Gail's Bakery shop 2100x1400

Gail’s has reported being unable to accept card payments

This story is being updated live.

Morrisons, Gail’s and Jempson’s are among stores affected by an IT outage that has downed card readers and other business operations.

Website Downdetector, which monitors service interruptions, showed Sainsbury’s, along with other retailers, saw a spike in reports of outages from 8am. Most of the reports related to checkouts and peaked at 355 at around 9.30am.

A spokeswoman for Sainsbury’s said, however: “We’re not seeing any impact to our stores but continue to closely monitor the situation.”

Sainsbury’s Upper Norwood store appeared to be operating as usual when visited by The Grocer at 9am.

Several unverified posts appeared on social media purport to show Waitrose stores have been affected. They show handmade signs that appear to have been put up in some Waitrose stores, apologising to customers that they are unable to process card payments.

A Waitrose spokesman confirmed that the supermarket had experienced some issues processing contactless payments in a number of stores. Shops were able to make chip & PIN and cash payments as usual.

“We’re now taking contactless payments largely as normal, as well as still processing payments by chip & PIN and cash. We’re also continuing to take orders via Waitrose.com,” the spokesman said.

There were reports from earlier this morning of some Morrisons customers struggling to make payments in stores. The issues seemed to be around contactless payments, with shoppers advised to use cash or chip & PIN. 

Morrisons confirmed it had experienced some problems. However, a spokesman told The Grocer these had now been resolved.

Booths

Regional grocer Booths is unable to process card payments at any of its 26 stores, due to “technical issues” related to the global outage. Its stores remain open, however, but are only able to accept cash.

Independents

A number of independent retailers have been affected with card payments down.

Eight-store operator Jempson’s posted on X explaining all store card machines were down, encouraging shoppers to use its post offices to withdraw money. Its garage card machines were operating as normal, it added. Jempson’s said “we apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused”. It later confirmed the issue had been resolved.

Nisa retailer Mike Sohal said his store had been “affected massively”. His card payment processor is down, which was causing “ridiculous demand” at his post office as his shoppers seek cash withdrawals to pay for groceries. He said his store and staff were finding it hard to cope, “particularly on a busy Friday”.

Premier retailer Serge Notay has also been impacted by the outage. He said, however, his store was still able to take card payments through a back-up service called Viva Wallet, whereby staff phones became the “payment terminals”. Notay said he was grateful to have this service “in times like these”.

Gail’s

Gail’s Bakery reported a disruption to its card payments earlier this morning.

The bakery chain encouraged customers to “put order through click & collect” on a sign outside the window at its Swain’s Lane shop in London.

“No card payment in store at the moment. The internet is slow across all Gail’s. coffee on the house or put your order through click & collect”, the sign read.

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