Virus-linked sales soar at UK online supermarket Ocado

British online-only supermarket Ocado on Thursday reported surging sales as buyers panicked by the coronavirus pandemic seek home deliveries and stockpile.

The supermarket, whose robotic warehouses fulfil the online orders before they are delivered by vans, said Thursday that growth in the first three weeks of March had approximately doubled compared to the three months ending March 1, or its first quarter.

"The impact of higher basket values and order demand, amid growing public concern over the coronavirus" has "picked up significantly and growth in the second quarter is so far double that of the first quarter," said Melanie Smith, head of Ocado's retail operation.

It comes as Ocado finance director Duncan Tatton-Brown said demand has been so high that the company's systems believed they were being hacked.

"Our systems thought that they were suffering a denial of service attack... when people try and close your website down by throwing so much traffic at it," he revealed after the trading update.

"This was four times the demand of our highest ever peak."
Tatton-Brown added: "We have had hours in the week where we have 100 times the normal level of transactions operating on the website."