On the afternoon of March 5, 2026, tens of thousands of Amazon customers across the United States and beyond found themselves unable to complete purchases, access their accounts, or even see accurate product prices. The widespread outage, which began around 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time, quickly became the talk of social media and tech forums, as frustrated shoppers reported a range of glitches that left their carts stranded and their plans in limbo.
According to DownDetector, a popular website that aggregates user-submitted outage reports, the disruption peaked at over 22,700 complaints, with the majority coming from major metropolitan areas. New York, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle all saw significant clusters of affected users. The issues ranged from checkout failures—making up about 55% of the reports—to problems with product pages and Amazon's mobile app, which together accounted for roughly a third of the complaints. Some users also noted trouble accessing order histories or using Amazon Fresh, the company's grocery delivery service.
"We're sorry that some customers may be experiencing issues while shopping. We appreciate customers' patience as we work to resolve the issue," an Amazon spokesperson told multiple outlets, including PIX11 News and Business Insider. The company was quick to acknowledge the disruption, but for several tense hours, shoppers were left in the dark about what had caused the digital chaos.
By 8 p.m. ET, however, Amazon announced that things were back to normal. "We have resolved the issue, which was related to a software code deployment, and website and app are now running smoothly," Amazon spokesperson Jennie Bryant said in a statement quoted by several news organizations. The company emphasized that the root cause was internal—a glitch in the rollout of new software code—rather than an external cyberattack or infrastructure problem.
This distinction was important, given the timing. Earlier in the week, on March 2, three of Amazon Web Services' (AWS) data centers in the Middle East—specifically in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates—were damaged by Iranian drone strikes. Iranian state media reported that the attacks were carried out by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, citing Amazon's alleged support of U.S. military and intelligence activities in the region. The strikes left a mark on AWS's operations there, but Amazon was quick to reassure customers that its cloud services were "functioning normally" on March 5, the day of the North American outage.
Still, the proximity of the two events led to a flurry of speculation online. Was the U.S. outage somehow related to the Middle East attacks? Amazon firmly stated that there was "no direct correlation" between the drone strikes and the issues experienced by shoppers in the United States. The company maintained that AWS was operating as expected during the e-commerce disruption, and that the outage was confined to its retail operations.
For many, the experience was a reminder of just how much daily life now depends on seamless digital infrastructure. As one user wrote on a tech forum, "It’s wild how you don’t notice how much you rely on Amazon until you can’t check out for an hour." The outage also highlighted the interconnectedness of Amazon’s various business units. While the e-commerce platform bore the brunt of the issues, Prime Video and AWS saw minor disruptions as well, according to DownDetector.
The outage was not Amazon’s first brush with large-scale technical problems. Less than six months earlier, in October 2025, AWS suffered a major disruption caused by a DNS error at its Virginia data center. That event had a ripple effect across the internet, knocking out popular apps and services such as Wordle, Slack, Snapchat, and Reddit. By comparison, the March 5 incident was more contained, but no less disruptive for those trying to score a last-minute deal or simply order groceries for the week.
Amazon’s response this time was swift and measured. The company issued multiple statements throughout the day, apologizing for the inconvenience and assuring customers that engineers were working around the clock to restore service. By early evening, DownDetector showed a steep decline in reported issues, dropping from the peak of over 22,000 to fewer than 2,000 by 4:13 p.m. Mountain Time, and just 499 by 8:37 p.m. ET. The company’s transparency about the software deployment error, rather than deflecting blame or remaining silent, was welcomed by many in the tech community.
Yet, the episode also raised questions about the risks of large-scale software updates and the potential for single points of failure in massive online ecosystems. As Amazon continues to expand its reach—from retail to streaming to cloud computing—the stakes for smooth, reliable operations have never been higher. The company's ability to quickly identify and fix the issue this time was a testament to its technical resources, but also a warning shot: even the biggest players can stumble.
The incident also underscored the volatility of the global landscape in which Amazon operates. The drone strikes on AWS data centers in the Middle East were a stark reminder that geopolitical tensions can have very real consequences for the digital infrastructure that underpins not just commerce, but communication, entertainment, and even national security. While Amazon insisted that the North American outage was unrelated, the proximity of the events made clear that the lines between physical and digital vulnerabilities are increasingly blurred.
For now, shoppers can breathe a sigh of relief. By the end of March 5, both the website and the app were humming along, and the checkout lines—virtual though they may be—were moving once again. But for anyone who found themselves stuck in digital limbo that afternoon, the episode was a memorable reminder: in a world where so much depends on the cloud, even a brief glitch can feel like a storm.