TARGET BOYCOTTS ARE WORKING

1st quarter sales were a disaster

Don’t ever let anyone convince you that boycotts don’t work. Remember, these corporations are nothing without your financial support.

People across the nation have stood strong in their convictions and avoided Target entirely. We always knew their traffic has gotten worse since Trump’s inauguration, but now we knew definitively how disastrous their move to drop DEI initiatives was.

Via Marketing Brew

Let’s talk about their first quarter earning call and their terrible projection for the rest of this year.

On Wednesday, Target announced that their sales fell more than expected first quarter, and they warned that they will continue to go down for all of 2025. Although they sited tariffs and the economy causing people to spend money more conservatively, they also acknowledged that customer led boycotts did some damage as well.

Shares have fallen 3.5% as of midday trading on Wednesday. Quarterly sales fell 2.8% from last year to $23.85 billion, just short of $24.23 billion of what Wall Street expected. Target is expecting low, single digit decline in numbers for the rest of 2025.

This might not sound very significant, but it is. The number of transactions both online and in store fell 2.4%. It’s enough for them to set up a new office and Chief Operating Officer to focus on “faster decision-making to help accelerate sales growth”. It’s a move that shows they admit to messing up, and desperately needing help.

On the other side of the spectrum, their competitor Walmart reported strong quarterly sales last week. Even though they’ve raised their prices on some items because of tariffs, it doesn’t seem to faze them at all.

It is importantly to note that Walmart has been able to dodge a lot of the tariff damage because 60% of their US business comes from groceries. They have also reduced the number of products labeled from China to 30%, from 60% back in 2017.

Even with this, Walmart is still doing significantly better than Target. Sure, some of it could be because they are a bit more tariff prepared than Target, but I would argue that the boycotts left a huge dent for Target.

After spending years as the corporation that advocated for the rights of LGBTQ+ and Black folks, they scaled back a lot of their DEI initiatives in January after Trump took office.

They even cut a program designed to help Black employees advance their careers and promote Black-owned businesses. It caused so much justified outrage, that national boycotts took off, with very prominent pastors igniting that push.

This is exactly why boycotts are so crucial. This isn’t just teaching target a lesson, we’re also teaching other mega corporations that if they mess with us, we will fight back.

Other corporation monitor the performance of their competitors, and they do that so they can avoid preventable mistakes. Target just turned into the case study of what not to do when trying to boot lick a fascist president like Trump.

The unfolding situation at Target is a powerful reminder of the impact collective action can have. The significant drop in sales, declining transactions, and a desperate restructuring of leadership all point to one undeniable truth: the boycott worked.

This wasn’t just about Target… it was about sending a message to every corporation watching from the sidelines. When companies choose to abandon the values and communities that once shaped their public image, they risk more than bad press, they risk their bottom line.

Let this serve as a warning: we are not powerless consumers. We are a force.

And if you choose profits over people, expect consequences.