Sainsbury’s Online are at it again. Following their decision in late February to carry out maintenance on their website for an entire weekend, they’ve announced another bout of ‘routine maintenance…to help improve our service.’ This means that the site will be unavailable between 11pm Saturday, 25 April and 1pm Sunday, 26 April.

“We’re sorry that during this maintenance you won’t be able to shop for groceries, amend or cancel an order you’ve already placed either online or through our contact centre,” says Tanya Lawler, director at Sainsbury’s Online, in an email to customers.

No mention of what this ‘routine maintenance’ entails and why it needs to be carried out so soon after the late February/early March downtime and the much-publicised glitch of June 2008, which saw the site unavailable for about four days.

An email arrives in my inbox. I shake my head and mutter, ‘here we go again’. It’s from Sainsbury’s Online, informing me that they’re carrying out routine maintenance to their website which means that it will be unavailable between 11pm Friday, 27 February and 6am Monday, 2 March. “We’re sorry that during this time you won’t be able to shop for groceries online, amend or cancel an order you’ve already placed. The maintenance also means that our helpline colleagues will be unable to place, amend or cancel an order for you during this time,” it adds.

Hardly the best timing - coming, as it does, less than a year after the Sainsbury’s website was suspended due to technical issues.

“We’re sorry for any inconvenience caused - but we’ll be back before you know it!” says Tanya Lawler, director at Sainsbury’s Online.

“I’m switching to Ocado,” says this particular disgruntled customer.

Scott Thompson - Editor/Retail Systems