The Coles website and app are back online after crashing for hours on Saturday during a viral pricing glitch on alcohol.

A post from an Australian Reddit account on Friday highlighted a nearly 80 per cent discount on 24-packs of premixed alcoholic drinks, sending buyers into a frenzy.

The account, run by the operators of price tracking website CW Scanner, noticed that packs of Jack Daniel’s & Cola, sold via Coles by subsidiary Liquorland, were marked down from $130 to $27.

“Found this. I’m assuming it’s a mistake?!” the Reddit user wrote. “Go get it before it runs out (or they notice) I guess.”

The post attracted about 184,000 views by midday.

Users subsequently noticed other discounts to premixed drinks and beer. Shoppers flooded the comments with screenshots of their bargain orders.

On Saturday, the Coles website went down while some Reddit users wrote that Coles had cancelled their orders.

The Coles website and app came back online briefly on Saturday afternoon, with the beer and premixed drinks categories removed, before going offline again.

In a statement a Coles spokesperson said it was aware of a technical issue affecting its website and app, and “was working quickly to restore services”.

“Due to a technical error, select 24-pack beer and RTD [ready-to-drink] products were incorrectly priced on our website,” they said.

“The error has been corrected, and impacted customers are being notified. Any customers charged for the affected items will be refunded in accordance with our normal refund process. We apologise for the error and any inconvenience caused.”

CW Scanner identified at least 20 24-packs of beer and 46 cases of premixed drinks affected by the discounts. The average discount on beer was about $49 and premixed drinks $111.

The largest discount, on 24-packs of Smirnoff Crush Mango & Peach Zero Sugar 6% 440ml cans, was down to $29 from $202.