Dive Brief:

• H&M’s highly anticipated limited-edition Balmain collection Thursday filled its stores with giddy, pushing-and-shoving shoppers, and caused its website to crash.

• In a flurry of enthusiasm somewhat reminiscent of Target’s Lily Pulitzer collection, collaboration of of the French luxury brand and the lower-priced fast-fashion retailer has ignited a frenzy that’s already leading to price spikes of the merchandise on eBay. 

• But in some parts of the world that frenzy went overboard as scuffles broke out and huge, dense crowds formed on the streets as shoppers fought to grab faux-fur coats and other items priced well below Paris-based Balmain’s usual ticket size.

Dive Insight:

Some might think that the kind of mayhem seen Thursday for H&M’s Parisian Balmain collection or Target’s bright flower-preppy Lilly Pulitzer or Italian Missoni collection is a good problem to have — overwhelming popularity. But, even putting issues of human safety aside, it could also be seen as a failure on the part of the retailer to ensure that its website and mobile capacity is up to the job, that its stores are safe regardless of what designer is the featured draw, and that its items are available to the customers who want to wear them.

Certainly this launch was attention-getter and money-maker because of the limited-edition designer appeal and because the rush involves no discounting, other than the obvious fact that H&M’s prices aren’t anywhere near Balmain’s “real world” ones. According to a spokesman for H&M who talked to Bloomberg, the interest for this launch "has exceeded all previous collaborations, both in-store and online." 

But there’s another source of frustration for the shoppers who, when they finally reach those Balmain racks at H&M, find them emptied of the goods. Adding insult to injury, they often end up for sale on marketplaces like eBay, often with price markups.

Second-hand clothing site Tradesy, which has on offer many higher-end fashion items, including, already, H&M x Balmain ones, told Retail Dive in an email that it expects H&M’s Balmain items to be in high demand for a long time to come.

The first H&M x Balmain sale occurred within hours of the collaboration going live, according to Tradesy. The same cocktail dress worn by model and television personality Gigi Hadid sold for $1,177, nearly double the $649 retail price, a Tradesy spokesperson said Thursday evening. Other items worn by celebs are similarly popular, and as items are posted to the resale site, they sell quickly.

The site is also comparing the longer-term resale prospects for the H&M x Balmain line to Target’s Missoni line. Yet, while Tradesy is confident that women who can obtain and list H&M’s Balmain clothes “are almost guaranteed to turn a profit,” that may not be such a slam-dunk, at least not over the longer term.

To this day, writes financial journalist Ann Logue, many Missoni for Target items haven’t sold because the markups are too high, especially now that years have passed since the line ended. 

“There have been about 14,000 completed sales of Missoni for Target items on eBay,” she writes, “and about 35,000 items still for sale.” 

For H&M, Target, or any retailer working on high-end designer collaborations like these, it may be wise to measure how much frustration the frenzy and subsequent markups are causing their customers in the service of resellers.

After its Lilly Pulitzer line was sold out, in part by resellers scooping up huge numbers of items, Target, for its part, has since revamped its policies, banning resellers, limiting quantities, and reserving the right to cancel online orders.