The NY Times published an article late yesterday regarding Target's web site issues, calling it an "unusual fumble for the large retailer" as they were "unprepared for online shoppers’ hunger for the items." They report that on "Twitter and other social media sites, thwarted shoppers posted furious messages and commiserated about the site’s failure, with a few bragging that they had made it through in the brief periods that Target.com was working."
One shopper posted on Twitter: “Seriously so mad at @TargetStyle. Why did you not prepare for the Missoni for Target line?” And the actress Mindy Kaling (from The Office) posted “@target broke my heart today when I could not access their site once in 9 hours for Missoni.”
The site is back up today, but most items seem to be out of stock. And some items look like they're available, but when you go to put it in your online shopping cart, you get the error message "this item is out of stock online".
The article went on to cite complaints from consumers - as I've already been voicing here on this blog - about the rampant number of Missoni for Target items being resold on eBay at a huge markup. Case in point: 24 hours ago, there were about 270 Missoni for Target items on eBay. When I left work yesterday, that number had jumped to over 9,000. And now, a quick check shows the total at over 24,000. This is just plain wrong, IMO. And buyer beware if you bid on these items, as in checking these eBay listings I found that MANY are from sellers who have only 0-5 feedback ratings. Meaning: they clearly just set up an eBay account in the past few days, and only to cash-in on all the Missoni mayhem.