Around 30 Woolworths supermarkets around the country are affected by an IT outage, preventing customers paying for goods.

Shoppers at Australia’s largest supermarket chain were left with trolleys full of shopping, but no way to pay, after registers shut down

A Woolworths spokesman said that IT issues affected the stores on Thursday evening, disrupting checkouts.

Customers became agitated after the store outage struck around 3pm, and they quickly took to social media to report the problem.

A former journalist, Mike Carlton, tweeted: “You can’t buy a thing.”

The majority of stores affected were Woolworths Metro stores and did not cause a disruption to the Woolworths website said the Spokeman.

“We apologise to our customers in those impacted stores for the inconvenience and thank them for their patience as we work through this IT issue.”

In 2018 Woolworths stores around the country shut their doors late afternoon after a nationwide technical issue completely halted sales.

Customers reported at around 4pm that stores were closing and that an IT issue with the cash registers was responsible.

Shoppers became frustrated and vented on social media after they were forced to give up on their mission or wait in line without much of an idea of how long they would have to wait to pay for their shopping.

Woolworths are yet to release a statement outlining the cause of it’s recent 2022 outage.