Retailers across the UK have been losing out on scratchcard sales due to a glitch in Allwyn’s new automatic replenishment system.

Several retailers told Better Retailing errors in the system over recent weeks meant they’d been missing some of their bestselling scratchcards.

Andrew Board, of Pre­mier Core Convenience Store in Durham, said: “Scratchcards are sup­posed to be on an auto­matic replenishment, but it doesn’t happen. Ironically, we get mes­sages coming up on our screen reminding us to make sure our scratch-card dispenser is full, but we have pockets empty on our dispenser because they haven’t bothered to replace the stock.

“I can’t count the num­ber of times I’ve had to chase them and put in orders myself. The lat­est order I put in was not properly fulfilled. On oth­er occasions, I have been waiting up to two weeks for scratchcards.”

Board added he had also experienced issues com­municating the errors to the National Lottery oper­ator. He said: “When I get through to the scratch­card department, it’s an automated message. When you do finally get through to a person, they are quite helpful and they seem equally as frustrated as they are getting lots of calls from retailers.

“However, it hasn’t solved the problem. Plus, every call takes around 10 minutes and that’s time out of my business.”

Complaints

Raju Patel, of Premier Eldred Drive Stores in Orpington, south-east London, added he was missing his number-two scratchcards due to the is­sue. He said: “We haven’t had stock in for five days. The stock is supposed to be sent automatically based on sales, but it just isn’t happening.

Read more National Lottery news

“We have complained on several occasions, but it’s so frustrating we’ve ended up putting the phone down.

“It’s hard to get through to a person, and they’ve been quite rude and not resolved the problem.”

However, despite retail­ers experiencing ongoing issues with scratchcard replenishments, some store owners told Better Retailing All­wyn was quick to help them resolve the problem.

Eugene Diamond, of Diamond’s in Ballymena, said: “I was experienc­ing some problems, but they seem to have been resolved. I think part of the problem is that all lottery retailers have old termi­nals, but I have been reas­sured things will get bet­ter when new terminals are rolled out.”

Allwyn responds

An Allwyn spokesper­son told Better Retailing: “We’re really sorry to hear this. Our scratchcard-replenish­ment system is working as it should in the vast majority of our retailer partners, but we do un­derstand that, in some stores, there are still chal­lenges with availability, which we’re urgently working to resolve with our partners.”

The company urged stores affected to call All­wyn on 0800 8 40 50 60.

Read more Industry news