Morrisons customers say Christmas deliveries and discounts down

Morrisons has apologised after tech issues affected reductions and on-line deliveries throughout the UK.

Clients had been unable to redeem reductions on their loyalty playing cards and had Christmas deliveries postponed at brief discover on Monday morning.

Morrisons mentioned it was investigating the problems in retailer and on-line however didn’t give any data on the causes of the outage. All shops had been again to regular by Monday night, the PJ understands.

In response to the issues on the tills, the grocery store chain has utilized some loyalty reductions to all clients.

It’s making its high 100 Extra Card costs the common value for all buyers, even when they don’t seem to be members of the loyalty scheme.

Extra Card clients can even get an additional 10% off their total store “as an apology”.

Each measures shall be in place till the top of Tuesday, Morrisons mentioned.

Clients who shopped on Monday earlier than the ten% low cost was launched can return in retailer to redeem the low cost, Morrisons mentioned.

Some dwelling deliveries could arrive late, and click on and gather clients ought to watch for an electronic mail earlier than going to shops, the corporate mentioned.

However some clients have informed the PJ their on-line orders – containing their Christmas Day meals – have been cancelled altogether.

And others have informed the PJ they’ve skilled comparable points earlier than at this time, together with over the weekend and “within the final couple of months.”

One buyer mentioned he missed out on about £20 of reductions.

“I added the whole lot up as I went across the store and it got here to £70, which with all my card reductions and vouchers ought to have value me nothing on the checkout,” Steve Weatherby, from Huddersfield, informed PJ Information.

“But it surely got here up as £90. Not one of the reductions and presents across the retailer, like 50p off, had been utilized.

“So I needed to pay it as I used to be searching for Christmas lunch and issues we wanted.”

He added: “The workers had been getting upset as they weren’t conscious of what was taking place, and it is not their fault.”

One other buyer informed the PJ her on-line order was cancelled on Monday morning.

“I booked it ages in the past, when the supply slots first got here out for Christmas,” mentioned Moira Grey, from Northumberland.

Unable to go away the home attributable to sickness, she added she was “actually pressured,” as her order included turkey and trifle for Christmas Day.

“[Morrisons] mentioned they could not do something… in addition they mentioned their methods had been down,” she added, saying that Morrisons provided a £10 goodwill voucher.

One other buyer, Lorraine Calvo from Northumberland, had her supply cancelled within the morning and mentioned Morrisons informed her this was attributable to an issue with the IT system.

“I noticed the e-mail at 8.30am and was a bit shocked as a result of they texted me final night time confirming the supply,” she informed the PJ.

“It was all my weekly store to get me by Christmas, and cat meals and the whole lot.”

Since this story was revealed on-line, Morrisons obtained in contact with Ms Grey and Ms Calvo, and promised to ship their orders on Monday, freed from cost.

It additionally disputed the claims that these cancellations had been because of the principal methods situation, telling the PJ that they had been separate issues which had been handled by buyer companies.

But it surely did say in a press release: “If for any cause there are remoted cancellations, our crew shall be in contact on to resolve them.”

Morrisons had been promoting giant reductions forward of Christmas, together with some greens for 10p.

“There’s by no means a great time for a tech glitch, however for it to occur on what is anticipated to be the busiest day of the yr is the stuff of nightmares,” says retail analyst Natalie Berg.

“This can additional erode shopper belief and affect profitability.”

Monday was predicted to be the busiest procuring day for supermarkets this yr, according to retail analysts Kantar.

Gross sales at supermarkets are anticipated to achieve over £13bn for the primary December ever.

Morrisons is the fifth-largest market grocery store within the UK, in keeping with Kantar, with 8.6% of the grocery market within the 12 weeks main as much as 1 December 2024.

“Retailers are placing increasingly more offers by their loyalty playing cards and if buyers cannot entry them, they may really feel cheated,” mentioned Ronan Hegarty, information editor of commerce publication The Grocer.

The Morrisons web site was additionally down for a interval within the morning, with error messages on some pages suggesting invalid or late responses from servers.

Extra reporting by Alex Emery.