An IT update has forced shoppers to abandon their trolleys at hundreds of Woolworths supermarkets, with some outlets forced to close.
The technical glitch hit about half of Woolworths' 995 Australian stores and attached BWS liquor outlets for about 30 minutes on Monday afternoon.
In a statement, Woolworths said the outage was related to an IT systems update before registers came back online by about 4.30pm.
"This type of incident should not occur and we apologise unreservedly to our customers and store teams for the inconvenience caused," Woolworths Group chief executive Brad Banducci said.
Staff working at one of the affected stores, at Sydney's Town Hall, earlier confirmed the outage meant customers forced to leave without their purchases.
Some shoppers vented their frustration on social media, with one woman tweeting: "I hope (at) Woolworths are going to donate all those $1 and $2 coins we had to leave in our trolleys when they closed the stores today to a suitable charity".
Another customer wrote on Facebook: "Was about to go in, told outside our local centre that everything had just crashed, so went to Aldi quickly....it started to get busy there."
Australian Associated Press
