I’m going to start out by saying I’m a huge Target fan. HUGE.
Always have, always will be.
But for the first time in my very long Target shopping career (can I call it that?!), Target failed me.
I’m sure by now, most of you know about the Lilly Pulitzer collection for Target, which rolled out today (4/19/2015).
I think the periodic Target designer collaborations are pretty cool. It gives shoppers who admire luxury brands but don’t have the budget or desire to spend the big bucks an opportunity to still enjoy the designs.
Since I live in the desert and can wear summer clothes pretty much year round, I was excited to score some bright, summer-y printed frocks. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who was excited about it, because people went CRAZY over this collection.
NUTS.
Like worse than black Friday sale crazy.
I knew that the collection would be highly desirable, but never did I think it would be like this. Target.com crashed in the middle of the night because they had so much traffic, and everything sold out online within a couple hours.
I arrived at my local Target store at 8:15 am this morning (the store opened at 8). The parking lot didn’t look all that full, and I had high hopes of breezing in there, gathering a few items and being back on my couch within a half hour.
Instead, I found a group of about 20 other crazy shoppers in the women’s department, some with carts containing giant heaps of printed clothing, accessories and home decor, standing next to empty Lilly Pulitzer racks. Everyone was looking at each other like they were thinking “who is going to put something back so I swoop in and grab it”.
Like vultures. The kind you typically only see out on Black Friday.
Since there was nothing to grab in the women’s department, I strolled back towards kids and found a couple super-cute items for my daughter. At this point, I was happy the trip wasn’t a total waste. I went through the home department and saw a few LP things I wasn’t interested in, and decided to head back to women’s. When I got there, the crowd had diminished, and there were literally two items left on the rack. One girls dress and one pair of shorts that looked like would fit me. Not quite the summer dress I was hoping for, but not a total loss.
It was now 8:30 and everything was sold out. Crazy.
My checkout lady told me that she was really disappointed in Target and how they handled the collection. She could tell most of the people buying the items weren’t shopping for themselves. They were buying anything and everything they could get their hands on, and will likely try to sell it for a profit on eBay. She also said people were lined up for over an hour outside before the store opened.
By about noon EST, there were already 9,400 posts on eBay with items from the collection. I fully recognize there are larger issues going on in the world, but this is sad to me. Target might as well skip these collections in the future since it isn’t really possible for the average consumer to purchase an item. I barely got anything and I’d consider myself pretty crazy!
I saw a post from a facebook friend who said she got up in the middle of the night to shop online between 2-4 am, and then went to wait in line at her local store before it opened at 8 am. Apparently, that is the kind of dedication needed for a designer deal. No judgment here, she got everything she wanted.
Alright, I’m over my Lilly for Target depression. I’m sure there will be another great sale soon enough that this will be easy to forget.
Now, onto the goods. I’m going to forego the usual links to the products, since, well, you can’t buy anything on the Target website anyways. Here are the couple items I was able to score:
How cute will my daughter look in this?
Not gonna lie, I probably would have bought the matching dress in my size if they had it.
White eyelet for my baby girl? So cute.
OK, I have a confession. These shorts may have been from the girls collection. Since I don’t have much in the booty department and the shorts feature an elastic waist, I easily fit into a girls XL. The best part: the price ($14). Since they were girls, they were much cheaper than the women’s version. Not that I could have purchased a pair of women’s shorts if I wanted to.
Here are a couple other things I would have considered buying:
This was the summer dress I was dreaming of. Well, not really. That’s pretty dramatic. I swear I don’t dream about shopping. Not yet, at least.
This one, too.
I would have loved to add these to my flip flop collection.
Amazing swim cover up.
Summer scarves?!?! I love thin scarves so much. I would have snagged one of these bad boys if I could have.
Lesson learned. If you really, really want an item, join the crazies in line at least an hour before the store opens. Or forgo sleep and shop online in the middle of the night. No way will that happen, I value my zzzzzz’s way too much.
