Target experienced some trouble with their website early Sunday due to the high demand of Lilly Pulitzer dresses and fashion items.
Although dresses for the designer were launched over the weekend, the limited collection has been sold out and will not replenished by Target, causing frustration among customers that waited all night long, but were unable to buy anything, according to TIME.
“We never want our guests to be disappointed,” stated Joshua Thomas, a Target spokesman.
“We share their disappointment with the experience of shopping online. It doesn’t match what we aim to provide them, which is an easy, seamless, consistent experience.”
Many shoppers are claiming that Target’s website crashed due to the high demand for Lilly Pulitzer, but Thomas stated that the website wasn’t completely unavailable, according to the publication Star Tribune. Through their Twitter, Target reportedly stated that it would be adjusting their website “due to overwhelming excitement” for the Pulitzer line.
The retailer was reportedly limiting the number of customers that could access the website at certain times, going as far as making the site inaccessible for 20 minutes in order to handle the high volume of traffic.
The demand for Lilly Pulitzer didn’t stop at Target’s website. A line of 300 shoppers were seen at a Target in East Harlem in the early hours of the morning as well, according to the Associated Press.
“There was extreme interest, extreme demand — traffic that would be on par with Black Friday,” explained Thomas.
The selling of limited collections in exchange for the hype allows designers to not have to worry about damaging their full-price line while gaining the exposure they want or need, according to Dave Brennan, co-director of the University of St. Thomas Institute for Retailing Excellence.
“It works very well for Target and it works very well for the designers,” stated Brennan.
“But maybe not so well for the consumer because there’s not enough merchandise to meet their needs.”
