Argos website STRUGGLES to COPE under demand as Black Friday 2015 UK deals go LIVE

Argos.co.uk shoppers have reported outages while buying Black Friday 2015 deals

SHOPPERS have flooded to report issues on the Argos.co.uk Black Friday 2015 UK deals webpage.

Argos' Black Friday 2015 deals webpage is suffering problems, online shoppers have claimed.

UK bargain hunters are reporting slow loading times, webpages timing out, webpage crashes and a warning message from the high street retailer which reassures, "demand for this part of the site is really high.

"If you prefer," the temporary Argos.co.uk page continues "open a new tab and browse other pages while you wait."

Independent website DownDetector.uk, which detects "when services go down or have outages", has reported a spike in the number of people complaining about outages on parts of the Argos.co.uk website.

A spokesman for Argos highlighted that downdetector.uk tracks customer mentions on social media and not actual website performance. Therefore the graph is at best, anecdotal.

 

DownDetector.uk has received multiple reports of outages across the website

Some 64 per cent of users have complained about the website timing out while they were hunting for Black Friday bargains.

Meanwhile, 35 per cent claim the outage occurred while they were trying to check-out.

"Argos is having issues since 08:39," DownDetector.uk claims on their website.

"Access denied shame was going to order a smart tv & blu ray for £500," one Facebook user has collaborated.

One social media user send a tweet to the Argos support team – @ArgosHelpers – with a screenshot of the loading page.

"Useless. #customerlostforever," the Twitter user added.

An Argos spokesperson told Express.co.uk: “The Argos website has not crashed or seen any outages at any point today.

"We are seeing very high levels of traffic, with over 2.5 million visits so far which is continuing to grow by the hour.

"We are actively managing the flow of traffic through our website and have processes in place to ensure all customers can complete their transactions.

"We are very sorry if some customers are experiencing a delay as a result.  Lots of successful orders are being placed so we ask them to please be patient."

@ArgosHelpers useless. #customerlostforever pic.twitter.com/bkQkE5s9VO

— russell jones (@russelljones101) November 27, 2015

@Argos_Online trying to pay for toys and get to payment page and told website is down for maintenance! Really!?

— Stacey Bridger (@MrsBridger) November 27, 2015

Terry Hunter, Vice President eCommerce and Client Strategy at major ecommerce player Astound Commerce, said: “Black Friday has yet again proven to be a poison chalice for some retailers, most notably Argos. 

"The worst thing about it is they clearly didn’t learn the lessons from last year when their site buckled under the high demand, in much the same way as it is doing right now. 

“Argos had attempted to follow Amazon’s lead by offering deals over longer than just a twenty-four hour window. 

"Perhaps this was done in the hope it would alleviate pressure on their back-end systems on what is now the single biggest day in the UK retail calendar.

“But spread the load over a longer time frame and all the incentives in the world don’t count for much if systems aren’t optimised to deal with still elevated traffic volumes. 

"No-where is this more important than at check-out. You can manage resources by pushing consumers to specific deals at specific times, but ultimately, they all end up at the same check-out. 

"Integration of this with back-end systems can make or break the success of key shopping periods for any retailer and at the minute, Argos’s set up clearly isn’t up to scratch."

#Argos website down ... in meltdown due to Black Friday. It will be a black Friday for me if I have to queue with the masses! Grrr

— Love London (@MakeaWishHoney) November 27, 2015

@Blowpobbs Hi. No it's not down but it can get busy. Pls try again. - Drew

— Argos Helpers (@ArgosHelpers) November 27, 2015

Command centre report: It's happening... @Argos_Online is down #BlackFriday pic.twitter.com/X1xhoQChyI

— 7thingsmedia (@7thingsmedia) November 27, 2015

Argos.co.uk has announced some stellar discounts including HALF PRICE Apple iPhones.

Argos has also slashed prices across its 4K Ultra HD televisions, including a Philips 50" 4K UltraHD Smart Android TV which has been discounted by £270, to just £529.

Philips Bluetooth Headphones have also been discounted by £70 – leaving them at £29.

The news comes days after O2 told Black Friday shoppers they could nab an Apple iPad Air 2 for £1 tomorrow.

One shopper said:  "It's 1am and your website won't even load properly, aren't you suppose to be a leading digital retailer?"

Whilst another tweeted "Website has completely lay down ! unable to access anything.... Typical."

This isn't the first time Argos has faced problems on Black Friday.

Last year the Argos site struggled under the sheer demand as people rushed to get the best deals.