Customers were left without deliveries from Sainsbury’s as UK stores were hit by a disruption
Sainsbury’s problems come hours after McDonalds suffered a system problem
Fast food chain McDonald’s suffered a system crash on Friday that forced it to close a number of its restaurants.
Customers were reportedly turned away from stores and some reported problems ordering online.
“We are working to resolve this issue.”
Pimlico Sainsbury’s had yellow caution tape around the SmartShop stall on Saturday morning.
A note on the tape told staff that the store could only accept cash payments.
It read: “We apologize, we are currently unable to accept contactless or card payments.
“We are working to resolve this issue.
“Pay in cash. Thank you.”
Advice to customers
Sainsbury’s advised customers this morning following the outage.
A spokesperson said: “I’m terribly sorry, but unfortunately our stores are currently experiencing system issues.
“As a result, we are unfortunately unable to fulfill the vast majority of orders today.
“Place a new order from Monday.”
Shop in London now with cash only
One store in London now uses cash only, as shoppers abandon their shopping carts and the cash machine queue is ten people deep.
Ian Miller went shopping at the Pimlico store in London just after 7am.
He said the smart shop’s guns weren’t working and it said ‘no internet’ – so he used the app on his phone.
He said the app also failed and when he got to the checkout he had to rescan all his items.
“It [the till] circles and then goes back to ‘welcome to Sainsbury’s, please start your order’.”
Miller said he then ran into payment issues because the pay wave feature wasn’t working and it took about a minute for the payment to be processed when he inserted his card.
“I was like, ‘oh what the f’.”
Customers report problems with click-and-collect
Sainsbury’s customers are also reporting problems with click-and-collect services.
Earlier today, Sainsbury’s confirmed they were experiencing issues with their “Groceries Online service”.
Shoppers left in anger
Shoppers reacted angrily to the supermarket’s messages on X, formerly Twitter.
One said: “No one told us until we got to the checkout. No one told us about it. I only had five dollars on me. Unfortunately cell phones don’t give out cash.”
Another said: “Proactively contact customers? I’ve been on hold for over an hour trying to find out what’s happening with my order, no hold music so I’m not even sure if I’ve queued.”
While a third posted: “Is there a list of affected stores/areas or is it nationwide? You said ‘some’ is good to know who is and isn’t affected.”