Many of Aldi SpecialBuys garden furniture pieces have sold out in record time this morning, following a rush to the site in the early hours of Easter Sunday.
The famous Aldi rattan egg chair was one of the items on sale for the bank holiday weekend and sold out within minutes of being reduced, leaving hundreds of shoppers disappointed.
The rattan chair, sold for £149, was tipped to be on sale on the Aldi website at 5am this morning. But when the time came around, many reported that it wasn't on sale until 8am and by 8:15am, it had completely sold out.
The rush to pick up the egg chair and other key garden furniture pieces, including rattan sofas and patio heaters, led to more than 200,000 people joining a virtual queue early this morning.
On joining the queue, many shoppers were greeted with the following message: 'Our Egg Chairs, Rattan Sofas & Patio Heaters have now sold out. We are sorry if you missed out this time, but please check back soon - more stock will be added over the coming weeks. Please note - during busy times order confirmation emails may take a few hours to arrive in your inbox.'
With lockdown rules now allowing for groups of six people to meet up in all outdoor spaces, it's no surprise that people are keen to kit out their back gardens. Supermarkets have different opening hours for the Easter bank holiday as well, meaning that the bargains were only available online.
Many people took to social media this morning to share their success (and failure) in securing some of the sought-after pieces. As one Twitter user wrote, 'Woke up this morning to a borderline sane wife who had set her alarm for 4:45 to buy garden furniture from Aldi. Going to be a long day...'.
Others joked about the lengthy queue, with one user writing, 'In a queue with 130,000 others to look at the new Aldi garden furniture drop, I am living the dream'.
Another said, 'The greatest miracle of all time is being celebrated today- I actually managed to secure myself some #aldi garden furniture despite being #76177 in the queue at 7am #EasterWeekend #MiraclesHappen'.
While others weren't so successful, with one writing, 'Well no #aldieggchair for me. Again. Had one in my basket and then it disappeared. 3 hours of my life I'll never get back. At least I'll be able to get one on eBay soon for 3 times the price!!'.
The chair is egg-shaped and made of rattan. It comes with a set of dark grey cushions and is held in the air by a silver chain, which is hung from a grey iron frame. The egg chair can also be removed from the chain and put on the ground in any spot around the garden.
This isn't the first rush on garden essentials Aldi has seen this year, though, with their inflatable hot tub and bargain BBQ pizza oven both selling out recently as well.
Aldi have been quick to reassure customers that there will be new stock coming in soon though, giving shoppers more chances to bag the rattan egg chair and other garden essentials. 'Don't worry, there's more stock arriving in the coming weeks', a message on the website reads.
