This one goes to 11.
Target suffered its 11th week of foot-traffic declines, a slump that began the week after the retailer announced it was rolling back its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) program in January.
For the week that began April 7, foot traffic at Target stores dropped 4.7% YoY, according to Placer.ai. Costco, which unlike Target defied calls from the Trump administration for private companies to abandon their DEI efforts, notched its 16th straight week of foot traffic increases.
Target, which in recent years had championed racial justice and social justice, has seen an outsized amount of backlash after scrapping DEI, being pilloried on its social media feeds and the subject of a 40-plus day boycott spearheaded by Black clergy that ended on Easter. Indeed, for that same second week in April, fellow DEI capitulators Walmart and McDonald's both saw foot-traffic increases, up 2.7% and 4.5% respectively.
Also just in is traffic data for the full month of February, with Target down 6.5% YoY for the month and Costco—beginning to see a pattern here?—up 7.5%. Patterns or not, though, we’ve embroidered this on our throw pillows, and you should, too: Correlation is not causation.
Still, if there’s another explanation for Target’s traffic slump, or if it disputes the Placer.ai data, the bullseye brigade isn’t saying. Target did not respond to Retail Brew’s requests for comment.
Traffic signs: It’s green-shoots season, at least in the literal botanical sense, and while you may want to hold off on betting the farm on Target ending its traffic losing streak soon, some factors that could have a positive impact for the company in the coming weeks:
- Target CEO Brian Cornell met with the civil rights leader Al Sharpton about the company’s DEI policies on April 17, a meeting Sharpton called “very constructive and candid.”
- The aforementioned church-led Lenten boycott ended on Easter (although the pastor behind it said the boycott is continuing because Target did not restore DEI.)
- A much-hyped collaboration between Target and Kate Spade New York dropped April 12, with this latest Placer.ai data including only the first two days after the drop.
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One indicator that those factors may not make a difference, though, is the unrelenting criticism Target is getting on its social media feeds.
Target posted a lighthearted video about spring break to Instagram on April 19, but the top comments were from users who weren’t laughing along.
“We don’t care if you’ve met with Rev. Sharpton,” wrote @periwinklelilly. “We’re not coming back!”
Another commenter alluded to a certain Ivy League university standing up to the Trump administration and keeping its DEI program intact. Wrote @Jen.die.9: “See how easy it was for Harvard?”