Sainsbury’s and Tesco apologise after glitch disrupts online food deliveries

17th March 2024

Georgia Wright

Ecommerce General Retail

Sainsbury’s CEO Simon Roberts has issued an apology to customers after a software glitch that disrupted contactless payments, leaving thousands without their food orders.

The supermarket said a technical glitch had affected its ability to fulfil the majority majority of online deliveries today (16 March), as customers slammed its “bad service”.

In an email sent to customers, the boss said: “I really understand how inconvenient this disruption to your usual service from Sainsbury’s will be this weekend.” “Unfortunately, we will not be able to deliver the vast majority of today’s Groceries Online orders. For anyone expecting a delivery today, we have not taken payments for online deliveries and so you will not have been charged.”

He said the business will automatically put a voucher in shopper’s online wallets in the next few days to apologise for the inconvenience.

He added that Sainsbury’s ordering system is working as normal.

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Tesco also has to cancel a “small proportion” of supermarket deliveries after a technical issue affected its services, a spokesperson said.

The supermarket told The Independent: “We are working to fix a technical issue which has meant we have had to cancel some online orders that were due for delivery today. We’re sorry for the inconvenience.”

Customer Craig Butcher told the title was set to receive a delivery but got an email saying it was cancelled due to a “system issue”.

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Ecommerce General Retail