Business Reporter, BBC News
Getty imagesAn analyst said that Marx and Spencer had faced his reputation after being forced to stop taking online orders after a cyber attack.
The retail giant has stopped orders on their website and apps since Friday as it tries to restore operations.
But analysts say that if the problem is not resolved quickly, the shopkeepers have lost with the possibility of turning to rival brands while buying summer clothes.
Insight with Passion consumer expert Kate Hardcasal said the incident was “an injury to the reliable brand image of M&S”.
He said: “Customers hope that a retailer like M&S to protect his data and keep the services running, so such an incident can shake confidence.”
However, he said that because M&S had quickly responded and open with its communication, long -term damage should be limited.
“This is a blow, but with the right tasks it can be just one injury instead of a permanent mark.”
A third of the sale of retailer clothes and household items in the UK comes from its online operation.
Natalist Berg, retail analyst of NBK Retail, said that such incidents “erase the consumer trust in the brand”.
“I think the shopkeepers are usually forgiven when these incidents happen, but they hope it will be resolved quickly.”
Customers had started reporting problems in the last weekend – with people struggling to use contactless payments, click and collected, and gift cards – and on Tuesday the retailer confirmed that it was facing “cyber phenomena”.
Then on Friday, M&S said that she was taking orders through its UK and Ireland websites and apps and some international websites.
It apologized for inconvenience and said it would return the orders placed by customers on Friday.
M&S says that contactless payments are now working and gift cards can be used.
Online grocery ocado, which sells M&S food on its platform, is unaffected by problems as it runs on a completely different system.
This week with hot weather, and shopkeepers turned their views into summer, analysts said that M&S could disappear from sales at an important time, as people were likely to turn to rival retailers what they wanted.
Ms. Berg said, “The turn in the weather means that the shopkeepers must be thinking about refreshing their wardrobes and homes.”
“This is definitely not an ideal time to suspend online orders.”
Catherine Shuttleworth, from Sevi Marketing, stated that the online effect is “very quick and immediate”.
“Buy it now”, seeing culture, other retailers will benefit from this opportunity. “
The sale and profits of M&S have improved in recent years and have been trying to expand their online operations.
Last year, £ 3.9BN in its clothing and home business came out almost £ 1.3BN online.
In September, it said that increasing the percentage of online sales was “an important objective”.
Ms. Berg said that the problems caused by the cyber attack were “an operational destruction”.
“M&S is firing on all cylinders today, but there is no doubt that it is a significant shock”.
Last week, a spokesman of the Information Commissioner’s Office told the BBC that it was “assessing the information given” after the retailer told about the incident.
The firm earlier said on Tuesday that it had reported the incident to the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC), and the National Crime Agency. Told BBC It was working with NCSC to support the firm.
The retailer is the latest major brand to experience significant disruption for its online services in recent months.
Morrison faced major problems While with its Christmas orders last year, Barcalage And Lloyds In the first two months of this year, both were killed by banking outage.
