Trolled over failure, Instagram influencer takes on critics

An Instagram influencer with 2.6 million followers, who was trolled heavily last week for reportedly failing to sell just "36 t-shirts", has hit out at critics and has vowed to come back stronger.

Arii, 18, earned a huge following on the Facebook-owned photo-sharing app by posting pictures of her wearing products of different brands.

But when it came to launching her own brand, she found few customers among her followers, despite getting a positive feedback.

As she could not fulfill the target set for her first drop sales, the company she was working with decided not to send out the orders to people who actually purchased the products.

Social media users were not kind to her after she revealed her failure.

"The influencer bubble is bursting. This young lady has well over 2 million followers and couldn't sell 36 shirts. Focus on genuine engagement and not followers cuz they ain't gonna buy a thing," wrote one Twitter user.

"PLOT TWIST: she deleted her 'my brand failed' post. Something is definitely up. The 'positive' spin: she took flak for failing & wanted it to stop. It's seeming more plausible that someone's lying somewhere. 'Marketing stunt' maybe? Sympathy post for future $? Lie about sales?," wrote another.

Hitting out at her critics on Twitter, Arii said she would not let this "hate and laughter" get to her and thanked those who sent kind messages.

"Grown people are literally laughing at me because of what happened with my brand. I AM 18 and still learning. AGAIN, brands don't take off on the first try & i knew that. i never expected to sell out because i had followers. i learned my lesson & won't give up now," she said in a tweet.

In an Instagram post, she later also clarified that her target for the first drop sales was 252 products - 36 of seven different products - and not 36 products as reported.

"I don't need anyone's sympathy, nor I am using pity to sell next time," she wrote.

--IANS

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