Wal-Mart mistakenly offers absurd deals on its website

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. says a “technical error” caused its website to offer absurdly low pricing Wednesday morning, touching off a buying frenzy.

Many products were more than 90% off their list price, with televisions and computer monitors going for $8, video games for $18, treadmills for $33. Word of the deals quickly spread on social media.

“Spent $300 on $5800 (retail pricing) of product on the Walmart ordeal. Hopefully it goes through. If not, it was worth a try!” Twitter user @samzorzSH wrote.

“Ordered a set of $300 speakers for $30 due to a Walmart pricing error. Now to hope they honor it,” @CalebWilliams13 wrote.

“Wal-mart pricing errors has big games selling for $18, monitors for $8 -- hilarious gold rush in progress,” @markmacd posted.

PHOTOS: Most affordable zip codes for home buyers

Twitter user @freeshootXiggy offered advice for those looking to cash in: “People buying monitors off Walmart site in bulk are morons. Those are pricing errors, go for the smaller things maybe you’ll get lucky.”

Wal-Mart told the Associated Press that it was working to resolve the issue Wednesday morning and that the site may have intermittent problems with availability until then.

“We apologize for any convenience to our customers,” said Ravi Jariwala, a spokesman for Wal-Mart’s online operations.

Jariwala would not say whether Wal-Mart would honor bargains that customers scooped up and said it was still working through the details.

Heading into the crucial holiday shopping season, Wal-Mart has doubled the number of items it has on its website from last year to 5 million.

ALSO:

No, Mexican Coke sold in U.S. won’t be sweetened with corn syrup

Stockton voters approve tax hike to help city emerge from bankruptcy

Lawmakers want to outlaw tax deductions for government settlements

Follow Stuart Pfeifer on Twitter