Hoards of people are stampeding stores to get Stanley's limited edition Valentine's Day cups, and resales are going for more than $100
eBay / bartasystem406
- The Stanley cup hype has reached new heights with its limited edition Valentine's Day drop at Target.
- TikTok videos show customers standing in line for hours and then stampedes toward the products.
- Resales of the 40-ounce tumbler are already being listed for $100-plus.
Stanley has just released its limited edition Valentine's Day cups — the Galentine's Day collection — and customers are stampeding Target stores to get their own.
In one TikTok over the weekend, Mikayla Barber filmed herself and a hoard of customers waiting in line before her local Target even opened. "Doors are open and they start running and pushing," she wrote in the clip.
Barber documented the mad dash to secure a 40-ounce Stanley tumbler in one of the limited edition colors — Target red and "cosmo pink" — and said other customers were "starting to argue" over them. The clip garnered more than 873,000 views.
Other TikTokers captured the lines — reminiscent of Black Friday — outside several Target stores in the early morning hours before the cups were unveiled. As stores opened, customers stampeded toward the Stanley display.
One video captured people frantically grabbing several cups at a time despite a disembodied voice noting that there was a limit of two cups per person.
Target did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
The fervor for Stanley-branded drinkware isn't surprising, given their cult status among young people. But the chaos captured in these viral videos could also be, in part, a result of how profitable the resale market for them has become — especially for limited edition colors of its largest tumblers.
Within days of its release, listings on eBay and Poshmark showed the red and pink cups going for over $100. One Poshmark seller already sold a set of the two cups for $190.
Despite their shiny profit margins, many commenters on TikTok say they're appalled and "embarrassed" by such behavior.
"Grown ass adults behaving like 2 year Olds over a cup. it's a cup," one person wrote. "This is almost as embarrassing as rae dunn people," another said, referring to the aggression some customers showed trying to secure Rae Dunn home goods at T.J. Maxx stores.
Stanley obsession has seemingly hit a fever pitch. But a youth consumer trend analyst recently told Business Insider that she thinks this is the zenith of its hype, and she predicts that the Stanley tumbler will no longer be as coveted in the coming months and years.
"They are absolutely on their way out. This is peak Stanley. There's no up from here," Casey Lewis told BI's Katie Noutopoulos.
Stanley did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.