#LillyforTarget Launch turns into a Black Sunday

Lilly Pulitzer's spring line for Target has been all the buzz these last few months, enticing the crazy in females all over the country. In fact, late last night, thousands of us camped out online refreshing and tweeting about and searching and waiting for the launch of Lilly for Target on Target's website. I was one of those crazies. My friend Erica and I chatted online for close to four hours, scouring the internet for clues and exchanging commentary on our favorite pieces --ones we planned to purchase. 

Oftentimes, when there is a huge launch for a product(s) on any site, servers become sluggish due to the high volume of traffic logging into the site. And when they've been weighted down so drastically, said site crashes.

The initial launch was rumored to be between 12 and 2 Central Time. I live on the East Coast, so unfortunately, I was struggling to stay awake after having gotten up to run a 5k at 5 a.m. yesterday morning.  

A little before the actual launch was to take place, mobile links of some of the product line were popping up all over Twitter. Apparently, the site was either compromised or there was a glitch in the system, so many people were able to buy dresses earlier than expected. I think a few things even sold out before the initial launch due to people purchasing the products early. 

Once the site's administrator saw this, they shut down the mobile accessibility and users were forced to wait over another hour for the guy to get everything up on the site to purchase. I think it was about 3:10 a.m. Eastern Time when they were finally available on the web.

As if that wasn't enough, I added the four items to my cart that I wanted most, but could never reach the cart to be prompted through the checkout process. The site would either load a page that said something like "Oops there was a problem. We are working to fix it" and eventually, one that even said something about an "internal error." 

Erica and I were very frustrated and frantic, constantly refreshing and reloading our pages. I think we spent at least 30 to 45 minutes just trying to load our cart. And what was really frustrating, was some people appeared to be getting through, so the products were all selling out. And by the time my page finally loaded, I was only able to get one shirt out of the four items I originally planned to purchase. 

People all over Twitter were ranting and raving all last night and this morning over not having been able to get any of the items they wanted. I found that: 

• A: the person had either gotten to their local Target on time or purchased a ton of items separately last night, so was happily posting photos of said products or order confirmations. And those who did brave their Targets early this morning and successfully purchased a few items, all had captions talking about how crazy everyone was behaving, or how several women grabbed all the stuff off the clothing racks to buy for up-charging on Ebay. 
• B. Were unable to get anything due to the site's non-reliable functioning last night, or waited in line at a Target store only to watch the aforementioned Ebay junkies taking off with all of the loot. 

I was appalled. I understand this is the concept of Ebay, but with so much interest over this line, there should have been a purchase limit per item or at least a larger quantity. One girl even said her Target sold out of everything completely within five minutes of the store opening this morning. 

It looks like Lilly has adapted her own Black Sunday. 

Out of all of the crazy tweets I read during this fiasco, one showed several women with shopping carts full of Lilly products stating that was why nobody else was able to get any, another where someone quoted mean girls saying, "Raise your hand if you've ever been personally victimized by #LillyforTarget," and one where a girl was telling them nice try for thinking they'd launch it late enough to get the East Coast girls to all go to sleep and reduce the site traffic. 

Lastly, I'd like to just close this post by giving you my opinion on a few key points from this #LillyforTarget ordeal.

Do I think Target and Lilly should have been more prepared to manage the launch after overly promoting the product line? YES. And for a line that was supposed to be available for a few months, I think there should have been a higher inventory so more than a handful could get their hands on the products. If people are wanting to buy them and the demand is high, why not produce more?

Would I try to purchase from a similar launching between the companies again? Probably. As long as they find a better way to execute their release.

Am I angry that I missed out after getting finger cramps from typing and navigating my computer for four hours? YES. But I am also glad I did end up with one item. I know some people didn't get anything, so one thing is better than nothing!

How do I feel about Lilly offering this more affordable line with Plus Sizes included? I think it's great! I know some people who breathe Lilly don't approve and are insinuating these "aren't real" Lilly items just because of their cheaper $ or place purchased. Some people genuinely cannot afford the original pricing of Lilly products, but would also like to dress in the eccentric patterns and look nice and put together. Why does it matter how much a person paid as long as it's the same company? If I ever had a makeup company, I'd want to offer products that a broader range of people could afford and love. I think people should be kinder to one another. 

I read countless tweets of Lilly-wearers saying that this line was going to make the brand classless and that all of the "basics" would have the clothes now. I found those comments to be extremely degrading and insulting. I, for one, have college loans and a car payment,  choose to spend my extra money on expanding my makeup collection, and just overall am not in a place currently to pay $200 for a simple shift style dress. But that doesn't make me any less classy. I dress nice, come from a moderately well-off family, am educated, have good manners, and work to have other nice things. It's cruel to assume that those who bought from the Lilly for Target launch are white trash. I think those sort of comments say a little more about the person they are coming from. 

Since the item I got was an online purchase, I will try to share with you how I like it and what item I got when it comes in!

And for those of you who were successful on this rainy Black Sunday, what kind of Lilly look did you take home? And what was your experience like?

xx