NEW YORK, United States — The Macy's Inc. website suffered service disruptions on Black Friday, dealing a setback to a company trying to persuade shoppers — and investors — that it can handle e-commerce.

Some visitors to Macys.com were shunted to a page citing “heavier traffic than normal.” A countdown clock would tell shoppers when they could return to the main site.

“They are under heavy load and putting site visitors in a queue,” Kristina LeBlanc, a spokeswoman for the website-monitoring firm Catchpoint Systems Inc., said in an e-mail.

Macy’s, the largest department-store company in the US, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

By Lindsey Rupp and Nick Turner with assistance from Spencer Soper; editors: Nick Turner and John Lear.