I went to a grocery store called Sprouts this afternoon to grab some routine groceries and never expected to stay in the store for long, but I ended up waiting in the store for a long time then coming out empty handed. Not because the checkout line was long, but because something we take for granted every day was broken.
You probably already figured out the problem. Yes, their register could not process my credit card, actually, any credit cards. After talking to their manager on the phone, the clerk told me that their system was down and someone was working on it. It looks like somehow, their checkout system could not connect to the payment gateway to process credit/debit card transactions, and I was told by the store manager that I would have to wait for another 20 minutes, which unfortunately I didn’t have, so I left the store annoyed.
The reliable Internet connection is a very important part of the infrastructure of any commercial store and store should have some sort of fail-safe method to prevent the situation I encountered today from happening. Ironically, this store accepts some fancy payment methods, such as Google Wallet and Apple Pay, but they cannot guarantee a reliable connection to process them.
