Lilly for Target?

sarahufl

Anyone interested in this? I had a vague interest in checking out what the collection looked like. After 4 years at the University of Florida, you can't get away from the stuff but I always found it way overpriced for bright, tropical prints.

I went to my Target at about 8:45 this morning (opened at 8) and everything was GONE. Not even the racks/displays were there! I kind of figured people in the NYC suburbs wouldn't be into it because I have literally NEVER seen someone in New York wearing Lilly. People basically walked into the store, swept the racks and filled their carts with whatever they could get their hands on. They then proceeded to set up trading posts around the store bartering with each other. Size 2 women grabbing size XL dresses just as bargaining tools. It was ridiculous.

Anyone else care/get to buy any of it?

[Deleted User]

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banana468

I didn't. There were some things I thought would be cute on DD but they were gone in the website by the time I was up.

I hear ebay is loaded worth it at 2-3 times the Target price. No thank you.

flantastic

The fact that the website is sold out too on launch day amazes me. Your experience wasn't isolated insanity - that's just how this is going to go. Okay.

julieanne912

The same thing has happened in the past with other designer collections at Target.  I don't get it either, it's just clothes, and cheaply made ones at that.  

themosthappy91

I am a huge fan of Lilly and was excited about the collection, but knew going in it was going to be a shit-show.  I stayed up for the online launch last night and managed to snag like one thing before the site crashed, but you couldn't have paid me enough to brave the actual store.  My MIL went to our local Target to check it out- she arrived at 8:10 and was told by an employee the racks were literally empty by 8:01.  The first few people in the store literally just grabbed entire racks of stuff.  

My question is, how is it profitable for these people to be selling this stuff on ebay for 4x as much, when someone could just buy real Lilly for that amount of money!?  I just happened to go look up how much the beach chairs are going for on there ($60 in stores) and it's like $200 a chair now... so the moral of the story I guess is that bitchy sorority girls didn't actually need to be worried about how it would affect the brand if "poors" could afford it, because literally only the people who could normally buy Lilly will be buying this line!

littlepep

My friend went and said it was bananas. She said people were just throwing everything they could into their buggy and then deciding what to keep. Insane. I don't get it. I don't want anything that bad.

banana468

Yeah. I'll go to a local place that sells it and I'll shop the sales before I turn into a BSC woman over floral pants.

And I think Target must secretly love this shit or else they wouldn't keep doing it. I guess any publicity is good publicity right? I'm sure some of the pissed off people bought other stuff.

arrippa

They did the same thing when Missoni was at Target. I wish Target could figure out how to regulate it better.

blabla89

I've heard there was a lot of hoarding (they had no purchase limit in stores - several people on twitter reported one or two people buying their store's entire stock) and it's already up on ebay for double the price. Personally, I do not want it enough to pay any more than the target price.

I have a feeling someone from Target will be getting an earful from someone at Lilly Pulitzer tomorrow morning.

lovegood90

Yeah, that's ridiculous. I know people who used to work for Target and I've heard similarly crazy stories about the designer launches.

They're just like any other business - all about the $$$. They don't care how the stuff gets sold as long as they sell through it. If I was the designer I sure would care though!

AlexisA01

Explain the Lilly products. People are raving about the line and I feeling lost on the appeal. I saw the commercial and was still lost.

FiancB

Nooot a fan of florals.  I was trying to remember what Lily Pulitzer tends to look like, had an inkling, googled it, and yep. Target or not, not a fan for the most part. Makes me think of Vera Bradley, another thing I do not get. 

flutteringinfl

I had no idea what this was about, but at the shower I went to yesterday one of the girls there explained her experience. She said it was bananas. She was basically going into the dressing rooms and picking up whatever other customers had left in there because there was no more availability on the racks, and she got there at opening.

mikenberger

AlexisA01 said:

Explain the Lilly products. People are raving about the line and I feeling lost on the appeal. I saw the commercial and was still lost.

This is me as well. I have no idea who this Lilly person is and why her clothing is a big deal.

redoryx

I was following it on Twitter last night and this is a PR disaster for Target. There was VERY limited stock and everything sold out within minutes, online and in stores, it crashed the site, people were buying in bulk and selling it on eBay for 3x the cost. Which is ridiculous because someone could buy non-Target Lilly Pulitzer for that price. Like, who the hell is going to pay $350 for a dress that sold for $40? 

And last I saw, Target is saying that because it was limited edition they don't have any plans to restock. 

kvruns

redoryx said:

I was following it on Twitter last night and this is a PR disaster for Target. There was VERY limited stock and everything sold out within minutes, online and in stores, it crashed the site, people were buying in bulk and selling it on eBay for 3x the cost. Which is ridiculous because someone could buy non-Target Lilly Pulitzer for that price. Like, who the hell is going to pay $350 for a dress that sold for $40? 

And last I saw, Target is saying that because it was limited edition they don't have any plans to restock. 

isn't that the same thing that has happened with some of their other designed launches though? maybe this one was even quicker but I know I've had friends who wanted stuff from other collections and it was gone that same day and not available online

plainjane0415

littlepep said:

 

I went to target yesterday afternoon just to see what was left, and not a stitch of it was in site.  I asked one of the target employees and they said that they sold out within the hour of opening the store.

What pisses me off is people who buy this stuff just to resell it.  Why would you buy it?  You could buy real lilly for the same price, so just do that.

Another thing that pisses me off is that Target is still running ads for the collection on TV, knowing that they aren't going to restock after selling out.  I realize they may have had to buy spots ahead of time, and they don't really have much control over what airs when, but it just pisses me off when I see the commericals on TV and it is already sold out and has turned into such a debacle.

**lilly for target rant over***

blabla89

redoryx said:

I was following it on Twitter last night and this is a PR disaster for Target. There was VERY limited stock and everything sold out within minutes, online and in stores, it crashed the site, people were buying in bulk and selling it on eBay for 3x the cost. Which is ridiculous because someone could buy non-Target Lilly Pulitzer for that price. Like, who the hell is going to pay $350 for a dress that sold for $40? 

And last I saw, Target is saying that because it was limited edition they don't have any plans to restock. 

The director of target.com "left" after they had a similar debacle with the Missoni launch. Guess the new guy didn't learn from it.

IMO, LP is also somewhat culpable in this. I understand limiting supply in order to preserve the cachet, but they really should have made sure that Target had a better plan for handling the launch.

charcoalandblush

My friends and I went. We got there at about 7:50, store opened at 8, racks were empty by 8:05. Most people were respectful and only took their sizes/what they wanted, but there were a couple of sorority girls who stuffed everything they could in their carts. Luckily they weren't hoarding it to sell on ebay, they sorted it out in the fitting room and put back what they didn't want. Luckily my friends and I snagged the dresses we wanted from what they put back.

I really don't understand why it was so under-stocked. Our store had one of each size in each dress (so 7 or 8 of each) and 2 or 3 of each size in the S/M/L items. I know they wanted it to be "exclusive" but wouldn't it have made more sense for Target to either (1) carry more stock and sell more, or (2) raise the prices slightly to make more money off of the limited stock they had? With people selling it for 3 times the price online, you'd think Target and Lilly would want that money for themselves.

The most hilarious part was this woman who was being WAY overdramatic outside the fitting room. She was on the phone with someone crying about how she got here before the store opened an "waited for SO LONG out in the cold" and she still didn't get anything. "MAYBE I should have just gotten here at FOUR AM and I would have had a chance!" Umm... you were in line right behind us, you strolled up at 7:59. Also it's 50 degrees outside.

littlepep

blabla89 said:

I've heard there was a lot of hoarding (they had no purchase limit in stores - several people on twitter reported one or two people buying their store's entire stock) and it's already up on ebay for double the price. Personally, I do not want it enough to pay any more than the target price.

I have a feeling someone from Target will be getting an earful from someone at Lilly Pulitzer tomorrow morning.

I would pay that either, but I feel like that's super shitty. There were a lot of teenage girls at my store just wanting to get some cute affordable stuff so people who do that stuff suck. 

banana468

I think this is a failure but I still wonder what Target will do about it since this seems to be their modus operandi.     When Target handles this sort of thing better then I'll buy that this is a nightmare for them.   They went in on a limited sale with a popular designer and didn't do anything to limit purchases in store.   Either they don't know how to run a business or they're thrilled that they have a reason for a potential sales-surge after a dismal winter.

I think a lot of their stuff is cute and I would have loved a button-down (can't really pull their dresses off while I still have to nurse this dude) and I really like the cute stuff on DD but I'll just go to a local place that sells Lilly here.

lovegood90

redoryx said:

I was following it on Twitter last night and this is a PR disaster for Target. There was VERY limited stock and everything sold out within minutes, online and in stores, it crashed the site, people were buying in bulk and selling it on eBay for 3x the cost. Which is ridiculous because someone could buy non-Target Lilly Pulitzer for that price. Like, who the hell is going to pay $350 for a dress that sold for $40? 

And last I saw, Target is saying that because it was limited edition they don't have any plans to restock. 

Just about the bolded- I'm pretty sure they can never re-order their limited edition designer collections because they order the inventory (which is almost always made overseas) up to a year in advance or something like that, and they only make as much as Target told them to a year ago.

However since this happens every time there is a designer collection, you would think they would be forecasting their inventory numbers better?! Or at least put some regulations in place for limiting orders per person since they should know it will all sell out regardless...and this way they're not doing a disservice to the brand when it all ends up on Ebay..

redoryx

lovegood90 said:I was following it on Twitter last night and this is a PR disaster for Target. There was VERY limited stock and everything sold out within minutes, online and in stores, it crashed the site, people were buying in bulk and selling it on eBay for 3x the cost. Which is ridiculous because someone could buy non-Target Lilly Pulitzer for that price. Like, who the hell is going to pay $350 for a dress that sold for $40? 
And last I saw, Target is saying that because it was limited edition they don't have any plans to restock. 

Just about the bolded- I'm pretty sure they can never re-order their limited edition designer collections because they order the inventory (which is almost always made overseas) up to a year in advance or something like that, and they only make as much as Target told them to a year ago. However since this happens every time there is a designer collection, you would think they would be forecasting their inventory numbers better?! Or at least put some regulations in place for limiting orders per person since they should know it will all sell out regardless...and this way they're not doing a disservice to the brand when it all ends up on Ebay..
**boxes boxes**

This. I just kept thinking about how I was at a record store on Saturday for Record Store Day and there was a line waiting and the shop was very specific about the rules and limitations in place so people didn't hoard anything. There was one album and only one album I was looking for, and the store only had 4 copies available and I had to watch someone else take the last one (womp womp) but such is life. It was just a very organized set-up and no mad dash or rush or anything

badbnagdway

I don't wear Lilly generally (too expensive for shift dresses, which don't suit my body especially well). However, I thought some of the Target stuff was cute - both the home stuff and the clothing. A friend of mine shops every Target designer collaberation. She went before 8 to one store and then we were going to meet at a second store. She managed to snag some items at the first store. When I got to the second store at 8:30, everything was gone except for a couple of kids clothes. People had cartfulls of it and were bartering between each other because they had just grabbed stuff indiscriminately and were trying to trade for the items they wanted. It was ridiculous. I ended up with one yellow blouse my friend had gotten at the other store that she didn't want. My friend said she had never seen it so crazy for any other designer. 

I do think there may be returns in the stores the next couple weeks because they limited the return period for this merch to two weeks. People were nuts and were claiming they were going to sell it on eBay for three times as much as they bought it. That's so silly. You can just buy regular Lilly for that. 

Edit for typos.

wandajune6

I tried to buy a piece online but the site was down so I gave up. It wasn't that important.

Last time, I remember the same thing happening. I ended up getting a few random pieces on clearance once they were returned -- if memory serves, it was a serving dish, a hat box, and a few notebooks. Basically, the stuff I wanted for cheap.

I went to my Target on Sunday and noticed that a fair amount of it was still available. Anything Medium or smaller was still available and I even found a few swim coverups in XL and XXL. It is statement about the store-- our local Target caters to a clientele that doesn't care about this kind of thing. They didn't carry any of the housewares, the women's clothing was mostly untouched, and only the kid's clothes looked really cleaned out.

banana468

And my understanding is that this isn't the same quality as regular Lilly.   The fabric feels much thinner than the standard Lilly.   So while I don't think I'm going to rationalize that it's worth it to spend $100 on a pair of pants, I have a feeling that the satiny dress is going to look like shit at the end of a summer.

southernbelle0915

All the hype reminds me of when a new Beanie Baby came out and everyone lined up outside stores to get theirs. 

I'm not a fan. The website (not the stuff for Target) shows young models, but I can't really imagine anyone wearing this stuff except over-tanned, Florida retirees playing golf and bingo.

badbnagdway

banana468 said:

And my understanding is that this isn't the same quality as regular Lilly.   The fabric feels much thinner than the standard Lilly.   So while I don't think I'm going to rationalize that it's worth it to spend $100 on a pair of pants, I have a feeling that the satiny dress is going to look like shit at the end of a summer.

Yeah that is why I don't get paying so much more than the Target sticker price. The stuff I saw seemed nice, but I agree it was not Lilly quality - and I am again, not a huge Lilly person, but I do admit the stuff tends to be good, lasting quality. 

banana468

and maybe it's just me because I'm more Meh ability the whole thing but I don't get the frenzy. I can't think of a designer that Target could get that will drive me to sacrifice sleep and stand in the cold to shop. My time is worth something even if I want to be unconscious during it.

sarahufl

banana468 said:

and maybe it's just me because I'm more Meh ability the whole thing but I don't get the frenzy. I can't think of a designer that Target could get that will drive me to sacrifice sleep and stand in the cold to shop. My time is worth something even if I want to be unconscious during it.

This is me. I thought - meh, some of the stuff is cute. I will go when I wake up to see what they have. I am not standing in line or setting alarms. I am certainly not fighting with teenagers over a $40 dress. Nor am I bartering with anyone. I was home in, like, 30 minutes. H was surprised I was only gone for that long so I told him the story and said I just couldn't justify that behavior.

He thought it was hysterical.