As the drumbeat of backlash against Target for backtracking on DEI continues, including a 40-day boycott against it spearheaded by Black faith leaders that began March 3, foot traffic fell at Target for the sixth consecutive week, according to data from Placer.ai.
For the week the boycott started, foot traffic fell 6.8% YoY at Target, worse than the 4.7% it fell the week before.
Target, which championed racial justice and social justice in recent years before giving in to the Trump administration’s demand that companies dismantle their DEI programs, is seeing traffic drop more precipitously than other companies that capitulated, namely Walmart, which fell just 0.7% YoY for the week, and McDonald’s, which fell 1.1%.
At Costco, meanwhile, which defied calls to dump its DEI program and kept it intact, and where many disenchanted commenters on Target’s social-media platforms say they’re shopping instead, foot traffic has risen for the same six consecutive weeks that it has fallen for Target. For the week beginning March 3, foot traffic rose 7% YoY for Costco.
In fact, while Target is on a six-week slump of traffic being down, Costco is on an 11-week streak, with its YoY traffic up for every week since the one that began December 23.
Retail Brew asked Target if it had any comment on the data, and if it thought rolling back DEI contributed to foot-traffic declining. The company did not respond.
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Febru-weary: Also just in: Data for the full month of February, and it’s another clunker for Target, falling 9% YoY, according to Placer.ai. Note that this February had 28 days compared to last February’s 29, but Target still fell somewhat further than other DEI backtrackers, with McDonald’s down 8.7% YoY in February and Walmart down 5.7%.
At DEI stalwart Costco, meanwhile, in spite of this February being a day short, its traffic was up 2.2% YoY for the month.
Double down: One factor that might mitigate the current negative streak for Target is if foot traffic for the weeks in 2024 to which we’re comparing them was particularly hig
But according to historic data provided exclusively to Retail Brew, the opposite is the case. Target began 2024 with an even longer losing streak when it comes to foot traffic, falling for the first 11 weeks of the year compared to the prior year. When Target foot traffic fell 6.8% the first week in March 2025, for example, that’s compared to the same week last year when it fell 2.4%.
At DEI devotee Costco, in contrast, when it rose 7% for that same week this year, that was an improvement over last year, when it had risen even more, 9%.