An internal computer glitch in Walmart’s software system prevented thousands of its U.S. stores from being able to process payments and returns Wednesday morning.
Employees of the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer, including other individuals familiar with the situation, told the Wall Street Journal that the bug forced some of its registers to be unusable.
The system-wide outage lasted for hours, taking on a domino effect that affected hundreds of its brick-and-mortar stores as the retailer tried to fix the failure.
Of Walmart’s 4,600 US location, most continued to operate. However, six locations were forced to shut down operations completely.
Some of his employees said customers left in the early hours of the shutdown, while others left because they couldn’t return.
A Walmart spokesperson told the publication that the outage was partially caused by an internal system problem, not an external one, adding that the issue has since been resolved. However, the cause of the rage remains unclear.
Walmart’s size and scale may highlight how even some of the largest retailers still face technological hurdles as they seek to expand their business operations.
In October 2023, the retailer said it tested an augmented reality app using Artificial Intelligence, a move the company said would streamline restocking while also reducing the time it took employees to pull inventory in stock to restock shelves. In addition, during the next five years, the merchant proposed to approx 65% of its stores includes automated services.
Walmart’s growth plans are ambitious. Last month, the retailer said it planned to build over 150 stores over the next five years. A reversal compared to the news that would to close 269 of its stores back in 2016