Some M&S shops left with empty cabinets after cyber assault

Some Marks & Spencer shops have been left with empty meals cabinets because the retailer continues to battle with a cyber assault affecting its operations.

Over the Easter weekend, clients reported issues utilizing contactless pay and Click on & Acquire, and on-line orders have been paused on the corporate’s web site and app since Friday.

It isn’t clear how widespread the empty cabinets are however the retailer confirmed “pockets of restricted availability in some shops”.

The BBC understands inventory on the cabinets will likely be again to regular inside a few days, though it can take till the top of the week earlier than M&S’s total operations start to get again to normal ranges.

The agency can be managing disruption to a small proportion of merchandise that it provides to Ocado, which delivers M&S on-line orders and which is part-owned by M&S.

Though points with contactless pay, Click on & Acquire and present playing cards have since been resolved, clients can nonetheless not place on-line orders.

A couple of third of M&S’s clothes and family items gross sales within the UK are via its on-line platforms and have been value some £1.2bn, in accordance with its newest monetary outcomes.

Though its share worth was up barely on Tuesday morning, it has fallen 4.6% during the last 5 days – with a notable dip on Friday when the agency introduced it was stopping on-line orders.

The issues come throughout a busy retailing interval, as clients put together for the great climate and buy outside backyard tools, barbecue objects and social gathering meals.

The aftershocks of the cyber assault will dent its earnings, analysts have informed the BBC, as many purchasers go elsewhere to buy as a substitute.

M&S has not disclosed the character of the cyber assault.

“As a part of our proactive administration of the incident, we took a choice to take a few of our methods briefly offline,” a spokesperson stated.

“Consequently, we at the moment have pockets of restricted availability in some shops. We’re working laborious to get availability again to regular throughout the property. “

“I feel they’re in what I might describe as an unenviable place,” stated Nayna McIntosh, former government committee member of M&S and founder & chief government of Hope Style.

“There will likely be some very, very troublesome conversations going down in Paddington [M&S HQ].

She stated that stopping on-line orders was “virtually like chopping off one in every of your limbs”, though she added that M&S was a well-liked model so clients will give it some leeway so long as they’ve transparency.

M&S just isn’t the one agency to endure disruption to its on-line methods in latest occasions. Grocery store Morrisons confronted issues with its Christmas order in 2024, whereas banks Barclays and Lloyds have been hit by outages earlier in 2025.