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It was a zig-zagging frenzy at Target stores across the country last week, with consumers clamoring for bright-colored products, standing in long lines, crashing the retailer’s website, and behaving in classic Black Friday fashion, for fashion.

However, it was not Black Friday Shoes. That annual shopper expedition is 68 days away.

Instead, shoppers were raring to buy bargain-priced items that comprised a limited collection from popular Italian luxury designer Missoni for Target stores. In major metropolitan markets, stores experienced unprecedented turnout for such a designer debut.

And the Target website “saw greater item demand (Tuesday) than we do on a typical Black Friday, which is unparalleled to previous designer collections,” Jessica Deede, Target spokeswoman, said last week via e-mail. The company encouraged shoppers “to visit their local store early and often.”

Stores were not restocked; however, Deede said they anticipated additional product, in limited quantities, through Saturday. Area shoppers say they encountered trouble finding specific items or clothing sizes the later in the week they looked.

The value offered for Missoni, which is considered a luxury brand with real cache among consumers, undoubtedly drove much of the traffic to the stores and website, retail experts say. Typically Missoni is sold at very high-end stores.

“Fashion conscious consumers thought the Missoni-Target offering was tremendously valuable and consequently stormed Target’s website and store,” says John Talbott, assistant director at the Center for Education and Research in Retailing, Indiana University, Bloomington.

“Americans always respond to true value,” Talbott continues. “Consumers are smart, they recognize real values, and are willing to work to acquire it.”

Additional demand for Missoni for Target, he says, came from those who were purchasing and then reselling the items online at auction sites.

Some area shoppers thought the reaction for Missoni seemed fanatical.

“That is just extreme to me. People in the U.S. are always so hungry for ‘the next big thing.’ No one is ever happy to have what they own already,” Terri DeWulf, who lives in Argos, says about the rage for Missoni. “To go to the extreme that some people do waiting forever in a line is crazy. There are better ways to be budget friendly and trendy.”

Pam Proctor, of South Bend, says, “I used to love Target, but I find I am shopping there less and less. They need to go back to who they were and stop trying to be something they aren’t – a discounted high-end fashion source.”

Various items in the Missoni for Target line sold from under $5 on up to nearly $600, while the designer’s signature apparel – which is carried by stores like Saks 5th Avenue – can cost in the thousands of dollars.

Kristen Umphrey, who lives in Three Oaks, tried shopping Target’s website last week for Missoni. But she could not find the brightly colored cape she was interested in purchasing for her 3-year-old daughter.

Umphrey has also liked children’s apparel under the Liberty of London and Calypso lines offered at Target. “But I should mention I don’t like these lines necessarily for the ‘name,’ rather for the style,” she says.

Upon hearing the lengths to which some anxious shoppers went to purchase items from the Missoni line, Umphrey adds, “I don’t think it’s sad at all. I think it was part of the excitement for them.”

Main Street will get another chain

Cheddar’s plans to start construction yet this fall of a new restaurant in Mishawaka – its first location in our market.

The 8,000-square-foot freestanding restaurant will be at the corner of Main Street and Edison Lakes Parkway, near many of the other chains along the busy corridor. Construction is expected to start in November.

Thank you: http://www.southbendtribune.com/sbt-market-basket-missoni-line-at-target-creates-black-friday-atmosphere-20110917,0,4682613.column