Sainsbury’s has apologised to customers after an IT glitch left it unable to process payments in a significant number of stores on Thursday.
The “intermittent” issue meant some customers were unable to make contactless card payments throughout the afternoon and evening. They were also unable to use Smart Shop, Sainsbury’s scan-as-you-shop system.
Some online orders were also affected.
Sainsbury’s confirmed the issue had been resolved by Friday morning.
“We have fixed a network issue which intermittently affected Smart Shop, some card payments in our stores and some of our same-day delivery orders yesterday,” said a Sainsbury’s spokeswoman.
“We’re sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused, thank you for bearing with us.”
Stores in Manchester and Birmingham were among those affected by the latest issue, according to the BBC, which first reported the outage. Multiple customers took to social media on Thursday to vent their frustrations at the issues.
Several complained that they were unable to process their Smart Shop at the till.
One complained their card was declined while trying to make an online payment. Another said Sainsbury’s Chesham store was only able to accept chip and pin payments.
@sainsburys sat & done my online shop and my cards declined!! What’s going on, not good enough!! happening too often now
— Louise (@flamehead91) May 30, 2024
It is the second time this year that Sainsbury’s has suffered with IT struggles, after a major outage in March left it unable to fulfil the “vast majority” of online orders. It was also unable to process contactless card payments at a large number of its stores.
The March issue was so widespread that Sainsbury’s issued a statement on social media, notifying customers about the problem. CEO Simon Roberts later emailed customers directly, apologising for the inconvenience caused.
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