• Target sign

Target sign (Photo : Reuters)

What was thought as a marketing genius became a fashion nightmare for those eager to buy the discounted Lilly Pulitzer collection on Target. 

Target's website crashed a few times from Sunday evening to the wee hours of Monday morning when shoppers flooded the website wanting to avail of the discounted collection, according to Fortune.

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The designer clothing company created and made known by the late American socialite Lilly Pulitzer made an unlikely partnership with retailer Target this weekend to kick off the summer and spring shopping frenzy targeting women from all over the world.

According to the publication, Target spokesperson Joshua Thomas had apologized for the inconvenience and disappointment to eager shoppers when the retailer's website crashed and unable to handle the traffic of visitors.  

Shoppers who opted to troop the Target stores were not all entertained as well because the stocks were easily swoop down by the early birds. The retailer said that there are no more supplies left because this is a limited collection.

This is not the first time for Target to be in such a chaotic shopping situation. In 2011, a very similar incident occurred with the collaboration with luxury brand Missoni. This brought new CEO Brian Cornell to step in and invest a $1 billion to upgrade its digital commerce capability.

Meantime, die-hard Lilly Pulitzer fans belonging to the Class A market segment were very disappointed with the recent sale collaboration with Target.  

According to Refinery29, socialites who are willing to pay for premium shift dresses and other summer casual clothing at their regular prices averaging $200 per piece were quite dismayed with this move by the company.

Some of these buyers voiced out their complaint on Twitter, saying Pulitzer herself must have rolled her eyes with this marketing strategy that could be damaging to the classy brand.