An almost week-long computer glitch affected 40% of Federated Department Stores’ 800 nationally linked bridal registry terminals and kiosks in March. Sales people ill-prepared to deal with the problem turned away thousands of wedding gift shoppers in 380 Macy’s, Burdine’s, Goldsmith’s and Lazarus stores in 230 cities. Federated does say that some of their poorly trained sales people exacerbated the problem by turning off or unplugging the non-functioning machines instead of just leaving them alone. The national registry has boosted sales in all the stores with the terminals, and Federated plans to put them in its Bloomingdales stores by July, despite the glitch.
See: Matt Krantz, Investor’s Business Daily, Wednesday, April 2, 1997, P. A6.