Essendant, a wholesale distributor of stationery and office supplies, is experiencing a multi-day system outage that is preventing customers and suppliers from placing and fulfilling online orders. The outage began on Monday, March 6, 2023, and Essendant is continuing its recovery efforts.
Freight carriers have also been instructed to hold off on any pick-ups until further notice. Customers will not be able to place orders or contact Essendant’s customer care during this time.
The office products supplier has also requested its suppliers to withhold additional shipments as the company will not be able to receive anything in route.
Essendant, formerly known as United Stationers, generates over $5.4 billion in annual revenue and employs more than 6,400 people. The company stocks over 160,000 types of items, serving approximately 30,000 reseller customers. Its products include traditional office products, office furniture, janitorial and break room supplies, and technology products. The systems outage is likely to have a widespread impact on the supply chain.
Some orders were shipped on Monday, March 6, 2023, but the company did not provide an ASN. Beginning this weekend, the company will start the process to provide those missing ASNs, which will take several days.
Orders placed but not physically shipped prior to the outage of Monday night will be canceled by the company. Customers will be notified of cancellations by ASN indicating the items were manually marked out or a report of cancelled orders provided by the team.
Essendant is yet to reveal the cause of the outage, and it is not known whether it is a mere technical issue or stemming from a cyber attack. This is a common theme that BleepingComputer has observed in previous multi-day “outage” events, including the ones at DISH and Royal Mail.
