AWS outage could cost $billions in lost sales, disruption and supply chain issues

20th October 2025

The failure of Amazon Web services has impacted on more than 1,000 companies, and could cost businesses and retailers $billions in lost revenue and service disruption, says the home delivery specialist Parcelhero.

Today's outage of Amazon Web Services disrupted access to banks, airlines, social media platforms and delivery apps. The home delivery specialist Parcelhero says that, when a similar event happened last year at Crowdstrike, it cost $5.4 billion in losses for Fortune 500 companies and impacted a wide variety of companies globally.

Parcelhero's Head of Consumer Research, David Jinks M.I.L.T., says: ‘Yet again, global e-commerce businesses and services have been reminded how fragile the online ecosystem really is, when so many companies are reliant on a handful of key service providers.

‘In a 2024 survey, 76% of global respondents reported that they ran applications on AWS and 48% of developers used its services. Snapchat, Reddit and Lloyds Bank are among the apps and websites impacted by today’s failure. Downdetector reports the AWS outage has affected more than 1,000 companies.

‘Even if e-commerce companies and delivery organisations escaped the direct impact of the AWS outage, payments may have failed due to banking problems and other issues.

‘With airline systems being reportedly impacted, there could also be global supply chain problems, as much of the world’s airfreight is carried in the bellyhold of passenger airliners. So far, the impact on airlines seems limited to minor delays but, during the Crowdstrike outage, both airports and ports were affected.

‘Today’s outage is thought to have occurred initially at Amazon's US-EAST-1 region in Virginia, its original and largest web services location. Even though the initial issue that caused the problem was reportedly fixed within hours, the ongoing problems could affect some companies for many more hours if not days, if the Crowdstrike incident’s impact is repeated.

‘Parcelhero’s international services use all the leading global courier networks. If there is an issue with one international carrier’s services, customers will be able to select from many other operators to that destination. For more information, see https://www.parcelhero.com/en-gb/international-courier-services

Why many "lost" sales might not simply be recouped

Here are the reasons why you can’t assume that all the delayed or blocked transactions will catch up later:

Reason Explanation
Transaction window lost If a customer intended to purchase during the outage and gives up (e.g., “I’ll try tomorrow”), that sale might never happen or happen at a lower value.

Lost impulse buys
Many online sales are impulse driven. If the site/app is down, that moment is gone. Even coming back later may lose the momentum.

Operational backlog & chaos
When services are restored, the system may be slower, errors might still happen (payment failures, duplicate charges, timing out) — as one analyst noted: > “The outage will end long before the disputes do. Any business that treats this as a one-day incident is already behind.”

Brand/reputation damage
If customers face problems (e.g., failed orders) they may switch to alternatives. Some loss is structural.

Partial recovery only
Some services may recover but with degraded performance, which may suppress sales