Shoppers feed on Lilly Pulitzer
Online, in-store frenzy depletes Target collection
Heavy demand for the muchanticipated debut of Target’s Lilly Pulitzer product line overloaded the retailer’s website Sunday and left store racks and shelves bare.
Even though empty-handed consumers heaped vitriol about Target on Twitter during the day, industry observers question whether any substantial backlash will register.
Brian Sozzi, the CEO of Belus Capital Advisors, called the event “typical Target” for high-profile designer launches with “tight supply, done purposely to stoke demand and Internet chatter.”
In advance of Sunday’s launch of the resort-themed designer items, Target began posting updates about its website on Twitter early in the morning. “We know you’re frustrated & we’re sorry,” a tweet posted about 7 a.m. ET said. “We appreciate your patience. You can now shop the #LillyforTarget collection.”
Target.com never crashed, but “there was extreme traffic” to the site, said Target spokesman Joshua Thomas. The company intentionally made the site inaccessible for about 15 minutes around 3 a.m. ET, he said.
Subsequently, online supplies were quickly bought up and by noon ET everything was “virtually sold out,” Thomas said.
Lines began forming early at brick-and-mortar stores Sunday and many shoppers went home empty-handed.
Not surprisingly, dresses and handbags quickly cropped up on eBay with more than 9,400 listings of Lilly Pulitzer Target products. “That’s really disappointing to us,” Thomas said. He said Target does not plan to replenish supplies of the Pulitzer line, which had 250 different items.
Shopper Rachel Rickert, 41, of St. Louis Park, Minn., considered herself lucky to come out victorious in her hunt for Pulitzer goodies. When Rickert explored Target.com about 7 a.m. ET, all of the dresses she was interested in were sold out.
She then ventured to a nearby Target and everything there was sold out, too. But at a Super Target a bit farther away, she found “a beachy type of sundress.”
A manager told her that “by the time they opened the line was deeper than on Black Friday,” Rickert said. “‘Preppy Black Friday’ is what they called it.”
The hashtag #LillyforTarget continued to trend past noon ET. Among the comments was this one from Tom Fitzgerald and Lorenzo Marquez, hosts of Pop Style Opinion fest: “@TargetStyle needs to stop humiliating its costumers (sic) and plan these collaborations a little better.” Author Jen Lancaster ( The Tao of Martha) tweeted, “Everything gone in three minutes. Women waited in line w/hundreds of dollars, left with nothing. How is this good business?”
Shopper Elaine Taylor, 51, of College Station, Texas, agrees. “This was a perfect storm of high demand, stupidly low pricing and low merchandise quantities and greed by some people,” she said.
“This was a perfect storm of high demand, stupidly low pricing and low merchandise quantities and greed by some people.”
Shopper Elaine Taylor