Amazon Outage Disrupts Shopping, Operations, and Sparks Ad Spend Concerns

On Thursday, Amazon experienced a significant technical disruption that left countless customers unable to shop, access their purchases, or utilize various platform services. The widespread outage, which began around 2 p.m. ET and was largely resolved by 8 p.m. ET according to CNBC, triggered a wave of user complaints and concerns among sellers about lost sales and unexpected advertising costs.

Frustrated shoppers took to industry forums to report their inability to complete purchases on Amazon’s website and app. Many encountered the retailer’s well-known "UH-Oh. Something went wrong on our end" error page, famously illustrated with images of dogs. One particularly exasperated customer humorously cataloged an extensive list of dog breeds that appeared on the error pages they encountered throughout the day, including Bailey, Barkley, Barney, Bowser, Brandi, Butters, Cannoli, Clancy, Corbin, Duke, Frank, Hunter, Jaja, Jax, Kodak, Lola, Lucy, Maddie, Mae, Martini, Meela, Milly, Miss Chief, Muffin, Oliver, Peek, Phoebe, Ranger & Remi, Robin, Rocket, RoRo, Rufus, Rupert, Shadow, Sheriff, Soju, Talula, Tanq, Thomas, and Waffles.

Amazon acknowledged the issues in a statement to media outlets, attributing the temporary shopping difficulties to a problem stemming from a software code deployment. The company offered an apology for the inconvenience.

However, the impact of the outage extended beyond typical online shopping. Customers attempting to retrieve pre-purchased items from Amazon lockers found themselves unable to access their goods. One user detailed their experience on Down Detector, explaining that the locker pickup page displayed a spinning wheel, and despite being told the issue would be resolved within ten minutes, it persisted for over 35 minutes. Hours later, the customer was still unable to connect, leaving their item effectively held hostage.

Members of Amazon’s Vine Review program were also affected, unable to post their reviews. The Kindle ebook service was not spared, with one user reporting an inability to view book descriptions or download new titles, lamenting, "I can’t view any of the descriptions and there are no options to download or even get a new book so what the heck."

Amazon sellers faced a dual blow: not only did they lose potential sales due to customers’ inability to purchase, but they also struggled to manage their own listings. Many reported that their product listings were generating 404 errors, failing to display the buy box, appearing as "currently unavailable," or throwing errors when customers attempted to add items to their carts. One seller on the Amazon seller discussion boards on March 5th described the situation, stating, "All of my listings are 404 error, not showing the buy box, currently unavailable or shows an error when added to the cart." Another seller corroborated this, noting, "I thought sales are slow today, but I checked the inventory and saw many of the listings not showing any image and on the listing page there is not buybox, seller info or even product info is missing. Seems AWS is impacted badly."

Some shoppers also reported issues with item pricing, with one user on DownDetector noting that prices were not displaying. Clicking on "Options" led to a "Suspenseful Music" message, returning them to the item page without further information, often accompanied by "Product Unavailable" and "404 Dogs" errors. For sellers accustomed to significant daily revenue, the outage represented a direct financial loss. One seller, who typically achieves daily sales exceeding $2,000, reported, "We did not sell anything for the last 5 hours."

The disruption also impacted seller communication. A seller in a separate thread on the Amazon seller forums detailed issues with replying to customer messages, stating that attempts to respond showed as "being processed" but then disappeared as if no reply had been sent. Another seller, whose listings became unsearchable, expressed concern that Amazon seller support was also unreachable, asking, "it seems Amazon seller support is out of reach too. Anyone on the same boat?"

Beyond lost sales, a significant concern emerged regarding advertising fees. Sellers who utilize Amazon’s advertising services worried that they were being charged for ad clicks during the outage, even though customers clicking on those ads were likely encountering error pages and unable to complete a purchase.

On Friday, a seller posted a detailed request for clarification on the Amazon discussion boards, titled "Amazon Outage Today Caused Significant Ad Spend Without Ability for Customers to Checkout – Request for Clarification." The post highlighted that for approximately three hours, Amazon experienced widespread outages, leading to customer errors, broken product pages, and checkout failures. Despite the inability of customers to complete purchases, Amazon Advertising campaigns continued to run, and ads continued to receive clicks.

The seller detailed observations from their account: a significant increase in ad spend during the outage window, hundreds of clicks with virtually no conversions, and a pattern of customers appearing to click repeatedly in an attempt to access product pages due to the site errors. The core concern was that these clicks, occurring while the marketplace was malfunctioning, did not represent normal shopping behavior and resulted in advertising spend accumulated when purchases were impossible.

This situation raised several critical issues for advertisers: ad spend accumulated during a period when purchases were not feasible, conversion rates were artificially suppressed, and campaign performance metrics risked being distorted. This distortion could negatively impact optimization algorithms, bid efficiency, and organic ranking signals. The advertisers argued that they were essentially paying for traffic during a time when the marketplace was not functioning correctly.

The post posed several direct questions to Amazon Ads or Seller Support:

• Will Amazon automatically refund ad spend generated during the outage window?
• Will Amazon adjust performance metrics or algorithmic learning for campaigns affected during this time?
• Has Amazon identified the exact outage timeframe so advertisers can understand the impact on their accounts?

The seller concluded by emphasizing that while acknowledging that technical incidents can occur, continuing to charge advertisers for clicks when the marketplace is not functioning and customers cannot complete purchases raises fairness concerns. They respectfully requested that Amazon review ad traffic during the outage period and provide appropriate reimbursement or adjustments for affected advertisers.

EcommerceBytes inquired with Amazon on Friday evening about whether it would be crediting seller ad fees during the outage when customers were clicking on ads but unable to make purchases. The article stated it would be updated upon receiving a response. Reports from CNBC indicated that issues on DownDetector peaked around 2 p.m. ET and were largely resolved by 8 p.m. ET.