Dive Brief:

• Target’s limited edition collection from Helsinki-based design house Marimekko, released Sunday, has apparently escaped the frenzy of its Lilly Pulitzer partnership last year. That collection crashed the retailer’s website and swept items clean in stores within hours of its release, disappointing many shoppers.

• The Wall Street Journal found several items available at many Target stores even at the end of the day, though USA Today noted that several items were sold out online and in some stores. 

• That didn’t surprise or disappoint Target. “The purchase urgency was less than it was with the Lilly Pulitzer collection in the very early morning hours,” a Target spokesperson Joshua Thomas, who has led many of Target’s design collaborations, told the Journal. He told the Associated Press: “We don’t intend for these to sell out in a day,” and told USA Today that it's "not uncommon for the line to sell out over time.” 

Dive Insight:

While some may interpret this lack of frenzy to be an indictment of Target's partnership with Marimekko, it may have more to do with the fact that Target has taken steps to discouraging the level of reselling that occurred with its Missoni and Lilly Pulitzer projects. Those both have hundreds of items still selling (or not selling) on eBay, usually at prices higher than what was found at Target. Several news stories on this muted response didn’t explore whether those new policies designed to discourage “retail arbitrage" could at least partly account for the difference. 

The phenomenon does nobody any good. Target customers who fail to find anything leave disappointed, and even angry to think they’d have to purchase the limited edition items at prices closer to the original designer’s goods. The sellers lose because they by and large fail to recoup their investment. Target loses by disappointing and angering everyone.

A more mellow roll-out of the Marimekko collection bodes well, actually. The collaboration is part of Target’s initiative to bring out appealing merchandise in order to avoid the need to compete just on price. Marimekko doesn’t necessarily have mass appeal in the U.S., but the Finnish brand has enjoyed a cult following here for decades.

As with Marimekko’s longstanding collaboration with Crate and Barrel, the designs and quality aren’t the quite same as the higher priced goods coming out of Finland. Still, the Marimekko designs at Target will appeal to Marimekko fans as well as to other Target customers who might appreciate an introduction to its bold and colorful patterns.

“Target is just now getting its own mojo back after frittering it away over the last seven or so years, which is to say they were focused, importantly, on interesting, well differentiated goods in addition to having the everyday things that people shop for every day,” retail veteran and Columbia University retail studies professor Mark Cohen told Retail Dive earlier this year.