Wal-Mart Stores Inc. was among the retailers issuing apologies along with discounted merchandise on Friday.
Shoppers across the U.S. were frustrated by slow website speeds and merchandise disappearing from their carts at Walmart.com. Target customers found certain stores weren't open during advertised holiday hours, and NeimanMarcus.com crashed under the demand of shoppers seeking Black Friday deals.
Wal-Mart used its official Twitter account -- @walmart -- and its Facebook page to offer apologies. Online sales for the retailer's "doorbusters" began at 2 a.m. Friday, and people reported issues with speed and availability. About 96 percent of the merchandise available in store was supposed to be available online, giving shoppers the option of staying home for discounts.
"As you know, we made almost all of the stores Black Friday deals available online just after midnight PT. As they went live on the website, we saw an incredible surge in traffic," spokesman Bao Nguyen wrote in an email. "The vast majority of customers were able to checkout successfully."
Appealing to online shoppers has been an emphasis for Wal-Mart and it has invested billions into its e-commerce operations. Those investments have included technology upgrades designed to make the shopping experience better for customers by making more merchandise available and improving the speed at which Walmart.com operates.
It is unclear what the retailer has done to shore up its website before Cyber Monday, a shopping day designated for online deals. Wal-Mart did tell some shoppers on social media it expected the issues to be fixed.
"The slowness some customers may have experienced was resolved, and we apologize if you experienced difficulty shopping on the site," the retailer wrote to customers on its Facebook page.
Fernando Madeira, president and CEO of Walmart.com, describes Cyber Monday as "the biggest online shopping day of the year for us." Wal-Mart is offering discounted merchandise online beginning at 7 p.m. Sunday.
Wal-Mart reported more than 1.5 billion page views between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday last year.
Customers surveyed by the National Retail Federation said about 46 percent of their shopping will be conducted online. That's up from 44.4 percent in 2014 and accounts for $105 billion of the $630.5 billion projected for holiday spending this year.
Wal-Mart chief merchandising officer Steve Bratspies said Friday in a statement that "tens of millions of customers" shopped online and in stores during its Black Friday event.
Business on 11/28/2015