Tens of thousands of shoppers reported problems accessing or using the website of Amazon on Thursday, according to data from the outage-tracking site Downdetector.
Reports of disruptions began rising early Thursday afternoon and surged to roughly 20,000 reports by 3:45 p.m. ET. The spike first peaked at around 18,000 reports near 2:30 p.m., briefly dipped to about 16,000, and then climbed again as more users flagged issues.
Users reporting problems on Downdetector said they encountered a range of glitches while trying to shop on the platform, including checkout failures, payment errors, and incorrect or fluctuating product prices.
In a statement provided to USA Today, Amazon acknowledged the issue and apologized to customers experiencing problems.
“We’re sorry that some customers may be experiencing issues while shopping,” the company said. “We appreciate customers’ patience as we work to resolve the issue.”
The disruption comes just days after users reported problems with the social media platform Facebook earlier in the week. According to Downdetector data, more than 10,000 users reported issues on March 3 at the height of that outage.
At the time, several Facebook users reported seeing the same message when attempting to access their accounts:
“Your account is currently unavailable due to a site issue. We expect this to be resolved shortly. Please try again in a few minutes.”
It remains unclear what caused Thursday’s issues on Amazon’s platform or how widespread the disruption ultimately became.
