In a curious email, Sainsbury’s director of online Tanya Lawler has told customers that the company’s website will be unavailable from 11pm on Friday February 27 until 6am on Monday March 2 — for “routine maintenance”.
According to the Independent:
Sainsbury’s is to take down its groceries website down for “routine maintenance” work for more than two days from next Friday, in a move that could cost it more than £1m of lost revenue and hit its reputation among customers.
In an email sent to customers, Tanya Lawler, Sainsbury’s director of online, said that during the maintenance work between 11pm 27 February and 6am 2 March the site will be unavailable and customers will not be able to shop for groceries online, amend or cancel an order already placed.
The maintenance work follows an earlier glitch in June 2008, when Sainsbury’s grocery website was unavailable for about four days.
Ms Lawler added: “The maintenance also means that our helpline colleagues will be unable to place, amend or cancel an order for you during this time.”
The downtime is expected to lose Sainsbury’s £1 million in direct revenues plus a harder to estimate loss of consumer confidence and possible switching to rival services.
