Exclusive Missoni goods designed for discounter retailer Target flooded online marketplaces this week, proving that an appetite for bargain-priced luxury goods never seems to go out of style.
Target launched launched its limited edition line on Tuesday to a fervour typically seen on major shopping holidays such as Boxing Day or Black Friday. Eager consumers snatched up merchandise at U.S. store locations and on the company website, which crashed several times throughout the day.
Soon after the line's 6 a.m. launch, Target merchandise emblazoned with Missoni's trademark zig-zag design began flooding online marketplaces. As of Thursday afternoon, an eBay Canada search for "Missoni for Target" yielded 8,983 results.
"The response has been unprecedented," said Target Corp. spokesperson Joshua Thomas. "This is definitely the largest designer collection we've ever had."
Some web-savvy consumers hoping to turn a profit have been selling the goods for more than double the price found at Target stores. An out-of-stock Missoni travel tote that retailed for about $50 US at Target is currently selling for close to C$190 on eBay Canada's website.
Despite a global economic downturn still nagging retailers from a 2008 recession, Thomas said he isn't surprised by the buzz surrounding the designer partnership.
"Given their limited quantity, these items become somewhat like collectibles," he told CTVNews.ca.
On Tuesday, Missoni aficionados stampeded into Target stores across the U.S. eager to get their hands on the 400-piece collection by the Italian designer. Online shoppers crashed Target's website several times in their pursuit of the limited edition clothes, bikes, luggage and houseware.
Even celebrities who tried accessing the collection online were faced with outright disappointment.
Actress Mindy Kaling of "The Office" fame took to Twitter to voice her frustration at not being able to access Target's Missoni collection online.
She wrote "@target broke my heart today when I could not access their site once in 9 hours for Missoni."
Her first tweet was soon followed by a short admission of defeat: "@target is totally sold out of Missoni and the only way to get it is from extorting eBay trolls??"
Generating demand with an exclusive designer brand was a wise move for both Target and Missoni, said the director of a fashion consulting agency based in NYC.
"If a designer collaboration is done correctly, it really does benefit both parties," said Jed Wexler, managing director of Eight-Eighteen Strategies.
Wexler points to the success of high-end designer Issac Mizrahi's line for Target, noting that a limited partnership can drum up business for the designer and the discount retailer.
"The high-end designer gets greater exposure to a wider audience. It's also incredible marketing for the retailer, it gives them a cool factor," he told CTVNews.ca on the phone from New York City.
Though Wexler notes that designer-discounter collaborations may sully the prestige of a luxury brand, he said that Target was right to limit the availability of their line.
"The exclusivity is what increases the demand for these products," he said.
Target had planned to continue selling the line into October at all their 1,700 U.S. stores. Merchandise, however, is selling out quickly and Thomas says the company doesn't plan to restock it.
With files from The Associated Press
Is the Missoni mess over? Retailer Target (TGT) says its website is back to normal, after a clamor for the new Missoni for Target fashion line made it inaccessible parts of Tuesday.
"Target.com was seeing greater item demand than we do on a typical Black Friday," spokeswoman Courtney Foster said in an emailed answer to IBD's inquiry. "We slowly brought the site back online to ensure we could provide a positive shopping experience."
More traffic than Black Friday? Four retailers tracked by ComScore saw more than 4 million U.S. website visitors on the Friday after Thanksgiving last year: Amazon (AMZN), Wal-Mart (WMT), Target and Best Buy (BBY). To put that in context, Target saw 29.5 million in all of October.
Missoni for Target
The longtime Italian fashion house Missoni is known for its distinctive zigzag knits. Several items from its new collection for Target, featured on Target.com's home page, were sold out Wednesday afternoon. The retailer said on Twitter that some items would be restocked by week's end.
I don’t even know where to start with this. Target launched a new site last week. I guess they’re pretty proud of it, but they’ve managed to completely fail in so many ways.
The Backstory
In 2001, Target elected to partner with Amazon in order to leverage Amazon’s e-commerce technology. This may have made sense at the time, but Target should have started to move toward being off of Amazon by the time the 5 year deal was done. Instead, it has been renewed a couple times and was extended through 2011. The last renewal was announced 2 years ago and Target knew at the time that they were going to move off of Amazon. That means they’ve had at least 2 years to get this right. That’s a LONG time.
The Good
Honestly, I haven’t found a lot that’s good about their new site. It’s possible that getting away from Amazon’s technology will benefit them in the long run and that would be a good thing.
The Bad
There is a lot wrong with this site. It’s definitely not ready for prime time and was either rushed out to meet a deadline or there is a big team of idiots behind it. Maybe both. A quick run through the site exposed a lot of basic items that are being handled poorly. I could probably spend days picking this piece of junk apart, but here are a few things you guys can learn from:
Don’t feature “out of stock” items at the beginning of a search result – It’s not difficult to filter these out or at least not show them first. It’s basic but if your customers show up to that page and see that half the products are out of stock, they’re going to move on.
Check for Validation – Maybe you don’t need to shoot for a perfectly valid site but it’s always a good idea to make sure you don’t have a ton of errors. Target.com’s homepage has 244 errors showing. Most of them are basic and missed out of laziness.
If a site: search doesn’t have your homepage in the first few results, there’s likely a problem. If the results are full of search results pages, you’re f*cked. – You can learn a lot from running a site: search on your own site. Look at the titles. Are they something you would click on? Now look at the descriptions. Are they unique and interesting? In Target’s case, the answer is “Hell no!”
Don’t use tabbed navigation just to be cute – I’m not sure what they were thinking here, but on their TV pages (and likely others), they have tabbed navigation about half way down the page. One option is “item details” and the other is “item specifications.” The “item specifications” tab doesn’t offer anything unique.
If you’re selling something, don’t throw AdSense ads all over your site – There’s no logical reason to let your competition show ads on your site. If it’s making enough money to warrant putting them in the page, you’re failing at conversion.
Don’t forget to replace characters with HTML entities where necessary. – This is a good way to break something. For example, Target is outputting quotes to meta tags and breaking the code rather than using the proper entity (click on the image to see the suckiness in all its glory).
I could nitpick the hell out this site. Viewing the source nearly makes me sick. There is javascript in places it doesn’t belong, random css scattered everywhere, and as I noted above, all kinds of validation issues.
The Fugly
Sometimes people do things that warrant a good beat down or at least being fired over. I’m normally not a fan of calling for peoples’ jobs but when a project that appears to have been ongoing for 2+ years shits itself like this, someone’s gotta go.
I have heard reports of long outages since the rollout. Last night it was offline for at least 5 hours that I was monitoring it. That’s not good. That’s a miserable, amateur, fail. These days, unless something is completely unexpected, a site should NEVER be unavailable. Even if you’re doing maintenance, there are very few excuses to have a site go offline.
Now that the site actually loads and I was able to check it out, I ended up poking around for a bit. One of the pages was left open in a tab that was long forgotten and minimized. Well…guess what? That little tab came back and started haunting me. After being hidden for a few minutes, I got the following message and the tab brought itself to the front of everything on my screen.
I decided to close that and see what happened if I left that tab in the background. A minute later, I got this one.
Come on Target. I’m not logged in. This is amateur crap. You don’t pop messages up like this. You’ve guaranteed that I won’t be back. Do you guys honestly think this is smart? Let a session die silently. Even if you think this is a reasonable thing to do for people, don’t do it to guests.
How Could This Happen?
We may never know what has gone down behind the scenes at Target.com but there are quite a few pieces of evidence to base some theories on.
Too many cooks in the kitchen – According to the numbers in Target’s press release, they had far too many people involved in this:
More than 20 vendor technology partners were involved in the construction of the new Target.com.
Key contributors include:
SapientNitro: Lead partner and primary systems integrator
IBM: Multichannel eCommerce platform provider
Huge: Site creative – visual and interactive design
Infosys: Global inventory visibility and cross-channel order-management functionality
AT&T: Hosting provider
Laziness or a lack of quality control – A lot of issues I’m seeing on Target.com are basic. They are things that should be able to be cleaned up quickly and easily if they just put in a little bit of time.
Lack of knowledge sharing – Some of what I’m seeing here could likely be corrected if people just communicated internally and worked together to create a better site. I wouldn’t be surprised if the developers have never talked to an SEO over there. The whole thing reeks of red tape & corporate segregation. If that’s not the case, shame on the team that did this as it’s half assed and they might as well be stealing from Target.
Overall, there are a ton of lessons to be learned from this. I just can’t believe that they rolled this site out after having so much time to work on it. I don’t see how a company that lets this kind of mess happen can survive for more than a few more years. It’s no wonder they’re getting their butt kicked by Walmart.
George Soros' investment firm acquired nearly 544,000 shares, even as it sold stock of other retailers.
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An investment fund controlled by billionaire George Soros has significantly boosted its stake in Minneapolis-based Target Corp.
Soros Fund Management in New York, whose portfolio is worth more than $7 billion, purchased 543,900 shares of Target stock in the second quarter, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Overall, Soros owns 552,600 shares, or 0.08 percent of the retailer, which the investment firm valued at $25.9 million, the filing says. (State Street Corp., Target's largest investor, owns 63.5 million shares, or 9.4 percent of the company.)
In an e-mail, Soros spokesperson Michael Vachon declined to comment.
Known for his outspoken politics, Soros has established himself as a savvy investor, especially with currencies. In one of his most famous exploits, Soros in 1992 shorted $10 billion worth of the British pound, betting correctly that Great Britain would allow the currency to devalue in relation to other currencies such as the German mark.
"When Soros takes a stake, it certainly draws attention" like Warren Buffett, said Glenn Johnson, a portfolio manager with Mairs & Power in St. Paul, which owns 2.7 million shares of Target stock. "But what are Soros' real intentions? Who knows?"
Unlike activist investor William Ackman, who recently abandoned his effort to force Target to sell and lease back the land beneath its stores, Soros is a longer-term investor whose holdings include AT&T, Boeing and Kraft Foods.
Soros is betting on Target stock, even though the fund is generally bearish on retail. In the second quarter, the fund bought additional shares in Ralph Lauren (494,244) and Lowe's (298,000) but also reduced its retail holdings, including Macy's (-121,700), JCPenney (-12,300), and Amazon.com (-280,655).
Target's second-quarter profit rose 3.7 percent to $704 million, or $1.03 a share, beating Wall Street estimates by 6 cents a share. Earlier this month, Target said sales at stores open for at least a year rose a solid 3.7 percent, thanks to sales of food, housewares and health and beauty. Target executives have said back-to-school sales were off to a good start.
Target stock has languished this year, dropping about 16 percent. Johnson, however, says Target's stock decline has more do to with broader worries about the economy.
"We certainly like the direction the company is going," said Johnson of Mairs & Power, which purchased an additional 91,382 Target shares in the second quarter. "We have a high degree of confidence in their longer-term outlook and we saw this as an opportunity to buy more shares at an attractive price."
The stock traded at an average price of $48.97 in the second quarter. Shares closed Tuesday at $50.96, which suggests Soros has already made a positive return on his investment.
BUFFALO, NY - From "Black Friday" to crazy camping deals, there sure is a lot to get to today.
Target has launched a so-called "Black Friday" sale today in July.
In my personal opinion, I really resent when stores call sales that don't occur on the day after Thanksgiving "Black Friday sales."
Black Friday sales are supposed to be store-wide, absolutely insane savings.
Today, there are a handful of great deals at Target, but nothing on par with what we'll see on Black Friday.
Check out the deals in the toys, home living, 20 percent off on a Kitchen-Aid Mixer (which is rare), the entertainment and a big gaming deal.
The TV deals are lame (in my opinion) as the Philips and Vizio are not considered the best TVs on the market and there will be much better deals October through November on higher-end models.
The deal on the Kodak EasyShare camera at 40 percent off is decent, but I will find better deals on some newer cameras from brands like Canon and much lower prices on a 14MP camera from Olympus in the coming months.
Now on to camping.
These deals today are all amazing, timely and perfect to enjoy the rest of your summer camping in our beautiful state.
Here's what I found (again, each link is embedded with a coupon so just click and save).
A big thanks as always to my savings confidant Roger for all the insider information.
Coleman four-person instant tent
• You saw our demo on air. Coleman claims it has an MSRP of $178, but we found it for almost half.
• $99.99 -- and it ships for free.
• Expires on 7/16
Overstock
Mt. Springer family camping tent
• $249.62 down to $160.38
• Expires 7/16
REI
Big Agnes Fairview 2 tent
• $200 down to $129.93
• Expires 7/19
Cabela's
Cabela's Deluxe XPG tent
• $219.99 down to $149.99
• $5 shipping when you spend more than $150 -- so buy another product for more than one cent and you'll have it shipped to your home for a great price.
• Expires 7/18
Cabela's WestWind Deluxe tent
• $219.99 down to $149.99
• Expires 7/18
MyGofer.com
Up to 70 percent off all camping equipment
• I almost didn't include this one as you can only see a few discounts shown on the page, but there are 2,292 camping products and I couldn't resist digging a little deeper. I had to sign in and create an account, but then I saw that products I placed in the checkout were getting the savings I was expecting.
• It's a little frustrating not to know what discount you'll be getting, but there are definitely savings to be made. As I say, the product range is amazing.
• Expires today
MINNEAPOLIS, Jul 13, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Summer bargain-hunters rejoice: Target Corporation is back this July with its Back in Black Friday online-only sale, offering guests hot products at fantastic prices. The one-day sale will be held Friday, July 15, starting at approximately midnight (PST) and concluding at 11:59 p.m. (PST) at Target.com/BlackFriday.
"Target is always looking at ways to provide our guests with outstanding value," said Steve Eastman, president, Target.com. "Our Back in Black Friday online-only sale is a great example -- offering our guests a summer Black Friday with thousands of deals on their favorite products."
The Target.com sale will offer up to 50 percent off regular prices on must-have items across all categories, including electronics, toys, home decor, health and beauty, movies, music, books, apparel and more. Guests will find deals on more than 1,500 items, including:
Electronics & Entertainment
-- XBOX 360 4GB Console with 2 Wireless Controllers Bundle, $199.99 (20 percent off)
-- Olympus FE-47/X43 14MP Digital Camera with 5x Optical Zoom, $69.99 (36 percent off)
-- Kodak EasyShare M52 14MP Digital Camera with 5x Optical Zoom, $89.99 (40 percent off)
-- Digital Decor 7" LCD Slim Digital Photo Frame, $29.99 (50 percent off)
Toys
-- MatchBox Stinky The Garbage Truck, $48.00 (20 percent off)
-- Spy Gear Spy Video TRAKR, $39.99 (50 percent off)
Outdoor Living & Home
-- 4-piece Wicker Patio Conversation Set, $299.99 (50 percent off)
-- Avington Armless Slipper Chair, $99.99 (41 percent off)
Health and Beauty
-- CHI 1" Ceramic Style Flat Iron by Farouk, $83.99 (30 percent off)
-- Sonicare FlexCare Power Toothbrush with UV Sanitizer, $119.99 (30 percent off)
-- Philips Norelco SensoTouch 3D Electric Razor, $249.99 (29 percent off)
Just For Kids
-- Britax Roundabout 50 Classic Car Seat, $100.00 (36 percent off)
NOTE: Limited quantities available at these prices.
About Target
Minneapolis-based Target Corporation TGT -0.22% serves guests at 1,755 stores in 49 states nationwide and at Target.com. In addition, the company operates a credit card segment that offers branded proprietary credit card products. Since 1946, Target has given 5 percent of its income through community grants and programs; today, that giving equals more than $3 million a week. For more information about Target's commitment to corporate responsibility, visit Target.com/hereforgood.
For more information, visit Target.com/Pressroom.
Visit the Back in Black Friday site: Target.com/BlackFriday.
SOURCE: Target Corporation
Target planning to a special online 'Black Friday Sale' on this friday, according to Target Website.
Target Website says the sale will begin Friday at midnight and it's teasing three deals the one is 50 percent off a Vizio HDTV; second is 20 percent off a food processor; and the third one is 50 percent off a cosmetic kit. More Details about the products are not available at the Target Website.
Target told it will offer up to 40% off on select electronics, 40% off on select toys, and up to 50% off on outdoor living products and other items. The website, BlackFriday.info writes that Target is preparing to sell an XBox 360 for $199 and a Razor Scooter for $149.
Target this Friday is planning a special online 'Black Friday' sale, according to a page published on its web site.
Normally, retailers hold 'Black Friday' sales in November to kick off the holiday shopping season. However, Target, which held a Black Friday sale last summer, is hoping to boost sales during the normally slow summer shopping period.
Last year, Target's discounted CE products included a 47-inch Philips 1080p LCD HDTV for $699; a Sylvania 32-inch 720p LCD HDTV for $349; and a Philips Blu-ray player w/HDMI cable for $99.