Amazon Hits Reported Checkout Snag Amid Labor Day Sale

Amazon’s checkout reportedly suffered a technical issue as its Labor Day sale began.

The glitch in the eCommerce site happened Friday (Aug. 30), preventing customers from completing their purchases, CNBC reported, citing reports from customers on social media.

The news network said Amazon’s Web Services division did not report any technical problems when the checkout feature was down.

Amazon had been promoting discounts for a Labor Day weekend sale, though some members of the X social network said they weren’t able to buy products at a discount due to the glitch. Amazon’s Help account on X replied by suggesting users get in touch with the company.

PYMNTS has contacted Amazon for comment but has not yet gotten a reply.

According to the report, Amazon has cautioned investors that technical troubles could drive down sales and harm perceptions of the company’s products and services. The company’s second quarter sales came to nearly $148 billion, a figure the report described as “healthy.”

In other Amazon news, PYMNTS wrote last week about reports that the company was planning an artificial intelligence (AI) overhaul for its Alexa voice assistant. The company plans to transform the free offering into a paid subscription service, according to a Washington Post report, citing internal company documents.

“The bigger picture here is the evolution of Amazon’s strategy for monetizing its AI services,” Ghazenfer Mansoor, founder and CEO of the AI company Technology Rivers, told PYMNTS. “For a long time, the company’s approach was simple: offer cheap or free services to attract people, then rely on selling products and advertising. But as the cost of developing and maintaining advanced AI capabilities rises, it makes sense for companies to start exploring other revenue streams.”

Meanwhile, PYMNTS also wrote last week about efforts by Amazon and rival Walmart to seize on consumers’ demand for digital restaurant ordering to fuel engagement with their paid memberships, providing dining benefits to make subscriptions more attractive.

For example, Walmart recently announced a partnership with Burger King, its first Walmart+ dining collaboration, while Amazon earlier this year expanded its arrangement with Grubhub to provide Prime members with free Grubhub+ subscriptions on an ongoing basis.

“We’re just trying to make it really simple for our members to not only find out about what value they have in their Prime membership, but also to actually benefit from it on monthly, weekly, daily basis — however it fits into their busy lives,” Jamil Ghani, vice president of Amazon Prime, said in an interview with PYMNTS at the time.