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Walmart customers furious after website delays on Thanksgiving
(REUTERS/Jonathan Alcorn)
Walmart's website had major delays on Thursday, upsetting customers who were hoping to score deep discounts.
Walmart for the first time this year offered its Black Friday deals online. The deals went live at 12:01 a.m. on Thanksgiving.
But many customers said they weren't able to shop for the items they wanted because of website delays.
Others said their orders were unexpectedly canceled by Walmart after they had already checked out.
Some said the prices shown online weren't the Black Friday deals that Walmart had promised in ads for the holiday.
Hundreds of customers wrote about their experiences on Walmart's Facebook page. Walmart responded to many of the complaints with an apology, saying the website was overwhelmed by a surge in traffic.
"As our Black Friday deals launched online, we saw an incredible surge in traffic early this morning," the company wrote on Facebook. "The vast majority of customers were able to checkout successfully. The slowness some customers may have experienced was resolved, and we apologize if you experienced difficulty shopping the site."
Wal-Mart told Business Insider the "vast majority" of customers checked out successfully.
"We had an exciting day online yesterday, as we made almost all of the stores Black Friday deals available online just after midnight Pacific Time," the company said in a statement. "As they went live on the website, we saw an incredible surge in traffic. It’s just like queue lines in store. We see longer lines at 6 p.m. in our stores when the flood of traffic comes in and we saw that online, too. The vast majority of customers were able to check out successfully."
Shopping was a complete bust. Was only after 1 TV & @walmart's site should've been ready for the traffic. #notgoingtothestore #TurkeyDay
— Melissa Bates ♫ (@musicmel) November 26, 2015
@Walmart Why isnt Rubbermaid 34 pce item 553030199 showing BF price of 7.50 on your website!!
— Jerry Leflar (@jerrymgrman) November 26, 2015
@Walmart are site issues resolved? my orders keep getting canceled and its running up my credit card balance. Can't afford 2 keep ordering
— czar (@audioCzar901) November 27, 2015
I hate #Walmart Site crashed all morning, and then you had your store all taped off. Nothing but a disastor. Most mismanaged store. Ugh.
— Brandon Pierson (@bjamesxl200) November 27, 2015
@Walmart too late. Deals I was trying to get when your site crashed are gone. Stayed up for nothing.
— ❌ichigan Sucks! (@Melendez_89) November 26, 2015
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