A small business owner has gone viral after accusing Sam's Club of stealing her designs.
TikTok user Ashley (@sunmilkshop) began by stitching the video of another creator shopping in Sam's Club, who drew attention to a cream crewneck sweatshirt emblazoned with "Tennessee" and a purple embroidered flower.
Ashley then says, "If you're new here, my name is Ashley and I design and sell embroidered apparel. And one of my main collections for my small business for the last year-and-a-half has been my state flower crews."
At this point, she showed some of her embroidered apparel crewnecks to the camera, including an identical "Tennessee" one with the same color scheme and flower.
"I don't really have a plan on what to say here," she added. "I just wanted to show off some of my crews. I have a huge bin that I keep at my house for taking pictures in the sunshine."
Ashley didn't immediately respond to the Daily Dot's request for comment via TikTok comment and email.
She then went on to say that while she "can't compete" with Sam's Club's prices, she is having "as much of a sale" as she can.
"So these are 20% off on my site," she said, showing viewers a stack of floral embroidered state crews. "I have about 30 states right now. And everything is completely illustrated by me. There's so much detail in the design and I promise you like everything else you get what you pay for. These are such high quality and so much love and thought has gone into these."
"It absolutely breaks my heart to see something like this happen to my small business because I've really worked so hard on these," she added. "So yeah, I also just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has been shopping small and looking out for my small business as I tried to navigate this very unfortunate and bizarre situation. Thank you so much."
The video has amassed 759,000 views. Sam's Club didn't immediately respond to the Daily Dot's request for comment via contact form.
This isn't the first time a business owner has accused a larger brand of bad-faith dealings. Earlier this summer, a woman went viral after claiming the clothing store Francesca's owned her more than $100,000. Another user said she lost $4,000 in affiliate marketing dollars after Pacsun canceled a slew of orders without notifying her.
@sunmilkshop If you want to support small bsuiness and/or don’t have a @Sam’s Club membership… I’m your girl???????? #samsclub #greenscreenvideo ♬ original sound - Sun Milk Shop
“Sam’s Club should just charge everyone at the door" she wrote via on-screen text.
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The post ‘It absolutely breaks my heart’: Small business owner says Sam’s Club ‘knocked off’ her design for $15 sweatshirt appeared first on The Daily Dot.
