Retail

Target says cash registers back online and customers can make purchases again after systems outage

Key Points
  •  A company spokesperson said the outage was the result of a "an internal technology issue" and was not security related.
  • "After an initial but thorough review, we can confirm that this was not a data breach or security-related issue, and no guest information was compromised at any time," the spokesperson said. 
  • The outage caused a standstill at checkout lines all over the country. 
An employee in a Target store.
Daniel Acker | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Target said its cash registers were back online after a systems outage prevented customers from making purchases in stores across the nation for about two hours on Saturday.

A company spokesperson said the outage was the result of a "an internal technology issue" and was not security related.

"After an initial but thorough review, we can confirm that this was not a data breach or security-related issue, and no guest information was compromised at any time," the spokesperson said.

The outage caused a standstill at checkout lines all over the country.

The retail giant responded to customer complaints via Twitter on Saturday, saying the company was working "as quickly as possible to get this fixed."

Twitter

Customers took to social media to share their in-store experiences as they waited for the payment systems to be back up and running.

Twitter

Twitter

Twitter

Twitter

Twitter

Five years ago on this exact same day, Target experienced a similar glitch in its system that impacted stores across the U.S. At the time, the retail giant quickly apologized for the problem and told customers that the outage was "not in any way related to a security issue."

— CNBC's Lauren Thomas contributed to this reporting.