For every reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction. And in the case of the Trump administration, for every blunder, there is a an equal and opposite Twitter campaign.
The latest in that long line of social media backlashes is #GrabYourWallet, an activist campaign that urges customers to stop shopping at any retailer that sells Trump family brands, and to stop buying any brand in any way affiliated with the administration.
And the campaign has thrust many companies that have traditionally stayed away from politics into the heat of the partisan bullpen.
The anti-Trump boycott, launched by Shannon Coulter, aims to hit any apparently vested interest where it hurts – at the bottom line. In response, many companies have decided to cut all ties with the Trump administration, for fear of bad publicity as much as declining quarterly figures.
Here’s the full list of companies that have attempted to distance themselves from the Trump presidency.
The North American retailer Nordstrom became one of the early targets of the boycott campaign after a customer’s letter to the management went viral back in October. The note, which was shared hundreds of thousands of times on social media called Ivanka Trump’s brand of female office wear “toxic”, and asked Nordstrom to cut it from its buying list.
Nordstrom soon complied, but didn’t fully acknowledge the influence of that social media pressure.
“Each year we cut about 10% [of our stocked brands] and refresh our assortment with about the same amount,” Nordstrom announced, following a cull of Ivanka’s eponymous fashion line. “In this case, based on the brand’s performance, we’ve decided not to buy it for this season.”,
The US department store Macy’s cut ties with the Trump family in the simpler age of 2015, ceasing sales of Donald Trump’s own line of formalwear as soon as he referred to Mexican immigrants as “rapists.”,
Macy’s CEO Terry Lundgren then doubled down on his position as the President snatched the election from Hillary Clinton.
“We made our decision about a year and a half ago and stand by our decision,” Lundgren told a press conference in November. “We welcome all customers, and respect for the dignity of all people is a cornerstone of our culture,” he went on to say.
“We are disappointed and distressed by recent remarks about immigrants from Mexico. … In light of statements made by Donald Trump, we have decided to discontinue our business relationship.”
Nevertheless, Macy’s still sells Ivanka Trump’s own line of womenswear.
Uber’s social backlash, meanwhile, came in the form of an attempted international boycott, after it was portrayed as attempting to profit off the protests, among regular cab drivers, against Trump’s so-called “Muslim Ban.”
Uber CEO and founder Travis Kalanick, who had previously been invited to sit on Trump’s economic advisory board, was met with growing cries to stand down. In a memo to employees shortly afterwards, Kalanick announce that he had called the President to let him know he’d step down from the committee.
“Joining the group was not meant to be an endorsement of the President or his agenda but unfortunately it has been misinterpreted to be exactly that,” Kalanick wrote.
As the original American tele-shopping channel, the Home Shopping Network was once a Trump sub-brand heartland. But the retailer has been quick to pull itself from the families orbit. The Trump Home line is no longer available to HSN shoppers, a move the company claims was not politically motivated.
“While we don’t take a political position at HSN, we recognize that our employees, our partners and our customers will have wide-ranging views on politics and public policy,” Jill Kermes, HSN’s head of corporate affairs, said in a statement. “That sometimes means people will have differences of opinion, but we welcome and encourage that diversity of thought.”
Shoes.com, a Canadian footwear shop, was less diplomatic. Jettisoning Ivanka Trump’s shoe line in November last year, the company announced that it had heard the boycott loud and clear.
“We understand and your voices have been heard,” the company tweeted. “We have removed the products from our website.” To add insult to injury, Shoes.com later announced that the shoes had also been recording poor sales figures.
Belk, a Southern American department store, also noted poor sales figures from Ivanka’s own lines, eventually cutting the brand from it roster last weekend.,
“We continually review our assortment and the performance of the brands we carry. And we make adjustments as part of our normal course of business operations,” the company announced shortly after the cull.
It was a similar story over at ShopStyle, the online fashion retailer. As of this month, Customers could no longer purchase Ivanka’s eponymous fashion line from the aggregator site, which pulls search results from other online portals. Here, plummeting interest was again given as the reason.
Others, however, have tried to slip quietly out the back door. Wayfair, for example, an American furniture store that previously stocked Trump Home products, dropped the brand in November. They’ve still offered no explanation for the move.
Similarly Neiman Marcus, the luxury US department store, removed Ivanka’s fashion line from its shelves at the start of February without making any statement as to the decision.
Bellacor, another interiors company that was targeted by customer brandishing the #GrabYourWallet hashtag, also dropped all Trump products from its inventory in mid-November of last year without so much as a whimper. Bellacor has not responded to a request for comment on why the line was removed.
And, finally, the same is true of Jet, the fashion retailer, who dropped items such as Donald Trump’s “Success” fragrance and Ivanka Trump stilettos from its web inventory last month, but declined to comment on the reason for the cull.
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