Users have taken to the popular outage monitoring website Down Detector to report an issue with Walmart, one of the most popular places to shop online and in person in the U.S.
The trouble seems to be resolved as of 6:45 p.m. tonight (April 17), with Down Detector reports dwindling after spiking three hours earlier. At its peak, the Walmart website loaded for many users, but affected customers either couldn't add items to their carts while others were hit with errors when trying to load certain pages.
The outage began shortly after 3:00 p.m. and shows no signs of letting up yet. However, it is worth noting that most of the reports came from cities in the southern portion of the United States, but the reasons for this are unclear.
During the outage, the problem became more widespread, but it seems to be winding down now. That said, customers are still seeing delays in receiving confirmations when they've placed orders.
Walmart outlive latest updates
The outage begins
Walmart users quickly sent the Down Detector reports up to around 3,500, which is a lot relative to the baseline of of two. Additionally, for a website that doesn't draw as many users as something like Zoom (which was down for a good part of the day yesterday), this is larger number of reports.
Southern focused outage
While we usually see a lot outage reports centered around Boston and New York City, this one is focused in Tampa, Los Angelas Phoenix and other southern cities in the U.S. (with a small blip in Chicago).
For my end, Walmart is working fine. I can add items to my cart and browse the site in the same way as normal (I'm based on Connecticut).
User comments
Users are taking to the Down Detector comments section to sound off on what's happening with Walmart. It's nothing too surprising, but it does appear to be primarily focused around not being able to add items to their cart. So even if you can access the Walmart website right now, you might find that you can't actually buy anything.
Getting better?
There's a slight drop in the Down Detector reports, with it currently sitting at just over 3,000. That could be a good sign that Walmart is getting things back to normal, but we'll have to wait and see.
Users reaching out on X
@Walmart your app is really screwed up! I can’t load anything and your home page is advertising back to school sales and promotions for October last year!!! What the heck is going onApril 17, 2025
Some users have started posting on X to Walmart stating that the app is having issues and they can't get anything to load. For its part, Walmart didn't have any information in its responses, instead asking the users to send them a direct message.
Uh-oh!
I was playing with the Walmart website to see if I could find anything to break, and I managed to get an error while clicking the Toys section under New. The error read "Uh-oh. This page could not be found."
If you're experiencing a similar error, know you're not alone, as I got it, too.
On the rise again
Just when it seemed the Down Detector reports were starting to decline, a new batch of users flooded the website to report outages. Now, it has jumped to around 3,600 reports, which is higher than when this outage first started.
Walmart help isn't overly helpful
Let's look into this. DM us with more details, so we can figure this out! https://t.co/TdN38DcbRuApril 17, 2025
The Walmart Help X account isn't being overly helpful.
Like the main account, it's simply telling users to DM them with their problems so they can offer a solution. I've tried to DM them myself and will add a new post to the live blog if they respond with any information.
Reached out to Walmart for comment
I've sent an email to Walmart's media relations team asking for any information regarding the status of the company's website.
Hopefully, someone will respond in short order so we can gain some clarity on the situation (ideally, we'll receive an estimated end time or some indication of when the company will have things fixed).
Reports under 3,000
After looking at Down Detector again, I'm finally seeing the reports drop to under 3,000 for the first time in a while.
With that said, 2,500 reports hardly mean we're out of the woods yet, so we'll need to keep a close eye on this outage for new information as it happens.
Beginning of the end?
The reports have dropped substantially — and quickly — over the last few minutes. While they reached as high as 3,600, they're down to about 1,100 now.
This could mean the outage is coming to close, but with no official work from Walmart regarding what's happening and why the website is having issues, it's hard to say for sure.
Some users seeing success
Some users can get their orders to go through, but they report that it takes a few attempts. Your experience may vary, but based on the anecdotal evidence from these users and the overall decline in reports, we may be approaching the end of the Walmart outage.
All systems go?
When we check Down Detector half-an-hour ago, outage reports were totaling around 1,100. At just past 5:20 ET, it's dropped to 400.
The latest comments on the Down Detector forum seem to suggest customers are able to place their orders now with increasing frequency, so it looks like we're just about up and running once more.
Out of order?
Among the lingering issues some people are still reporting on Down Detector's forums appear to be with placing orders at Walmart. Specifically, some users try to put orders through, only to see that order vanish. Adding to the frustration is the lack of any order confirmation from Walmart.
We're still seeing total reports of an outage declining from the high of earlier today, though it seems not everyone's service is fully restored.
That's all for now
The Down Detector incident report counter continues to fall — it's around 200 reports now. There appear to be some lingering issues, with the most common being delayed confirmation emails for orders. But barring any sudden spike in incident reports, Walmart seems to have addressed whatever was causing the outage.
