Major Shopping Platform Experiences Outage Amid High Traffic on Cyber Monday Sales Event

Shopping Platform Experiences Outage During Cyber Monday

On Cyber Monday, a major shopping platform experienced a significant outage, disrupting merchants’ ability to process transactions. The platform reported that some users could not log in while others lost access to critical point-of-sale systems.

According to the company’s status update, the technical team was actively investigating the problem and implementing fixes. Around midday EST, thousands of users reported issues on Downdetector, peaking at approximately 4,000 reports earlier that morning.

This e-commerce provider supports a variety of online merchants by offering software solutions, including advertising and payment processing services. The company claims responsibility for over 10% of all e-commerce transactions in the United States.

Originally popular with small businesses and direct-to-consumer brands, the platform now serves larger retail clients such as Reebok, Mattel, Barnes & Noble, and Nestle. The outage occurred amid one of the busiest online shopping days, heightening the impact for both retailers and consumers.

Cyber Monday typically sees an enormous surge in online sales, with Adobe Analytics estimating American shoppers will spend $14.2 billion this year. This figure represents a 6.3% increase compared to last year’s data. For context, Black Friday sales reached $11.8 billion, marking a 9.1% rise.

The platform’s temporary downtime hindered merchants from managing backend operations and transactions during peak hours. The company directed inquiries to its real-time status page for updates, signaling ongoing work to resolve the disruption.

Such outages highlight the risks e-commerce businesses face during crucial sales events, where site reliability directly affects revenue. As online retail continues to grow, platforms must enhance infrastructure resilience to handle escalating traffic volumes and avoid similar incidents.

Consumers and businesses alike watched closely as the situation unfolded, demonstrating the critical role technology plays in modern commerce during high-demand periods.