M&S site back online after maintenance shutdown

Customers attempting to browse the site were met by a page that said: “Sorry, you can’t browse the site currently. We’re making some updates and will be back soon.”

As of Thursday morning, the website was back online, with the retailer confirming the outage was for maintenance reasons. 

Shoppers have been unable to make online orders since the Easter weekend due to the fallout from a cyber attack but could still browse M&S’ store catalogue.

An M&S spokesperson said: “Our website is open for browsing. As we work to get things back to normal for our customers, we are doing some overnight updates.”

M&S revealed yesterday that it would lose an estimated £300m because of the cyber-attack, despite being in what chief executive Stuart Machin said was its “best financial health for nearly 30 years”.

Machin said: “That’s the gross number—it will be reduced through managing costs, trading actions and insurance recovery. We’re confident we will enter the second half with a strong customer proposition, returning to the performance we were delivering.”

He also said the retailer has been bringing its systems back online in a controlled way and the company was ahead of its expected timeline.