Morrisons Christmas delays extend to second day

Some Morrisons customers encountered further delays with their Christmas orders more than 24 hours after after the supermarket experienced what it called “systems issues” on Monday.

One customer told the BBC she was left waiting for about £200 worth of groceries, another said he struggled to get answers from the firm about his Christmas shop.

It follows chaotic scenes at the UK’s fifth biggest supermarket on 23 December – the biggest grocery shopping day of the year – which saw deliveries cancelled and discounts not applied.

Morrisons has apologised and says deliveries are back to normal but it has yet to reveal the cause of the problems despite repeated requests from the BBC.

“Today the Morrisons store experience is back to normal, but all More Card customers will still get 10% off their whole shop instore throughout the day,” the supermarket told BBC News on Tuesday morning.

It added: “Click and Collect and Home Deliveries are working as normal. We are determined not to let a single customer down this Christmas.”

One Morrisons customer in Worcestershire, who did not want to be named, received a text message on Monday saying her delivery had been delayed.

Early on Tuesday morning, she still had not heard anything from Morrisons and had not got the delivery.

The customer had an order worth about £200, and had saved vouchers over the year to take it down to £100.

She said the lack of communication left her “in limbo”, wondering whether to “go [out] today and spend £200 and then come home and Morrison’s turn up with £200-worth of shopping,”

She eventually received her order later on Tuesday.

Problems started early on Monday morning, when customers who had ordered for Christmas started receiving emails saying their deliveries would be delayed or cancelled.

Then, when shops opened, in-store customers found their vouchers were not being accepted at the tills.

In response, Morrisons applied a 10% discount for members of their More Card loyalty scheme and applied other discounts for non-More Card holders.

Another Morrisons customer, Matthew Welch in Northumberland, had his delivery cancelled on Monday morning.

He said the manager he spoke to when he phoned up was “less than helpful.”

Matthew told BBC News: “The manager had said that he needed to wait until the problem was fixed and then he would come back to me, which he did not.”

He added: “I have since discovered that another four people in the village where I live have also had their Christmas deliveries cancelled yesterday as well.”

The BBC spoke to two other people in Northumberland who had deliveries cancelled yesterday.

Morrisons insists these cancellations were separate to the main “systems issues” it had, but would not go into more detail. Nor has it explained what has caused the problems with its systems.

Mr Welch ended up buying his groceries locally.

“I’ll be swapping to another supermarket, but I won’t use Morrisons again for anything,” he said.

Since this story was published, Morrisons has been in contact with Mr Welch with an offer to deliver the order and add points to his card.

Consumer expert Kate Hardcastle says the supermarket chain needs to be more transparent with its customers about what has happened.

“It’s something that will be not very quickly forgotten into the new year,” she told the BBC.

“I think it’s about trying to lean in, doing as much as they can, being very honest about it,” she adds.

The way supermarkets use loyalty schemes have changed in recent years, from offering points to offering discounts for members.

“If we’re going to see retailers implement these systems where you can only access a certain price through the schemes, then you absolutely have to make sure they’re watertight,” she says.

“Our grocery stores, they are built on legacy IT systems which can really get impacted at sensitive times of year… it’s about trying to understand into the new year how they can really work with their loyal customers to make up for this.”