A technical issue that saw some Greggs stores fail to accept card payments this morning (20 March) has been resolved, but not before some stores across the UK were forced to close.
The bakery chain confirmed it had now fixed the problem affecting tills in some of its shops, with the majority of those outlets able to take card and cash payments again. “We expect the issue to be fully resolved shortly,” read a company statement, adding “we apologise for the inconvenience this may have caused to our customers.”
Customers took to social media after finding branches closed or cash only. “Greggs this morning cash only! Sitting here with my coffee watching almost everyone have to walk out,” posted one user on X, formerly Twitter.
Meanwhile a Greggs supervisor in Northamptonshire posted a selfie of himself wearing a company uniform and showing an exasperated look, with the message: “Interesting morning at Greggs! Remember Drive Thru is open for Just eat & Uber as well”.
Greggs is planning to open between 140 to 160 new shops this year. With the publication of its latest preliminary results earlier this month, the food-to-go giant said it was on track to double its sales by 2026 having achieved 19.6% growth during 2023.
While the root cause of the issue at Greggs has yet to be disclosed, similar IT problems have beset other major retailers and foodservice brands over the weekend.
A glitch from an overnight software update for Sainsbury’s on Friday led to the cancellation of the vast majority of online orders as well as leaving a significant number of stores unable to accept contactless card payments on Saturday. An email to customers on Sunday confirmed the issue to have been resolved.
Tesco had been forced to cancel a smaller proportion of online orders due to an IT error, which has been sorted by Saturday. Meanwhile, McDonald’s suffered a global outage due to a configuration change that stopped stores taking orders in the UK, Australia and Japan among other regions on Friday. The restaurant chain said the problem had been quickly identified and corrected, while placing the blame on a third-party IT provider.
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