It is the busiest hour of the busiest food shopping day of the year at Tesco Extra in Slough. Check-out assistants Brenda Bailey and Pat Dwamena, dressed as elves in red and green felt outfits, are handing out free Celebrations chocolates and trying to put a smile on shoppers’ faces.
They are also helping older shoppers who may be feeling overwhelmed by the noise of piped Christmas music and tracking down the items customers are struggling to find.
Related: High street retailers hope for last-minute rush of Christmas shoppers
Bailey, wearing her own red flashing earrings, said: “It’s starting to get bonkers in here and I’d say it is twice as busy now as the same time yesterday [Tuesday].
“I’ve had people spending £400 plus a time on their Christmas shop. People may say they are feeling the pinch but from what I have seen they are stocking up with plenty of champagne and good quality turkeys.”
All 29 tills in the Berkshire store are manned and the 60 aisles are being kept as clear as possible to cope with the crowds, despite staff constantly replenishing sold-out items. Tesco’s Finest Christmas puddings are nearly sold out, while fresh whole turkeys and turkey crowns are flying off the shelves.
The hour from 11am on 23 December is traditionally the busiest of the year for grocery shopping. But the Tesco Slough store will still be open through the night for nocturnal shoppers and will not close until 10pm on Christmas Eve. With a brief respite and restocking on Christmas Day, it will reopen at 9am on Boxing Day.
Tesco, the UK’s largest retailer, has 4,000 staff – including extra seasonal workers taken on for the Christmas period – working in the store to cope with soaring demand.
Standing in the centre of the vast 100,000 sq ft space – one of 250 larger format Tesco Extras in the UK – manager Natasha Hammond pointed in either direction along the vast building. “If I can’t see the wall at either end then it’s busy,” she said. Just past noon, the throngs of shoppers pushing trolleys and filling all sections of the store suggested Hammond’s busy test had been comfortably passed.
Colourful in her Christmas jumper and surprisingly calm, Hammond, who has run the store for only five weeks since moving from another near Heathrow airport, said: “Today is absolutely huge for fresh food and my main aim is to ensure a good experience for all our shoppers. They don’t want to find that things they need are already sold out and they don’t want to have to queue for a long time.”
In the fresh food section Tesco’s Festive Five promotion – sprouts, carrots, potatoes, cauliflower and parsnips in mixed bags for 39p – is clearly popular. Whole fresh salmon are also being snapped up, along with carp – a Christmas Eve delicacy in Poland - reflecting the ethnic diversity of the clientele.
Consumer finance group Visa Europe said about £2m would be spent on debit and credit cards every minute during the peak hour between 1pm and 2pm.
Some disgruntled Marks & Spencer customers took to social media to complain of long delays affecting the collection service at branches across the UK.
Shoppers posted pictures of lengthy queues both inside and outside stores, with some reporting waits of more than two hours to collect their pre-ordered goods. Customer Scott Rose (@lordpercy) tweeted: “2 hours to pick up a turkey at cheshunt won’t be back next year M&S.”
Bluewater Shopping Centre in Kent said it was “Christmas shopping as usual” two days after shoppers were left stranded for up to six hours after heavy traffic blocked car park exits.
Sainsbury’s expected its checkouts to hit their peak between 11am and 1pm. Like Tesco, Waitrose was also expecting the hour from 11am to noon to be the most frenetic, with sales peaking at 3.5 times higher than usual. It has dubbed Thursday – when trading will continue to be brisk – “T-day”, when its customers will collect their fresh pre-ordered turkeys from individual stores.
Tesco is expecting to sell 130,000 fresh and frozen turkeys alone on Wednesday and a further 100,000 on Christmas Eve. Sudha Pandya, waiting patiently in a queue in Slough, will not be among them. Having driven from Gerrards Cross, she said: “This is the most convenient place for me to shop. I’ll be cooking a vegetarian meal for my family – seven of us – on Christmas Day – and I am happy as I have been here since 10am but have managed to buy everything I need. That’s it. I am done.”
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