Target Missing Sales Marks After Ending DEI Program, Costco Winning!

Target saw foot traffic fall for the eighth consecutive week, extending a losing streak that began just a few days after the company announced it would end its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) program in late January. For the week that began March 17, foot traffic fell 5.7% YoY for Target, according to data from Placer.ai. That’s compared to the 7.1% it fell last week, and an average weekly decline over the last eight weeks of 6.2%. In a March 4 earnings call, when it reported a 3.1% Q4 loss and a non-specified sales decline in February, Target executives were bullish about its Easter assortment boosting business. But if it has so far, it’s not reflected in the foot-traffic data. What may have taken the spring out of the Easter Bunny’s hop for Target is a 40-plus day boycott coinciding with Lent (so ending on Easter) spearheaded by Black clergy for which more than 150,000 have signed up, exceeding organizers’ stated goal of 100,000. Target did not respond to a request for comment from Retail Brew about the traffic slump. At Costco, which unlike Target resisted demands from the Trump administration for private companies to dump their DEI programs, foot traffic has continued to grow. For the same week beginning March 17, traffic rose 5.2% YoY, and marked its 13th straight week of gains over last year.

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Source: Fortune