Greggs is hit by IT glitch: Shops throughout Britain are pressured to close or go cash-only resulting from ‘points accepting funds’ – after Tesco, Sainsbury’s and McDonalds all suffered technical meltdowns

Greggs was hit by a significant IT outage as we speak as clients reported the bakery chain’s shops had been shut throughout Britain resulting from a technical concern with card funds.

Hungry commuters reported closures in cities equivalent to Cardiff, London, Manchester and Newcastle this morning – whereas different retailers had been open however solely accepting money.

Some bemoaned being unable to purchase a morning espresso, whereas there have been reviews of employees baking in shops which had briefly ‘closed’ indicators. Others requested clients to put orders utilizing the Greggs cell app earlier than meals might be given to them.

The chain has greater than 2,450 retailers throughout the UK, with certainly one of them within the Metropolis of London having taped a makeshift signal to its door as we speak, saying: ‘We at the moment have a problem with our tills which implies we won’t take money or card funds proper now.’

Greggs confirmed to MailOnline: ‘We’re at the moment experiencing points accepting funds in our retailers. We’re working to resolve this as quickly as attainable.’ 

It’s the newest IT outage to have an effect on a significant chain in current days after technical points affected Sainsbury’s and Tesco on Saturday and McDonald’s final Friday.

Not one of the prior three IT failures have been investigated as a possible cyber assault on these companies. MailOnline has requested Greggs whether or not the identical is true of its outage. 

A buyer mentioned: ‘Hey, why are all of the Greggs shops shut in Cardiff with briefly closed indicators on, however employees are inside baking? What time will they be open as we speak?’ 

One other tweeted: ‘Why are all the shops in Newcastle metropolis centre closed?’ And a 3rd added: ‘Greggs closed in Manchester, this might trigger a riot.’

A fourth posted: ‘Greggs in Westminster closed. Drawback with tills. Is that this Nationwide or simply native?’ And one other mentioned: ‘Greggs all closed resulting from know-how points.’

Different tweets included ‘all my native Greggs shops are closed due to technical points, lacking my morning espresso’ and ‘Tills down Greggs, terrible begin to the day.’

And another person posted: ‘Greggs this morning money solely! Sitting right here with my espresso watching virtually everybody must stroll out.’

One Greggs employee in Manchester informed BBC Information that no objects displayed on the tills once they had been turned on as we speak. 

The shop opened later within the morning when somebody arrived to repair it, however others within the metropolis remained shut whereas they awaited technical help. 

In the meantime Iceland boss Richard Walker poked enjoyable on the drawback, urging clients to refill on frozen Greggs sausage rolls on the grocery store. He tweeted: ‘Roll up, (sausage) roll up: nonetheless obtainable at Iceland!’ 

It comes after McDonald’s, Sainsbury’s and Tesco misplaced thousands and thousands of kilos over the previous week amid technical points.

And client professional Harry Wallop tweeted as we speak: ‘Hmmm. I’m very a lot *not* a conspiracy theorist. However it appears a bit fishy that McDonald’s, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and now Greggs have had severe cost/IT points inside one week.’ 

Tesco and Sainsbury’s had been each hit with unrelated issues on Saturday which noticed them each apologise to offended clients who had been left with out orders.

And that got here someday after McDonald’s additionally mentioned sorry to clients final Friday after they had been unable to order meals resulting from an IT system outage in its eating places.

Sainsbury’s buyers couldn’t make contactless funds following an in a single day software program replace and the agency couldn’t fulfil the ‘overwhelming majority’ of on-line deliveries.

In the meantime, Tesco needed to cancel some on-line orders due for supply on Saturday – though it’s understood that solely a small proportion of those had been impacted.

Retail specialists warned that the IT points highlighted ‘the fragility of rising dependence on digital infrastructure’ amid considerations extra companies might be hit.

Whereas a complete determine has not been given on the price of the outages, the Telegraph estimated that Sainsbury’s orders price as much as £9million might have been affected.

Earlier this week, earlier than the Greggs technical concern, retail specialists mentioned the issues confirmed ‘even giant companies aren’t immune from regular IT troubles’.

Retail professional Richard Hammond, chief govt and co-founder of analytics agency Uncrowd, informed MailOnline: ‘Advanced fashionable tech stacks are by their distributed nature rife with vulnerabilities.

‘We do not know what this actual trigger was however only one small a part of the advanced chain of dependencies can change one factor and that has surprising penalties, together with shutting down complete buyer programs.

‘Retailers cannot even foresee that, they only cannot. What’s essential is to have a catastrophe course of in place for the inevitable, and be able to be humble and gracious in rebuilding buyer belief.’

Richard Lim, chief govt of consultancy Retail Economics, informed The Occasions: ‘Whereas the quick penalties of wasted meals, misplaced income, and a possible erosion of buyer belief are a blow to the retailer, the scenario highlights a bigger concern round operational resilience.

‘This incident underscores the fragility of rising dependence on digital infrastructure and the vital nature of investing in sturdy IT options.

‘Digital disruption is a principal threat for many retailers, however making certain contingency planning is in place is significant.’

Retail know-how analyst Miya Knights informed BBC Radio 4 that any main replace to a reside system would require ‘rigorous testing protocols’ and ‘rigorous launch planning’.

She added: ‘On the finish of the day it is a human-related drawback that this stuff have come right down to the purpose the place they’re affecting clients.’

Man Warren, chief govt of software program firm ITRS, informed know-how web site Verdict that the three outages confirmed IT estates are rising extra inclined to outages with longer intervals of downtime.

He mentioned: ‘With operational resilience on the forefront of the enterprise agenda, companies ought to have already got launched extremely proactive monitoring and safety capabilities, so that they see what their programs are doing in real-time.

‘If these three firms had entry to this degree of perception, the outages throughout their platforms may by no means have occurred – not to mention drag on till it turns into headline information.’

And Chelsea Hopkins, PR supervisor at web service supplier Fasthosts, additionally informed Verdict that the quantity of gross sales misplaced could have been ‘staggering’.

She added: ‘When outages like this happen the primary thought for a lot of is a cyber assault, however it is a reminder that even giant companies aren’t immune from regular IT troubles.’

James Bore, who runs the Bores know-how and safety consultancy, typically offers with conditions relating to produce chains, logistics and general societal safety.

He informed MailOnline: ‘There is a rule in technology- by no means deploy on a Friday. The know-how concerned in these programs has solely grown extra fragile and complicated through the years, and there’s hardly ever an incentive to scale back the complexity or rebuild them correctly from the bottom up.

‘At this scale and complexity thorough testing is crucial, as even the slightest mistake can have unpredictable penalties – as we have seen.

‘It is a elementary threat of centralised management of programs by giant firms – when these programs should not centralised any failures are native and so impacts are restricted. Regardless of the affect of those, it might have simply been a lot worse.’

He additionally warned of the risks of relying an excessive amount of on cashless cost strategies.

Mr Bore defined: ‘Shifting to a cashless society means transferring to a single system to handle all funds.

‘Ignoring points round privateness and management, any failures within the system would have way more potential to be catastrophic, to not point out with no stable design dependencies on vitality and connectivity might simply be launched.

‘On high of that, a vulnerability within the design of the system would put anybody from people to society as an entire in danger.

‘These risks might be partly designed round, for instance the European Central Financial institution’s proposal contains an offline part that retains the anonymity of money together with a lot of its advantages – however does nonetheless require electrical energy and any such offline digital foreign money is liable to theft together with the system carrying it.’

On Saturday, Sainsbury’s had mentioned that it couldn’t ship most on-line grocery orders and was unable to contact clients immediately.

However a Sainsbury’s spokesperson later mentioned: ‘We will verify that contactless funds at the moment are again up and working in all shops, alongside all different types of cost.

‘Our Groceries On-line ordering system is working as regular and clients can place an order for supply any time from tomorrow.

‘We apologise to clients for the inconvenience attributable to technical points as we speak – thanks for bearing with us.’

One buyer mentioned she was meant to have a ‘crucial’ order delivered between 8 to 9am, which didn’t occur.

Yvonne, 56, from the Studying space, mentioned: ‘The primary concern I’ve with that is the poor communication from Sainsbury’s to its clients.

‘It was apparent one thing was incorrect at 7am as that is once they ship the receipts usually. Could not get by way of to anybody about my 8 to 9 supply.

‘No assertion till about 8.30, solely appeared to be on social media which not all clients could have.

‘Ought to have been an e-mail or textual content to clients which might have helped these like myself anticipating an early morning supply. A lot to enhance on with their communications.’

Argos, which is owned by Sainsbury’s, was additionally affected by the software program replace, which means some clients might have had points ordering new objects or accumulating orders in-store.

It mentioned there might have been delays in fulfilling orders positioned.

Solely a small proportion of Tesco orders due for supply on Saturday had been impacted, it’s understood.

Tesco clients acquired an e-mail if their order was disrupted, and if it was cancelled they weren’t charged.

In-store procuring and inserting orders on the app and web site should not believed to have been affected.

Tesco mentioned: ‘The overwhelming majority of our on-line orders are being delivered as regular, however resulting from a technical concern earlier as we speak we now have needed to cancel a small variety of orders.

‘We’re contacting affected clients immediately, and we’re actually sorry for the inconvenience.’

It comes after McDonald’s apologised to clients final Friday after they had been unable to order meals following an IT system outage in its eating places.

The quick meals operator later mentioned the issue had been ‘resolved’ at its websites within the UK and Eire.

On Friday morning, clients within the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Japan complained about points attempting to purchase from the quick meals big on social media.

Within the UK, plenty of clients mentioned on social media that their native eating places had been closed though they had been capable of make orders by way of the corporate’s app.

Most shops throughout the UK opened as traditional on Friday morning regardless of the issue.

The corporate blamed the problem on a ‘know-how outage’ and burdened that it was not linked to any cybersecurity points.

A McDonald’s spokeswoman mentioned: ‘We’re conscious of a know-how outage which impacted our eating places.

‘The problem has now been resolved within the UK and Eire. We thank clients for his or her persistence and apologise for any inconvenience this may occasionally have prompted. The problem will not be associated to a cybersecurity occasion.’

It’s understood that, at this stage, not one of the IT failures are being investigated as a possible cyber assault on any of the companies. 

It comes a fortnight after Greggs mentioned 25,000 of its staff will share £17.6million in bonuses this month after the chain notched up a 27 per cent hike in annual income.

Greggs delivered a bumper pre-tax revenue of £188.3million for 2023, up from £148.3million the earlier 12 months after like-for-like gross sales in company-managed retailers jumped 13.7 per cent.

Sizzling hen goujons, potato wedges and pizzas flew off the cabinets together with its sausage rolls and steak bakes because it expanded its night hours.

On an underlying foundation, pre-tax income lifted 13.1 per cent to £167.7 million.

The corporate – has additionally insisted it’s on monitor with plans set in 2021 to double gross sales over 5 years, and doesn’t plan to extend costs over 2024.

Outlets are additionally set to open in areas the place it doesn’t have a robust presence, equivalent to industrial areas, roadsides, supermarkets, journey hubs and retail parks.

It has ambitions to open between 140 and 160 shops in 2024 because it goals for ‘considerably greater than 3,000 UK retailers’ in complete sooner or later.

The enterprise now operates 2,473 retailers after 145 internet openings final 12 months.

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