The glitch that stole Christmas: Black Friday crashes online stores in SA

They promised the glitch would not steal Christmas for online shoppers. They did not deliver.

As Black Friday neared, online retailers claimed they were ready to fend off system overloads and crashes when thousands of shoppers look for bargains.

Last year shoppers using Takealot.com ran into problems in the checkout process. This year the company said it had prepared for five times the average payday traffic.

However the message greeting many shoppers trying to login after midnight disputed that claim:

Takealot has sent out tweets apologising for the downtime: "The @TAKEALOT website and apps are temporarily down due to overwhelming volumes. We’re working hard to resolve the issue and we hope to have the site operational as soon as possible."

Of course, users were quick to jump online to share their frustrations - often with memes:

Takealot wasn't the only online retailer to suffer, with users reporting that several other retailers had crashed at one time or another after midnight. While some have since come back online, others are still struggling.