Sainsbury’s has been having a difficult week as a result of problems with its e-commerce site, leaving customers unable to place orders via safe shopping online due to repeated crashing, according to the Daily Mail.

Various issues were reported via social media, with some disgruntled shoppers stating that they could not even log into their account or keep tabs on orders that had already been placed, let alone arrange for a new home delivery.

The first signs of trouble emerged on Friday last week and persisted for five days, with Sainsbury’s now stating that it has been able to fix the faults and get its online platform running smoothly once again.

A spokesperson for the retailer apologised for the inconvenience that had been caused by the technical troubles, although did not go into specific details about what caused them.

There was evidence that routine maintenance enacted last week may have generated the disruption, although the fact that it lasted for so many days is less than ideal.

Major retailers rely on their e-commerce sites to offer customers a secure place to carry out safe shopping online, but they must also ensure that the experience is not soured by performance problems. And while a breach can do damage to a firm’s reputation, any kind of downtime or disruption is similarly likely to leave a bad taste in consumers’ mouths.

Many of the people who complained directly to Sainsbury’s via Twitter said that they would be choosing to shop with rival supermarkets when arranging their next grocery delivery, which shows how easy it is for a minor slip-up to make previously loyal customers jump ship.

The disruption seems to have been localised to Sainsbury’s site, not impacting any other supermarkets, which is good news as it discounts the likelihood of wider outages occurring.