People Are Losing It At Target As They Snag Pink Stanley Cups

ACROSS AMERICA — Be warned: If you’re itching to get your hands on a shimmery pink Stanley cup, there are other people just as eager, but willing to cut ahead of you in line, trample you in the rush to the sales display or even fight you over the coveted prize.

It’s messy out there. Very messy. People are just plain losing it over the Stanley 40-ounce Quencher H2.0 FlowState Tumblers sold in “cosmo pink” and also “Target red.” These cups are sold exclusively among other Stanley products in Target’s “Galentine's Day” promotion.

You could say, in complete keeping with the viral nature of this phenomenon, that people are stans — slang for zealous fandom — for the Stanley cup. And if you think the Stanley cup is the NHL championship trophy, you have a lot of catching up to do. That is the Stanley Cup, with a capital “C.” The Stanley cup with the lowercase “c” is no less prized, though.

It looks like a metal version of a 7-Eleven Big Gulp with a reusable straw, and it’s not cheap. The cup retails at $45. But from the takes on news and social media websites, people seem willing to part with a Ulysses S. Grant to acquire one.

“Getting trampled for a Target Stanley Valentine’s cup,” a TikTok user wrote in a caption on a video showing customers at an El Paso, Texas, store making a run for the tumbler, like horses on Kentucky Derby Day.

Customers lined up at several Target stores in Fresno, California, t0 get a Stanley cup before they were sold out. Sales were limited to one per person, and some people enlisted friends to help them game the system, local ABC affiliate KFSN reported.

At other stores, customers butted in line. Somewhere else, customers who waited patiently in line weren’t about to let a shoplifter pilfer a precious Stanley cup. They tackled, beat and detained the guy.

Anyone who didn’t snag a pink Stanley after this week’s rush on Target and just has to have one — wave arms, clench jaw, and stomp feet here — may find it on StockX. The pink ones are selling for $200 or more, clipping along at more than 380 sold in the last three days. Cups are listed on eBay, too, with one recently selling for $225. Red cups seem to be quite a bit cheaper.

A Man’s Cup, And Then ...

With all the hype and frenzy to obtain one of these metal drink cups, you might think they’re brand new. Nope. The Stanley brand has been around longer than today’s target customers’ great-grandfathers, who might have taken the tough insulated cups along on camping trips or outdoor jobs.

They came in one color, a utilitarian green, and none of the Valentine’s Day or other colors released in the limited series through Target and, before that, Starbucks. Stanley knew its customers — outdoorsy, blue-collar men — and the company hummed along comfortably and profitably for years at about $70 million in annual sales, CNBC reported.

The company rolled out the now-prized Quenchers cups with little fanfare in 2016. Sales were average, and some stores stopped stocking them. While Stanley didn’t directly target women, an influencer who stumbled on a Stanley cup and fell in love with it promoted it on The Buy Guide, an e-commerce blog and Instagram page centered on women.

Sales were still tepid, though. Buy Guide cofounder Ashlee LeSueur tried to convince Stanley to continue the Quencher line. The numbers didn’t work, though, and the company instead countered with an offer for The Buy Guide to place a wholesale order and sell directly to its customers.

The Quenchers sold out in a matter of days. Terence Reilly, the creative force behind the successful Crocs marketing campaigns, came on as Stanley’s president in 2020. He brought The Buy Guide on as a partner in the release of an ever-changing palette of colors for the Stanley cup Quenchers.

The Stanley company’s fortunes quickly changed. Revenues have soared, from $73 million in 2019 to $402 million in 2022, according to CNBC.

But Why?

The popularity of the cups baffled some people on social media.

“What is so special about these cups?” one person wondered on Twitter.

“The resale value. ’Merica,” someone replied.

“Am I the only one who hasn’t felt the Stanley cup vibe?” a TikTok user asked in the comment thread on the El Paso video. “She’s basic and too big — she ain’t that cute. frfr (for real, for real).”

“I don’t own one Stanley and my life is going just fine, lol,” someone else said.

“I’m dreading the eventual posts in our school’s parent group about all of the lost or presumed stolen Stanley cups,” another person said of the popular accessories.

If that happens, it could be the kid isn’t a Stanley stan and voluntarily abandoned the cup.

“I got my daughter on and she’s like this is too big to fit in my backpack … I don’t want it,” a TikTok user said.

Target hasn’t said if it will restock the pink Stanley cups.