Demand for the Missoni line so hot it breaks down the Web site at the target
Website Tag collapsed Tuesday, as the devotees who love Missoni fashion invaded, scrambling to buy couture Italian designer to the song.

With its limited edition Missoni for the target line, presented on Tuesday, and other cheap designer collections, Target is trying to position itself as the most luxurious of discount stores. Clothing Missoni, usually cost hundreds or thousands of dollars, but he developed a number of cheaper products for Target, a $ 40 skirt its signature zigzag design and $ 600 patio set. Nevertheless, a limited edition fashion were more limited than the target may have wanted.

In an unusual spending time at a large retailer, the problem was not ready to starvation of online shoppers for the items. Target.com site was destroyed during the greater part of the day, the company said that demand for the items was higher than it was a normal day after Thanksgiving, and that is usually the biggest shopping day of the year.

"The excitement for this limited-time designer collection is unprecedented," said Morgan O'Murray, spokesman for Target, in an email. The website aims at working properly again around 11 pm Eastern time on Tuesday.

But on Twitter and other social networks, frustrated customers posted messages rage and sympathy to refuse a site with a few bragging that they made it through in a short period, Target.com worked.

Marketing experts said the blunder was an amateur, though, and said that there should be no lasting effect on the reputation of the target.

"It's a little embarrassing one of the largest retailers in the country to have a web site that can not support a peak - it's not like they are strangers to racing," said Ian Schafer, CEO of digital marketing firm Deep Focus. "He said:" We have become so popular, we had to turn people away at the door. "Then get more space."

The problems come just three weeks after Target, which rely on the back of the Amazon on its Web site, has moved to its own platform. But Ms. O'Murray said the site was crashing due to demand for exclusive products.

Missoni line was the latest in a series of cheap designer collections for Target. Past members have included Calypso St. Barth, Liberty of London, Rodarte, and Zac Posen.

All collections are available both online and in stores, said a representative of the target, Joshua Thomas, and many items from the collections were sold quickly. In the event, Missoni, in his words, the scale and immediacy of the demand was unprecedented.

Cooperation usually bring in regular customers who are willing to trust a piece of glamor to the fraction of the price, along with fashion fans who like to wear cheap chic novelty piece made by a designer favored. Missoni pieces at Target mostly below $ 40, for example, while Missoni items in Bergdorf Goodman worth up to $ 12,000.

Target drumming up publicity for the heavy line Missoni until Tuesday, releasing photos of products fashion bloggers, keeping the party with celebrities and fashion editors, as well as the creation of a pop-up shop last week in New York, where goods are sold in six hours. Even Vogue has given the collection a few pages of coverage in its August issue, perhaps the first and last time that the $ 30 carpet made it to that journal.

By last week, the excitement was so great that actress Jessica Alba and Jessica Simpson, both of which are no doubt not afford full-price Missoni, said on Twitter about the line. "I dreamed about Missoni 4 Target bike last night," Ms. Alba Post, referring to the $ 400 bike is covered in zigzags. "I want a bike too! How cute!" Miss Simpson said.

On Tuesday, Target made the Missoni products available online at 6 am to 7:47 am, on the main page was down, with "connection timeout" error, according to AlertSite, a company that controls the speed of the network. By 8 am, the task was put up courtesy of a page, the site said the problem being worked on.

Other than a few minutes here and there, the problem continued until late evening. By the time the goal was to put people in sort of a queue, the automatic update to those who have been patient can reach the site.

Even when buyers did pass, many complained that items were disappearing from their baskets, or that they were unable to verify. Alex Gagne, 23, marketing director at Mission Viejo, Calif., said she stopped at her target store from early morning to buy a vase and Missoni shoes, and spent most of the rest of the morning trying to get to the site.

"It was a nightmare," she said. When she is finally on site, "at one point I entered payment information, and she was gone."

"Their site was absolutely, 100 percent are not ready for this," she said.

While Target has recently stopped using e-commerce platform Amazon, to make your Web site work, analysts said on Tuesday the problems were probably caused by a sudden demand for Missoni.

"It is difficult to attribute to the division site is the Amazon, although Amazon Web Services offers a flexible computing power that would help with this surge in demand," said Matthew Nemer, an analyst at Wells Fargo Securities, who covers e-commerce, e-mail.

Targeted physical stores have been long lines on Tuesday, and many sell their range of Missoni in minutes. But it was a problem site, which drew anger from customers continued. Actress Mindy Kalinga messages on Twitter that "@ target broke my heart today when I could not access the site once every 9 hours for Missoni".

Another customer announcement: "Seriously so angry @ TargetStyle. Why do not you prepare for the Missoni line for Target?"

There were other ways to obtain them. Lohman, buyers, and advised readers to call the toll free number Tag to order items by phone. Some posters on Twitter suggested using the mobile site. And at 5 o'clock in the evening, after the products were only available at 11 hours, eBay listing was for 6600 points of Missoni Target.