Amazon says issue "resolved" after customers see error message while trying to check out

NEW YORK -- Thousands of customers looking to purchase an item on Amazon early Wednesday encountered an error message on the e-commerce site's checkout page, a rare issue for a platform that has become even more of a central shopping hub for countless households during the pandemic.

There were more than 9,000 user reports of issues with Amazon.com as of 9:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday, according to outage-tracking site DownDetector. The most commonly-reported issue by far was related to checking out on the site, per the DownDetector data.
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Some customers attempting to check out on the site saw the following the error message: "An error occurred when we tried to process your request. Rest assured, we're working to resolve the problem as soon as possible. If you were trying to make a purchase, please check Your Account to confirm that the order was placed. We apologize for the inconvenience."

By a little past 10 a.m. ET, the number of issue reports on DownDetector had soared to more than 14,000, though the number of new reports appeared to be leveling off.
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"We're sorry that some customers may have temporarily experienced issues while shopping," Betsy Harden, an Amazon spokesperson, said in a statement. "We have resolved the issue, and everything is now running smoothly."

CNN Wire contributed to this report