Fashion

Disappearing Act : Missoni for Target Gone in Two Hours

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Pictured: My Missoni for Target finds (photo: M. Hall)

What’s up with y’all storming the local Target stores like the French Bastille today and raiding the Missoni for Tar-jay?  Taking down the Target.com website too. Seriously people.  From 8 am to 10 am today, fashionistas seeking a bargain stormed their local stores, lining up before the stores opened.  The team members at my local Target told me that the store was out of most of the goods within the first hour.  After several “Go Collection” misses, the Missoni collection was clearly a hit.  I picked up just a few pieces, a pair of shoes, some plates and a hat.  Will they last a lifetime? Of course not! I don’t think they will last long at all, but the prints are colorful and vibrant and the price is right.

Pictured: The leftovers, some pillows getting the once over. (photo: M. Hall)

Now, here’s my question—did the good really sell to the final buyer, or did they sell to enterprising eBayers looking to resell them for a bit of a profit? A quick search of eBay reveals that there are several hundred items listed, some labeled as Missoni for Target, some just labeled as Missoni.  I didn’t see too many bids on them yet.  Wait a few days…if they don’t sell, they will go back to Target.
 My local store said they would also try to restock some items by Friday, so stay tuned.

Readers, did any of you score any Missoni for Target? If you got it, would you resell it to pay some bills or keep it?

Update:  As of Sept. 14th early am, Target.com was back up and running with a few Missoni items for order.   Look for those to go quick, with Missoni mania in full swing.

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Since 2008, Mary Hall has been the author of The Recessionista Blog, which is read by thousands of regular readers in over 160 countries. An internationally recognized expert on the art of the living the good life for less, she has been a commentator on local, national, and international radio and TV shows. Her advice has been featured in over 2,000 media outlets, including The New York Times, Reuters, Life & Style magazine, ABC News, NBC News and now The Huffington Post, among many others.

6 Comments

  1. Heather

    September 14, 2011 at 4:34 am

    I have to admit, at first I only went in search of those pumps (found them, bought them, love them). But then I decided to pick up a few extra items to see if I could pay for the things I wanted to keep. I paid for my shoes, dress, sweater box and pencil set within an hour. A bit enterprising? Yes. But I did get a special look of appreciation from the husband! 😉

  2. Candice @ Fashionably Organized

    September 14, 2011 at 5:02 am

    You know how absolutely excited I was to get my hands on some of the stuff, well nada. I went on-line this AM to look, and put a few things in my cart. I had to go, and by the time I came back the site was down. I have nothing 🙁 I'm so sad, and really wanted the flats and heels. I also wanted to get some stuff for 2 y.o. My wallet thanks all of the people who took it all.

  3. Target-Addict

    September 14, 2011 at 12:07 pm

    One of my readers wrote in to say that at one of her Target stores, two women raced in right at 8am, stripped ALL the clothing in the women's dept., put it in their carts, and bought $4,000 worth of merchandise. Clearly, these people are only buying to resell on eBay, and this is just WRONG. Target should limit the amount of designer merchandise you can purchase at one time. Have you seen the amount of “target missoni” items on eBay? I've been tracking it, and 24 hrs. ago it was about 250 items. When I left work yesterday (around 6) it was over 9,000. And this morning, the count is at almost 24,000. Sickening! I'll be blogging about this later today.

  4. Susan

    September 14, 2011 at 12:50 pm

    I couldn't make it until noon. Pickings were slim to none. I did score the black and white strappy dress, and managed to get a few pieces online.

    Somewhat related – and if you posted about this earlier I missed it, I'm sorry – Norma Kamali is no longer offering her WalMart collection. I was VERY sad to hear this! You would think with all the hype around Missoni she wouldn't have pulled her line but rather had it advertised more!

  5. HoJo

    September 14, 2011 at 5:47 pm

    I'm saddened by the Missoni edition of Hoarders. What I love about the Target collaborations is that nearly anyone can enjoy a piece of high end fashion. Each one has different buyers and a new aesthetic you wouldn't normally get in a big box retailer. Target's motto of design for everyone is to be admired. However, this launch had problems prior to launch with all of Target's current changes to running their own website (thanks @target-addict for the tip awhile back) to severing their ties with advertising company recently. Both past companies would work with Target to get things running smoothly. This was a disaster because for wanting to take everything in-house I think they missed out on some outside voices saying there are going to be problem with your launch. Their pop up in New York sold out in 6 hours. They had celebs wearing in the prelaunch in many outlets outside of their launch party. Did they expect it to not drive demand? Don't forget this happened in a milder way with the Liberty of London launch. I'm hoping they will pull a page from that playbook for all the crazy people who loaded carts to sell on eBay. Target reissued the collection for all the Ebaying (insert your favorite word) “merchants” to not be able to command double, triple or even greater multipliers of the original Target price. They stood by their design for all that way. Perhaps they will, in future, limit the number of collab pieces you can buy in the store and look for size ranges (when they figure out how to actually run their website — which is still really glitchy without the high traffic). I think this was a bit of a black eye for their core repeat customer. Let us see how they respond in the next few days to these problems. With their current changes I'm not as optimistic as in the past so I hope to be pleasantly surprised.

  6. Anonymous

    September 18, 2011 at 3:20 pm

    My local Target employees talked about people who ran in to the store, dumped everything – regardless of style or size – they could find into carts, and bought it all. They weren't interested in anything except reselling the stuff on eBay.
    I thought it was really depressing. Regardless of how cute the Missoni stuff is, I don't think I'll buy any of it. Whatever happened to just buying what you want rather than grabbing everything just so you can resell it and make a profit?