Shoppers frustrated at hours-long queues at Bicester Village

The outlet, which has been closed since Christmas Eve, welcomed customers back with a host of safety protocols in place to prevent the spread of Covid.

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Shoppers were happy to be out browsing luxury items again, but some were disappointed with the digital queuing system which meant they had to wait hours to get into the site’s flagship stores.

Matt and Grace travelled an hour and a half from Essex to return a product.

Grace said: “We joined the queue for Prada which originally said we’d get in at half four. Now we’ve been moved to half 11, but they still haven’t texted me so we’re still waiting.

“We got here just before 10am and the main shop we want to go to is Prada because we need to exchange something. They said we have 14 days from the opening to exchange it, so we had no choice but to come.”

Matt added: “Gucci was ridiculous. We’re standing in the queue and you’ve got 20 people that weren’t there when you turned up that are now at the front of the queue. Is it worth the bargain? I don’t know.”

The system works by people scanning a QR code at a shop to digitally reserve their place in the queue. They can then walk around the village while they move forward and can check their position and waiting time at any point from their phone.

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They receive a text alert when it is time to return to the shop and have 10 minutes to make their way back.

A group of women from the Midlands said they had only been to one shop on their list by 11am, despite having arrived at 8am when Bicester Village opened.

They said the problem was that there were queues to scan the code needed to get in the digital queue in the first place.

A shop assistant at Burberry told customers to ‘come back later’ as there were 880 people in its digital queue.

Some shoppers enjoyed their time and felt comfortable being at the outlet.

Donna Story, from West Wycombe said: “I’ve had a great day and managed to go to all of the stores I wanted to. The staff have been really helpful. Queuing hasn’t quite worked, I think a lot of people are going away disappointed but what do you expect - they went out during Covid.”

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Claire and Ann from Nottingham said they were not expecting so many people to be shopping on the first day that restrictions were eased.

Claire said: “We thought that we might be the only people here today, but clearly we’re not. Other people had the same idea which surprised us. We’re having a lovely day and it’s very well organised.”

Bicester Village’s shopping protocols include temperature checks upon entry, hand sanitiser stations dotted around the site, social distancing markers and marshals encouraging people to walk on the left. There is also a reduced capacity in place by 50 per cent and face coverings must be worn at all times in boutiques.

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