Target’s tech trouble causes long lines

SAN FRANCISCO — A glitch stalled checkout lines at Target stores worldwide Saturday, exasperating shop- pers and potentially eating into sales at a prime time for retailers, the day before Father’s Day.

The roughly two-hour outage periodically prevented Target’s cashiers from scan- ning merchandise or processing transactions as long lines formed in some stores. Self-checkout registers, usually the speediest of options, also weren’t working at times.

Target temporarily closed some of its stores, includ- ing one in San Francisco, rather than risk aggravat- ing shoppers.

“Our technology team worked quickly to identify and fix the issue, and we apologize for the inconvenience and frustration this caused for our guests,” Target said in a Saturday state- ment.

Before the company figured out what was wrong, a Target employee was warn- ing customers that they might not be able to check out as they entered a San Fran- cisco store early Saturday afternoon. Sales were being completed after intermittent delays during the half hour an AP reporter observed the lines at the store.

But some shoppers post- ing on their Twitter accounts Saturday painted a different picture as they vented about excruciatingly long lines but expressed sympathy for the Target employees trying cope with the situation.

The meltdown hit Target at the worst time for a mass-market merchant, given Saturdays are typically one of the busiest shopping days of the week.

The website do wn detector.com showed reports of an outage in major cities, including Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, New York City and Baltimore. Reports began spiking around mid- day. Target operates about 1,850 stores nationwide. to