Online Christmas orders from retailers go titsup Looks like Christmas won't be delivered for hundreds of families this weekend who've shopped online at Sainsbury's and Fortnum & Mason, thanks to IT problems. Fortnum & Mason has blamed "severe" IT problems for its failure to deliver its famous luxury hampers in time for the big day. The high-end retailer is now no longer …
"...Sainsbury's said the retailers' website glitch had affected fewer than 100 orders..."
whoa, wait just one fucking minute here! This is utter BS! I tried to update my slot last week, and it did not check out the order properly + send any email confirmation, and so completely lost the slot. When my wife spoke to customer service the following morning, the rep. said that this has effected "loads" of people. Spoke to a friend couple of friends and they have experienced exactly the same problem.
I am now furious with Sainsbury's and once I've picked up a couple of bottles of booze this afternoon I will never ever return to that shop again (until after Christmas ;-). Tesco are particularly immoral bastards. Looks like it will have to be Waitrose or Co-Op from next year. (and local farm shops)... or get some pigs + sheep + grow our own vegetables, knit myself a new suit.
Not the first time this has happened, they completely screwed up christmas 2005 as well, that time due to insufficent despatch and warehouse staff. I was working there at the time, on the phones in customer service, and took calls all through the 23rd and 24th from irate and in some cases crying customers who'd had christmas presents and food fail to turn up. I see they still haven't learnt.
Expecting to get a near-Christmas delivery slot with five days notice shows an unrealistic expectation in my opinion. Christmas slots open on the 1st December and are usually gone by the end of that day. Regular shoppers are aware of this and ensure their order is placed by lunchtime on the 1st.
As for the rest, re-opening an order and failing to re-checkout releases the slot to be grabbed by some other lucky punter.
The supermarkets online operations are all over-subscribed at Christmas. This is not a failure in the IT but in the fulfilment that simply cannot flex vans for one or two days in the way IT can flex some servers.
Separately, mixing the two stories into a single one is disingenuous. The comments about Fortnums might lead on to believe that Sainsburys suffered from load issues which it did not. This year's Christmas rush was nothing on last year's that coincided with the snow.
I had the same delivery slot vanishing problems with Tesco grocery shopping last week. Along with earlier not being able to get in to the site, or get the iPhone app to authenticate.
I complained... And got a 10 quid eVoucher... For a service that doesn't work and has no slots available anyway! Thanks Tesco! Every little helps apparently...
Sainsburys online ordering system has been slightly broken for a while. Things would mysteriously drop off my basket (unnoticed until the delivery arrives), and delivery slots would evaporate. When the driver turned up half an hour early as I was trying to deal with a screaming baby, I had to call time on them.
Now I do my shopping in person, at my nearest local Supermarket. A Co-op.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
