It’s easy to be a cheerleader for
Unfortunately, in the rollout of its Lilly Pulitzer collection, all did not go as planned. There was some good news for sure, but there was also some bad news, and finally some downright ugly things going on. Let’s take a look:
The Good
Even with all the black eyes the company has taken over the past three years, Target can still draw a crowd. It seems its once and hopefully future fans were just waiting for an excuse to come out and buy. That means they remember “Tar-zhay” and expect the company to bring back those signature cheap-chic products.
In other words, Target still can generate excitement, which translates immediately into demand both in stores and online. How many retailers can say the same?
The Bad
More than four years after its implementation, Target’s web site still can’t handle a lot of traffic. As my partner Brian Kilcourse points out, “Target’s claim that the traffic was “Black Friday-like” seems a bit off target (pun intended) because as far as I can recall the website didn’t fail on Black Friday. For another, Target seems to have a knack for tripping on its own tie when it comes to customer-facing tech…the website cutover in 2011 from Amazon to an in-house version [comes to mind].”
For those unfamiliar with the world of e-commerce technology, other very large companies use the same web platform as Target, provided by
Now, Target doesn’t really acknowledge that the site crashed. The company reports that it was intentionally taken off-line due to ‘extreme traffic.’ But down is down, don't you think?
According to most sources, Target sold out of the Pulitzer line within an hour. This did not make for happy customers. Kilcourse reports that the Twittersphere lit up and sentiment was best described as follows: “Don't call it a collection if it will only be available for 5 minutes on 1 day - that's called a flash sale @Target #LillyforTarget”
Fellow analyst Cathy Hotka ups the ante: “I'm personally waiting for a story that does not include the words ‘Target apologized for.’ Create demand, if you want. Order up less than people will need. But to have the supply sell out within an hour? That's not ‘heightened demand.’ It’s something else.”
Multiple friends report visiting Target stores and finding shelves empty only one hour into the sale. But if only buying too little was the only problem. The lack of communication between the home office and store associates was nothing less than stunning.
Again, Kilcourse reports: “I went to the local Target to check out the Lilly Pulitzer brand. That’s a win for Target, right? After all, you can’t classify me as a customer by any measure. Wrong. I approached a sales associate in the women’s sportswear area and commented, ‘You must have had a wild day because of the Lilly Pulitzer launch.’ I kid you not, she said ‘Whah?’, so I explained, ‘The swimwear stuff’, to which she replied, ‘Is that the brand that is written in cursive?’ I gave up and bought some toothpaste and left.”
This is really, really bad. The merchants didn’t know how much to buy, the marketing folks didn’t give store operations the proper heads up that something more notable that a label written in script was coming into the store, and the company’s e-commerce technology could not stand up to a short burst load.
The Ugly
On Monday morning,
That’s just wrong. And worse, this is exactly what happened after the Missoni sale in 2011. Within hours, the products were selling on eBay. One wonders why Target can’t cut a deal with eBay to hold off selling items from a special sale for thirty days. This is not the wild, wild west eBay of the early 2000’s. The company is a valid and mature marketplace.
All is not darkness here. It is probably the best thing Target has done in…well…four years. It’s a step in the right direction. If the company can do something about the bad and the ugly, it’ll have all the makings of another monster hit and can return to its former glory.
After all, when was the last time you saw a customer stampede or a web site brought down over groceries?
