On April 17, 2025, Walmart's website and mobile app saw a major outage, rendering thousands of online customers throughout the US incapable of accessing the retailer's digital services. The timing could not have been more inconvenient, with the outage falling during the height of Easter shopping, adding further irritation to consumers attempting to purchase last-minute holiday necessities.

Disrupts Easter Shopping Plans

The outage started about 3:00 PM Eastern Time, just as customers were preparing for Easter weekend. People were planning to buy groceries, presents, and decorations in advance of the holiday, but the technical issues rendered it almost impossible to make transactions. Users complained about crashes on the app, failure to load pages, and problems with adding items to shopping carts. A few users, however, were able to submit orders only to see their transactions disappear from account history, while they didn't get order confirmations sent.

As Easter arrived, the malfunction left consumers frantically looking elsewhere since Walmart's services weren't available to them as they struggled to complete last-minute holiday buying.

Record-Breaking Surge In Reports 

Social media was filled with grievances as upset customers took to the likes of X (formerly Twitter) to rant about their experiences. "I anyone else having trouble with the Walmart app and website. Trying to put in a mobile order and both have been unusable for hours," wrote one user. Based on Down Detector, which monitors real-time outages, more than 3,600 reports were received at the peak of the issue, with the app being the leading source of complaints (59 per cent), followed by website breakdowns (33 per cent) and checkout troubles (7 per cent).

No Official Statement From Walmart Yet

To date, Walmart has not issued an official statement on the cause of the outage. Although there is no suggestion of a cybersecurity attack, the reason is still unknown. Most people are guessing that the outage may be due to heavy traffic as shoppers flocked to finish their Easter shopping, along with possible server failures.

Walmart's technical staff worked through the night to fix the problems, but other customers still were getting slow loads and incomplete transactions. Those who are still having problems with orders or accounts are asked to call Walmart customer service or go to stores in the area for help.

With Easter now just around the corner, many shoppers are keeping their fingers crossed that the retailer will get the disruptions fixed before they do their last-minute shopping.