Even India’s largest e-commerce company isn’t immune from the occasional technical glitch.
Consumers browsing Flipkart today morning discovered that all products on the site were listed as “unavailable.” Confused buyers took to Twitter to express their surprise.
https://twitter.com/ksraghavendra/status/940098425080528896
Right now, this very moment, @Flipkart shows every item in the inventory unavailable! pic.twitter.com/2RWtot3Cky
— Sagar (@nitinsgr) December 11, 2017
Oh yeah. @Flipkart entire inventory is 'currently unavailable.' And it's been more than 10 minutes.
— Chakri Kudikala (@chakri_tt) December 11, 2017
@Flipkart database crashed!
Everything gone Unavailable
Or is it Just a update??@_sachinbansal #FlipkartDown— KnowledgeKeeda (@KnowledgeKeeda) December 11, 2017
Someone even created a live video showing the site with all its products unavailable.
https://twitter.com/NikhilPatil_IND/status/940091695407939585
Sources told OfficeChai that Flipkart was down for a whole 45 minutes before it was up and running again. Flipkart had sales of $4 billion last year, and a 45 minute period with no sales could mean a loss in sales that’s upwards of Rs. 4 crore, assuming sales are distributed throughout the day and night. A 45 minute downtime during peak hours could cause a loss in sales that’s much higher.
This isn’t the first time Flipkart has struggled with technical issues. In 2014, Flipkart’s site had crashed during its inaugural Big Billions Day sale, and many orders which had gone through were later cancelled by the company. Following this incident, Flipkart had carried out an open letter in major newspapers, apologizing for the technical glitches. Flipkart had then worked its internal systems, and the site had remained functional during subsequent sales.
Flipkart is yet to comment on the latest outage and report on its impact on sales. We’ll update this post if we learn more.