Christmas shoppers stranded amid Myer IT crash

Myer shoppers have been left high and dry in the peak Christmas period, with the retail giant’s IT system crashing across the country on Saturday afternoon.

Customers shopping at Myer have been left high and dry at the register after IT systems have crashed across the country today.

Shoppers took to social media around 1.30pm this afternoon, disgruntled at being left unable to pay for hours of shopping.

The issue has since been resolved, with systems slowly coming back online about 4pm.

The Sunday Herald Sun has been told an internal technical issue was to blame.

A Myer spokesperson apologised to customers caught in the blackout.

“We had a technical issue this afternoon that affected registers at our stores,” the spokesperson said.

“This issue has been rectified and registers are now working as per normal.

“We apologise to customers for any inconvenience caused during this time and can advise that stores will be trading as per normal tonight and tomorrow.”

Earlier, one shopper, aged 25, was left waiting in line for over an hour to purchase only two items.

“It’s been really frustrating,” the shopper said.

“They should’ve at least closed the store.”

Another potential customer took to twitter to complain, writing: “An hour an a half at Myer Shopping. No Cash Registers nation wide? Unbelievable.”

An hour and a half at Myer Shopping. No Cash Registers nation wide?

Unbelievable. Bet they also have failed to invest in IT and staff. pic.twitter.com/HAgXzTvptr

— Kyle Amadio (@kyleamadio) December 14, 2019

Campbellfield mum of three Dani Silvio was shopping at Northland with two of her children, aged eight and 12, when the tills suddenly went down.

“It was chaotic. I ended up just dumping my stuff at a register and leaving,” she said.

Ms Silvio – who was buying clothes for her son’s impending primary school graduation and a Christmas present for her daughter – said Myer staff initially appeared clueless as to the cause of the problem and were running between floors trying to put purchases through other registers, which they hoped might be working.

Staff were harried and extremely apologetic, leaving Ms Silvio feeling sorry for all the workers in the store.

“It’s hard enough for retail staff at Christmas because they’re so busy and customers can be stressed and sometimes rude, so I felt really sorry for them having to deal with this as well,” she said.

Hey Myer, any idea of a timeframe? I’m a Myer team member and just want to give my customers a rough time of when to come back 😕

— Ashleigh Williams (@ashwaa90) December 14, 2019

Shoppers were given the opportunity of leaving their shopping at registers and returning to collect it later date on, she said.

“I’m not sure whether I’ll do that yet or not,” Ms Silvio said. “But if I do, I’ll certainly be ringing first to see if they are back up-and-running.”

Ms Silvio said she was told she couldn’t pay cash because the tills wouldn’t open and payments couldn’t be processed.

Asked if she was frustrated or angry about the shopping expedition she said it was “inconvenient, but a First World problem” that she didn’t plan on getting too worked up about.

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One employee even took to social media, seeking advice from management about when the IT systems would be restored so she could advise customers.

In a statement this afternoon, Myer said they were aware of this issue which was affecting all 61 of their stores Australia wide.

“We have a technical issue that is affecting registers at our stores,” it read.

“Our teams are working to get registers up and running as quickly as possible. We apologise to customers for any inconvenience caused during this time.”

Business will resume as normal tomorrow.

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