Judging by the responses to this post on The Lamley Group’s Instagram, most collectors went to Target today and had an experience that was far from what they expected.
Here’s just a few examples of how bad things were:
- Probably the first example showed up earlier this week when some Target stores stocked the cases that were clearly marked not to be opened until July 16th (today), and put out on the pegs.
- Some locations didn’t even know the event was happening and didn’t have a single thing set up.
- Other locations that held the event didn’t get any of the special cases and instead raffled off cars from 12 car cases of the Target exclusive ‘Heritage’ cars, some stores only having one case of them.
- Many of the dump bins found at participating stores were full of older stock cars, mostly from 2017.
- Some locations that did have the special event cases allowed the very first person in line to go through every single case before anyone else could, probably some sort of backroom dealing with employees, which...is technically illegal, right?
- Other stores brought out cases that were already opened before the event even started.
- There were even some stores that wouldn’t even let collectors get to any of the cars set out for the event, saying they were all for the kids.
There were some rare cases where the stores followed the rules and regulations set by Target and Mattel, but the vast majority either violated most, if not all of those rules, or didn’t even have anything at all.
I’d personally love to hear what corporate from both Target and Mattel would have to say about this complete and utter disaster of a first so-called ‘Collector Experience’.
It actually makes me glad I didn’t end up going and stayed home to watch the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Here’s hoping Kmart sticks around long enough and continues their traditional events, because Target has clearly set the bar extremely low in comparison to the typically successful K-Day events.
If Target has any more of these events, I’ll try to get to them, but I’ll certainly keep my expectations VERY low.