Targetgeddon? Customers Line Up at Target Stores in the United States Despite System-Wide Payment Issues | Retail

A similar outage hit the channel about five years ago when payment systems registers temporarily stopped accepting debit cards.

This flaw has reduced Target's fourth quarter sales and the percentage of US households reporting making Target purchases of 22% between January 2013 and January 2014, according to a KantarRetail survey.

The incident posed no security problem, said Target at the time.

"If the break was an immediate blow to sales and has an impact on traffic for a while, she also exposed the long-standing problem of the fragile relationship between Target and its less engaged customers," said Amy Koo, KantarRetail Senior Analyst in 2014. "The monthly guests have demonstrated their commitment to Target since the violation, it's not the same for the less engaged."