Coles has apologised after several of its supermarkets across Australia were forced to close on Sunday morning because of a technical glitch.
A number of stores posted notices on their doors about the outage, including in Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast, according to posts on social media.
Coles confirmed some “minor IT problems” had affected some supermarkets, “which were out of our team members’ control”, but all were now open and trading.
“We apologise for any inconvenience our customers experienced earlier this morning,” Coles said in a statement. “All Coles supermarkets are open and trading.”
https://twitter.com/Coles/status/1031003410483441665
The announcement was also made on the store’s Twitter page at 12.22pm, when all stores were back up and running.
Many customers keen to get an early morning shop out of the way, took to social media to vent their frustration at the closure.
Coles introduces new single-use computer system. #Coles
— David M. Green (@David_M_Green) August 19, 2018
Thought I'd be organised and get my shopping done early… but not to be. Nationwide computer problem for #Coles apparently @abcbrisbane pic.twitter.com/j6YkqueNLl
— Anne O'Keeffe (@Anne_OKeeffe) August 18, 2018
In a follow-up statement, a spokesman told News.com.au that only some stores in the eastern states were affected.
“The majority of our stores were able to open at their regular time, however we apologise to those customers whose shopping was delayed,” he said.
“We thank our team members in affected stores who worked hard to ensure customers could complete their shopping as smoothly as possible once all stores were open.”
