Today’s the day: Starbucks dropped its much-anticipated collaboration with Undefeated at select stores nationwide. Because of the immense hype, getting any of the three tumblers is not easy.
On my personal experience, I tried to visit two participating Starbucks branches that were literally walking distance from my house. Went there at 6 AM…AND SURPRISE! They got sold out instantly!
I talked to the managers, and they explained that only 3-4 pieces were allocated per store. Unfortunately, they got sold out quickly because some went as early as 5:30 AM and decided to buy all stocks per store since there was no 1 item per person policy. While some stores around the Metro did implement the 1 item per person policy, the low amount of stocks per store (the most was the Twin Lakes branch in Tagaytay, which reportedly had all three tumblers, with around 8 pieces in stock) makes them challenging to get.
Also worth mentioning is the distribution of products: based on the two branches I visited and from what my friends have told me, getting the water bottle is the hardest since only a few branches got them.
If you managed to get one (especially the water bottle), congrats to you as you are one of the lucky ones. Last I checked, the water bottle is reselling for as much as Php 4k—which is not surprising given the low number of items that made it to the Philippines.
With this release, this shows that established streetwear brands can command enough power to hype up items we normally see (or use) on a daily basis. The hype is definitely real, and while I commend Starbucks for this collaboration, I’m sure they can learn from what happened today and improve on future releases.
