Most Tuesdays I take the opportunity to rant about something I do not like about Target… because although I love ‘em to death, they ain’t perfect. Today’s rant is about Target designer merchandise showing up on eBay – at highly inflated prices – before it even debuts in store. Case in point? Numerous Liberty of London for Target items are already for sale on eBay, a week before they hit stores. Which means that either some stores put their goods out early - and shoppers snapped 'em up for resale - or Target employees themselves are stockpiling the merchandise early to sell it on eBay. Either way, it’s WRONG, and it disgusts me.
Ironically, I looked in my blog archives, and I made a similar rant a little over a year ago. At that time, I was upset that my local stores had a scant supply of the Orla Kiely collection, whereas I found many items on eBay being scalped for way over the retail price.
11 comments:
Thank you for bringing this up. I complained about this on your other threads too. I don't understand why some stores release these lines haphazardly before the official debut. I'll go to the store on that date, only to find picked over racks because the store put out the items a week too early.
If it is employees putting the items on eBay - isn't that a fireable offense? I don't want people to lose their jobs but it does seem very indiscreet of them to put them on eBay before they are available.
These Liberty of London items pictured are already available in Chicago. I agree that ebaying these items at ridiculous prices is underhanded.
I must say that this collection is the NEW shabby chic.
You're welcome, Dale. Frankly, for how "vigilant" Target supposedly is in defending their brand, I'm surprised they don't troll eBay and work with them to stop this (as other brands like Gucci work with eBay to stop the sale of counterfit copies of their branded items).
By vigilant, I mean that Target doesn't even allow their signage (eg, the really cute bunnies outfitted in Liberty prints currently on display in their stores) to be repurposed, reused, or recycled. I know this because a friend of mine once tried to ask if she could have (or even purchase) some of their X-mas signage once the holidays were over. She was informed that Target is so protective of their brand and merchandising that such signage is routinely destroyed after use (and not even thrown out in dumpsters for fear it might be stolen or "compromised"). All that said: again, I'm surprised that Target's vigilance doesn't extend to their products sold on auction sites on the web.
Urgh! This annoys me too! I work at a target, and would like to say we are one of the best. Only a few people have access to lines like this at our store until the release date, but other Targets in the area are horrible for putting them out early. They're not supposed to be put out until the release date, but some stores put them out early because they take up too much room in the back or they have empty shelves. It's annoying, Target should be consistent.
I was at Target last night and I saw some Liberty hair accessories, stationary and candles already out ...
I actually have two of the Target decorations for Halloween from about 10 years ago. They had these giant sized halloween masks circa late 1960's - mid 1970's. So cool. I scored a scary clown and Frankenstein, both about 5 feet tall.
Critifur, that's AMAZING that you scored two of their Halloween deocrations! So cool :-)
As you mentioned, this happened with the Orla Kiely line. The problem with that was that not all items were available 1) at every store and 2) online. I wouldn't mind as much if I couldn't get something in the store as long as it was online. But I can't be scrambling around weeks before the official launch of a special line so I don't get shutout of something I want.
Dale, I regret to inform you that from what I've researched, the Liberty line will follow a similar haphazard distribution as Orla did. According to the Stylist site:
"The Liberty collection -- the first designer collaboration for Target that spans several categories -- reworks a total of 25 prints from the 43,000 in the Liberty of London archives. Different selections will hit different stores, and some items will be available only online."
All of the stores don't have it out early, and I don't believe its the employees. Target is doing POP-UP shops for Liberty this week.
One kicked off in NYC yesterday at Bryant Park. Anyone in NY or NJ can go in and buy the stuff and resell it on eBay.
The same thing happened with the website. I ordered two duvets from the line back in March, a day after the collection was released and have yet to received either duvet. I was given a two-four week delivery estimate when I placed my order and then repeatedly received requests to approve an order delay. Here it is three months later and I still don't have either item I ordered. I have contacted Target about this repeatedly and they just keep saying "Don't worry, the item will be released on June 28." Well the item was released in March, when I ordered it. I think someone either made a mistake and put up items for sale that should not have been or they are holding the collection to have another big release date. Either way, it's unacceptable business practices from a huge retailer like Target.
PS-The duvets were never available in stores so far as I can tell. All of the originally released items have been put on sale and then clearance in stores.
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