Vineyard Vines is bringing its lifestyle brand to the mass market for a short time, in partnership with Target. The Connecticut-based apparel retailer will offer a limited-edition collection to Target customers that includes more than 300 items across home and outdoor goods, apparel, accessories and swimwear.
Target will feature the products in all stores and on Target.com from May 18 to July 13, 2019. Prices will range from $2 to $120, with most items under $35, the company said in a blog post.
Vineyard Vines operates more than 105 stores nationwide, the majority in the Northeastern U.S., as well as its own e-Commerce site. But the company now has an opportunity to reach a much larger audience.
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If the companies want this collaboration to be a success on both ends, Vineyard Vines should prepare to scale and ensure that the consumer is getting a high-quality product, which means the retailer must ramp up production effectively.
In 2018, Target partnered with Hunter, a retailer largely known for its popular tall rain boots, giving shoppers a chance to purchase $150 boots for only $40 through a limited-edition collection at Target. However, due to production issues, Target first delayed and then canceled the boots altogether. Mark Tritton, EVP and Chief Merchandising Officer at Target, pointed out that the production didn’t meet either company’s standards. While the boots were part of a wider collection from Hunter offered on sale within Target, they were by far the most anticipated merchandise, leaving many customers frustrated.
Additionally, even in a “limited-edition” context, Target can’t afford to miss on its forecasting. While the company has made a great deal of noise by revamping its own private-label collection and has had plenty of successful collaborations with third-parties, it hasn’t had a perfect track record in meeting consumer demand.
In April 2015, Target launched an exclusive capsule collection with Lilly Pulitzer, but there was one problem — nearly the entire collection sold out in the first day, both in stores and online. Even though the campaign had a lot of hype behind it, with 250 different items and a #LillyForTarget hashtag, “many stores sold out within minutes,” according to Joshua Thomas, a spokesperson at Target. Target had originally intended for the collection to be available for a few weeks, according to Thomas.
