When Target relaunched its website in 2011, it was a disaster, unable to keep up with the level of demand — especially for limited-time offerings involved big-name designers. Nearly four years later, one would assume that Target had learned from its initial shortcomings, but Target.com crashed again over the weekend as customers rushed to score Lilly Pulitzer products.

The Pulitzer products went on sale Sunday morning on Target.com and in stores and demand was exceedingly high. Stores sold out almost instantly while the website fell to pieces.

The company says the site didn’t technically “crash,” but that Target did make the strategic decision to limit some customers’ access to certain parts of Target.com. The site was also made inaccessible for several minutes to avoid a crash.

The retailer had intended to get the products up on Target.com around 3 a.m. CT on Sunday morning but the launch was delayed around two hours due to the sheer number of people coming to the site. The traffic was similar to what Target.com gets during Black Friday, says the company.

“We never want our guests to be disappointed,” a Target spokesman told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “We share their disappointment with the experience of shopping online. It doesn’t match what we aim to provide them, which is an easy, seamless, consistent experience.”

[via WSJ.com]

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