Checkout meltdown causes Woolies chaos
WOOLWORTHS supermarkets across the Geelong region closed for several hours yesterday following a nationwide checkout meltdown.
A technical outage left customers waiting at checkouts from around 3pm with some store managers being ordered to temporarily shut up shop.
Woolworths, which has outlets across the Geelong region, reopened its stores around 5pm after the glitch was rectified.
Norlane shopper Steve Drayton was in the exit queue at the time of the checkout glitch. He said some customers left within minutes while others waited in the hope the computer system would be restored.
“I was at the Woolworths in Bell Post Hill and most people thought the checkouts would start working again after a couple of minutes,” he said.
“Obviously that wasn’t the case. People tried to buy stuff at the (Woolworths-operated) service station but that had checkout problems as well.
“We just had to leave the groceries behind. Anyone who hadn’t paid had to leave them behind, which was frustrating.”
A Woolworths spokeswoman said the registers were coming back online just after 5pm.
“We can confirm that an IT issue impacted registers in our supermarkets for a short period of time this afternoon,” she said.
“The registers are now back online in all our stores. We apologise for the inconvenience this caused our customers.”
Woolworths confirmed all stores reopened around 5pm, even if they had temporarily pulled down their shutters during the outage.