For the uninformed: Lilly Pulitzer is a higher end designer brand of clothing (think $250 for dresses, about that price range). So when Target announced a cheaper collaboration line to be released, the world took notice. This was announced months ago. A brief overview of their collection you notice dresses in the $30-40 range, tops a bit cheaper, etc.

So the collection was released two days ago now, and stories and pictures remind me of Black Friday. People camped out ahead of time, long lines to get into Target, etc. But unlike Black Friday, Target was not prepared for this chaos.

Within hours, everything in the collection was sold out online. Everything. And people who arrived at the store even 20-30 minutes after opening got nothing.

The biggest issue came from the resellers - people flew into Target and filled their carts with everything they could get their hands on, only to be put up on eBay. As of today there are almost 30,000 Target Lilly Pulitzer items on sale on eBay. A dress that was $38 in store is currently up for $90, etc.

/r/femalefashionadvice has a big thread about here: http://www.reddit.com/r/femalefashionadvice/comments/334i2p/what_do_you_all_think_of_lilly_pulitzer_for_target/

Some fun comments:

I'm happy they did it but I just wish there were some rules. I went early and was about the 10th person in line. Well, that didn't matter, because these 2 ladies in front of me sprinted ahead of me and indiscriminately cleared the racks, not checking for sizes or anything, no doubt with the intention to resell on ebay.

...

The stuff is really cute, but unless you were dedicated and able to camp out or stay up all night waiting for the website, you didn't have a chance of getting what you wanted. It's very frustrating especially when people stock piled stuff just to sell on eBay for x3 the price.

...

So I messaged a reseller on eBay who is selling a $35 LPxTarget item for $100. I asked if she'd take $40 for it and she got kinda angry, saying she drove 150 miles to buy it and no way was she letting it go for less than $100 (she has tons of LPxTarget items, many duplicates). Since she was snippy with me I sent her a screenshot of a very similar looking item in my LP cart that was $75 and was like "nah thanks, I'll take the higher quality item for cheaper".

The general feeling is that Target poorly handled all of this - for one the website was apparently down/crashing at the time of release due to the traffic. People are also confused as to how they didn't put in place some simple rules to keep re-sellers from buying out the entire store - for example, not letting someone get 5 pairs of the exact same shirt or 5 of the exact same purse.

Cue the social media shitstorm:

https://www.facebook.com/target?fref=ts - Be sure to click on the "Posts to Page" section to see all the sweet rage and complaints from customers.

https://twitter.com/target - More attempts at damage control

For angry tweets, search #LillyforTarget: https://twitter.com/hashtag/LillyforTarget?src=hash

I especially love eBay milking this cash cow: https://twitter.com/eBay/status/590266398166765568

https://twitter.com/eBay/status/590198969503907842

Now what I find hilarious about this is when the collection was first announced, a lot of people had some shit to say about it. That Lilly Pulitzer shouldn't be "downgrading" to Target, that it was offensive to offer it so cheap, bad for the brand, etc. God forbid those peasants be able to afford a cheaper version of LP!

So tl;dr a clothing/accessory line is released and sold out within minutes, most of which immediately pops up on eBay for x3 the price, some of which is even more expensive than actual high end LP items...rage ensues.