Once-loyal Target shoppers are finding alternatives after boycotts. Can the retail giant win them back?
Target was once the store that attracted shoppers looking to buy everything they needed in one place, and sucked them into its vortex with trendy yet affordable clothing, whimsical home decor and wide-ranging beauty products.
The red bullseye store’s ability to keep customers browsing for hours, even when they swore they’d only be five minutes, is one of its unique qualities that made it so popular – enough to even its own meme about people accidentally spending all their money and time at Target.
Arianna, a 31-year-old teacher from East Texas, knew it well.
Before June 2024, Arianna would take her three-year-old daughter to Target for a weekly trip. The store was convenient, her daughter could play with the toys and Arianna would browse the books. And the company also embodied values that Arianna, who asked for her surname not to be used for privacy reasons, aligned with.
“It was just a relaxing place to go and spend time with my girl,” Arianna told The Independent.
But the call for Target shoppers to boycott the company when it was seen to abandon some of its progressive values changed everything.
This past year, Arianna decided to cut ties with Target after the company announced it would end its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order banning DEI.
“I don’t like how they’re propagating right-wing ideals by removing their D.E.I. initiatives and basically turning their backs on [people of color.]” Arianna said.
“Target has always tried to market themselves as being inclusive, but by quickly scrapping those inclusivity practices as soon as President Trump told them to do, it proves they never cared about inclusivity in the first place. Instead, it was all a farce and a clear example of rainbow capitalism,” she added.
The Target boycott after it abandoned its DEI initiatives was first organized by Rev. Jamal Bryant, a prominent Black pastor in Georgia. He encouraged customers to stay away from Target for Lent — and then the boycott continued, with a variety of grassroots organizations getting involved. The boycott made a difference to Target’s bottom line, in Q1, the retailer announced disappointing sales, with a 2.8 percent drop compared to sales from the same period last year.
For years, Target’s annual revenue reflected its success with customers. The company went from $73.7 billion in 2015 to an all-time high of $109.1 billion in 2022.
Even during the pandemic, while other companies suffered, Target recorded a $15 billion growth in sales – proving that customers were still willing to shop at their favorite store – whether online or from a distance.
But since 2022, Target’s sales and stock value have stagnated. Shares of the company have dropped approximately 60 percent since its 2021 high.
Target said it expects its annual sales to decline by a low single-digit percentage this year.
While the company’s slow decline cannot be directly attributed to one factor, it seems clear from discourse online that the retailer is losing its once loyal customers.
Arianna’s feelings toward Target first changed last summer when the retail giant scaled back its Pride merchandise to appease conservatives after anti-LBGTQ+ individuals and groups boycotted the store and threatened employees in June 2023.
Some conservatives took aim at Target in 2023 after it began selling transgender-inclusive clothing. Then Target pulled some of its inclusive clothing after the blowback, and scaled back its Pride collections, upsetting many in the LGBTQ community.
Arianna began shopping at Target less, opting to go to local or thrift stores — before abandoning it entirely after it pulled its DEI iniatives. On Reddit and Facebook, people have started pages to recommend alternative places to shop for clothing, groceries, beauty products, and more
“Boycotting Target has freed me from so much unnecessary spending. No matter what Target does in the future, I’m forever changed and free from their grip. I buy all my basics at the local drug store or Costco and I’m saving instead of giving ‘Walmart in lipstick’ all my expendable money,” one Reddit user said.
“Target is so unbelievably expensive most of the time for the same things I could find at Walmart for half as much,” a Reddit user complained. “Don’t even get me started on the cost of groceries at Target. I seriously question how people afford to buy full carts of groceries. The only things I’ve bought were a drink and some hot pockets for lunch one day and maybe a bag of chips.”
Target’s CEO, Brian Cornell, has attributed some of the company’s stagnation to customers buying less overall – in part due to uncertainty around Trump’s tariffs.
“The difficulty level has been incredibly high given the rates we’re facing and the uncertainty about how these rates in different categories might evolve,” Cornell said in May. “We’re focused on supporting American families and how they manage their budgets.”
Cornell said Target would only raise prices as a “last resort.”
But it’s unclear if affordable prices would win back formerly loyal customers.
For Arianna, there isn’t much Target can do to bring her back.
“They’ve had plenty of time to do right by their customers of all skin colors, religions, and sexualities, but they’ve chosen to bury their heads in the sand and pretend like they’ve done nothing wrong. I’m saving more money now since I refuse to go to their stores, and instead I’m putting money into local stores which helps my community,” Arianna said.
“Maybe I’ll shop there once more if they have a huge going-out-of-business sale where I can get a ton of stuff for 90% off. Other than that, I’m done for good.”
