BigBasket Website Crashes As People Panic Shop Ahead Of Country-Wide Lockdown

Coronavirus pandemic in India has resulted in a country-wide lockdown. The Indian government has announced that all essentials and daily supplies will be available as usual. However, many citizens have rushed to stock up their supplies via digital platforms. The result has been the website crash of grocery supplier BigBasket.

BigBasket Website, Mobile App Crashes

BigBasket has been one of the popular digital platforms to get doorstep delivery of groceries and other daily supplies. A lot of citizens have been using digital services and alternatives to stock up their groceries. The sudden rush to get all the supplies has resulted in the website and mobile application crash.

"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," said the company, reported by PTI.

The overload on the platform resulted in a service break down, mainly due to the surge in demand. After the website crash, BigBasket limited the access of services to only existing customers. This meant that new customers could no longer access the Indian online grocery shopping site.

"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," BigBasket said. The company also noted that its teams are working on fixing the issue so that customers can place their orders as usual.

Lockdown In India

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, a lot of districts have been mandated a lockdown. Unicommerce, the company that provides software support to online retailers said that the lockdown has resulted in 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," it said.

A couple of states have also issued a curfew to minimalize the spread of the virus. However, the government has said that all the essential supplies and commodities will be available as usual. It's also been advised to avoid panic buying.