A global IT outage has hit retailers, impacting sales and affecting their ability to process card transactions, parcel services or order from wholesalers.
The glitch on 19 July was attributed to an update from antivirus software Crowdstrike causing Microsoft systems to crash. Industries across the world were impacted alongside convenience stores and supermarkets, including major airlines, the NHS and high street retailers.
Wendy Stephen, of Spar Condoratt, North Lanarkshire, told Better Retailing her card payment systems and parcel services were hit.
She said: “We’ve been down since 6:30am this morning. So we’ve lost a lot of customers from that already. We have cash machines outside, but it’s funny how customers will just not [use] – I don’t whether it’s just down to being time poor, or they just don’t like taking cash out. The options are there for them, but we’ve had so many people put the products back and then leave the store this morning.
“I think it depends which card company you’re with. I’m with Verifone. In the current climate, this is just another thing – with the weather lately, and people feeling the pinch, it’s been quiet lately anyway. So this is pretty frustrating.”
Meanwhile, Amrit Singh Pahal, of H & Jodie’s Nisa in Walsall, has seen additional sales from the outages. With his back-up system operating on 4G, his card machine has continued to work while additional customers have come to his store after being unable to make purchases at nearby stores.
“We had our card machine go down, but luckily we’ve got the Sumup card machines which use 4G. So we were kind of prepared – we’ve had lots of customers coming in from other stores and supermarkets where they’ve not been able to buy anything.”
Rav Garcha, of Nisa Hockley, Birmingham, has also seen more customers in his store as a result of the IT issues, with his Nisa EPoS, operated by WorldPay, remaining unaffected.
“We’re seeing a lot of customers from the Co-op. The stock is there, and the staff are busy. I’m disappointed we didn’t stock up more, but if we did the staff would be inundated. You can only sell stock once. We’re with Nisa’s EPoS system, which is through WorldPay.”
Priyesh Vekaria of One Stop Carlton Convenience in Manchester, said that his store has not been affected due to being partnered with Tesco’s infrastructure and security.
“We have seen an influx of customers from the event, but it’s nothing to shout home about just yet. Maybe by the end of the day we’ll have some proper data to analyse.”
EPoS firm ITS was also hit, but the firm’s managing director Tanveer Mirza told Better Retailing it responded immediately to communicate with stores and had resolved the issues within hours. Ben Lawrence, sales director of frozen wholesaler Eden Farm Hulleys, added that the company had resorted to manual picking to ensure retailers would still receive their orders following the glitch.
Bestway and Booker retailers did not report any issues.
Post Office (PO) has revealed its branches are open as usual, with its Payzone branches “also unaffected”, but some online issues have taken place.
A PO spokesperson said: “Post Office branches are open as normal for the wide range of services that we provide including cash withdrawals and personal and business banking on behalf of all the major high street banks. We have had reports that some customers are having issues completing the purchase of some of our insurance products online. We are currently working with our suppliers to assess the situation.”
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