Woolworths turning customers away following IT outage
Woolworths is turning customers away from its stores, following reports the Australian supermarket chain is suffering a nationwide IT outage.
Customers took to Twitter Monday afternoon, posting photos of security screens pulled shut at stores around the country, with some reporting being told by store managers that an IT glitch had affected its cash registers.
ZDNet understands the glitch didn't make its way to all stores, however, with some operating as usual.
Woolworths eventually confirmed the outage, apologising for the inconvenience via Twitter.
"We can confirm that an IT issue impacted registers in our supermarkets for a short period of time this afternoon. The registers are now back online in all our stores. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. Thanks," the reply to many reads.
Woolworths in August apologised to customers following reports that some experienced a second batch of payments withdrawn from their bank accounts.
A Woolworths spokesperson told ZDNet at the time it received confirmation from Cuscal, one of its payment processors that services financial institutions, that due to an error at its datacentre, some Woolworths customers received incorrect transactions on accounts processed by Cuscal.
Woolworths ended the 2016 financial year with a AU$1.2 billion loss and the realisation it needed to continue playing catch-up on investment in IT infrastructure.
Six months into his tenure, the company's CEO Brad Banducci told shareholders that during the year Woolworths made major changes to the way it operates, including the removal of what he called unnecessary bureaucracy, and costs.
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