(With inputs from PTI)
