Target’s collections of downscale versions of products from big-name designers are hot sellers, and the quick disappearance of this year’s Lilly Pulitzer collection from its physical and virtual shelves followed the pattern. A month after that, people began to report that they were being banned from making purchases from Target because they bought too much. No, Target wasn’t rejecting capitalism: the retailer confirmed that they were taking action to deter resellers.

You may remember that the Lilly Pulitzer collection sold out so quickly that the company had to take action to prevent its website from crashing. it appeared that they were trying to prevent resellers from buying up merchandise and flipping it for more money elsewhere. Arbitrage is the simple practice of buying something and then selling it elsewhere at a higher price. That’s not a new invention, but the Internet has made it a lot easier to engage in arbitrage by picking up a few shift dresses at Target and listing them on eBay.

Target says that they aren’t banning all resellers outright, but re-emphasized in a statement to eCommerceBytes that they reserve the right to limit how much they sell to any given person, and a recent change to this policy includes allowing stores and their e-commerce division to limit sales to people who are obviously reselling merchandise.

At Target, we put our guests first and are committed to offering a convenient shopping experience. In order to ensure we have the inventory of products to meet our guests’ needs, we recently established a new policy that reserves Target the right to prohibit purchases to resellers. It is not a new policy for Target to reserve the right to limit quantities on orders. Guests will be notified at the time of purchase if quantity limits will be applied.

Target Explains New Policy on Resellers [eCommerceBytes]

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