It was touted as Australian retail's opportunity to "fight back" against growing competition from international online stores – a chance for us to show off our online retail skills – but Click Frenzy's virtual doors have failed to open.
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The landmark national online sales event which was due to begin at 7pm is experiencing serious technical difficulties with bargain hunters unable to access the Click Frenzy site.
Shortly after 7pm, frustrated shoppers took to Twitter expressing their disappointment at Australian retailers' seeming inability to get it right online.
"They plug Click Frenzy all week and when it comes to the crunch the server fails. Back to bricks n mortar retail we go," tweeted one frustrated shopper.
"Click frenzy can't handle the clicks... Probably best for my credit card," tweeted another.
Others took to using the hashtag #clickfail instead of #clickfrenzy.
But it wasn't just the Click Frenzy website that crashed under the heavy weight of traffic. At 7.30pm, the websites of several other participating retailers, including Myer and Toys R Us, were also inaccessible.
The Toys R Us' website explained that "the website is currently over capacity due to the Click Frenzy promotion." Other retailer sites simply would not load.
The meltdown came after organisers said they had worked to ensure the website could handle the unprecedented number of visitors and urged retailers to do the same.
They expected more than 1 million shoppers to take part during the 24 hour event.
The crash comes just hours after David Jones' attempt to hijack the event with a one-day sale of its own backfired when its site crashed for about two hours mid-afternoon.
The department store which had snubbed the Click Frenzy event, said the meltdown was caused by unprecedented traffic to its new website which was only relaunched a fortnight ago.
smh.com.au