Shoppers overwhelm Toys "R" Us site

The Toys "R" Us Web site was jammed for several hours over the weekend, apparently due to massive customer response to a holiday shopping promotion.

Visitors to the site were greeted with a message that read: "Due to the overwhelming popularity of the BIG BOOK of savings, we have had to limit the number of guests to our Web site... Please accept our sincere apologies and try again later."

Toys "R" Us had mailed out a special catalog promoting holiday discounts, capping several days of national advertising to kick off the shopping

season.

Representatives of the company could not be reached for comment.

The outage - the latest in a series of recent e-commerce site logjams - appears to confirm analysts' fears that many such sites are not prepared to handle the crush of holiday traffic.

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