“Embarrassing” IT glitch costs Dixons dear
Electricals retailer Dixon’s has admitted that an “IT glitch” cost the firm £15m in lost revenue over the festive break after their websites crashed during the crucial Christmas sales period.
Both its PC World and Pixmania websites were forced offline for the first few days of the Christmas sales after huge numbers of bargain hunters logging on from Boxing Day overwhelmed Dixons server.
This contributed to Dixons bucking an industry wide growth trend by posting an 11% decline in its internet only businesses.
John Browett, Dixons chief executive, said: “we could keep the Currys website up for long periods but all our websites kept crashing. There was a component glitch but there were also very high traffic numbers.”
Snow chaos was also blamed for preventing shoppers from visiting the chains physical stores, a double whammy which cost the firm a further £20m.
Nick Bubb, an Arden analyst, told the guardian that Dixons sales decline and IT problems were “embarrassing”.