24 Savannas for R19? Game glitch leads to online happy hour

South Africans stocking up on beer and ciders for the weekend would have been forgiven for thinking they had somehow stepped into an early '90s time warp when using Game’s online platform on Wednesday evening.

Initially they had lots to cheer when they found they could purchase cases of certain beers and ciders for prices probably last seen in the early 1990s, with some even hopping on to Twitter to tell others about the online bonanza.

Some of the offers included 12 Savannas (500ml) for R25, while a case of 24 Castle Lites was available for R75. One mouth-watering offer included 24 Savanna Angry Lemon drinks (330ml) for the price of R19.  

But happy hour came to an end all too quickly with Game, which is owned by JSE-listed Massmart, saying in a statement on Thursday a glitch had resulted in the dream prices.

"We are aware that there was an obvious pricing error on our website, which resulted in, for example, a case of beer being sold for the price of an individually priced beer. This was caused by a technical error on our website. We have since removed these products while we fix the issue," said the group.

Game apologised for the "inconvenience" and said that as per its terms and conditions "in the event of an obvious error" it would cancel the orders made at those prices and refund the full amount to customers.