WSJ What’s News - Boycotting Target, Part 2: Is Its Business Paying a Price?

Episode Date: May 18, 2025

After Target rolled back its goals around diversity, equity and inclusion, several organizers across the U.S. launched boycotts. In the second episode of this special What’s News series, we zoom in on the boycotts’ potential impact on Target’s business and on those of Black entrepreneurs with products on Target’s shelves. Host Alex Ossola and producer Jess Jupiter travel to Atlanta to see how one boycott, Target Fast, is going, and what things are like at one Bullseye Black Market for Black entrepreneurs. And we consider how effective boycotts are at pushing companies to change. In your feed, you can find the first episode of this series, looking into Target’s history and why shoppers are upset with the company at a time when many other businesses are also changing their DEI policies.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm Alex Osola. This is What's New Sunday, and this is part two of our special series about Target and the boycotts against its business. In our last episode, we talked about how the company got here, about how Target made inclusivity an important part of its brand, and why some shoppers felt upset when the company seemed to go back on that. In this episode, we dig deeper into the boycotts against Target. We look into whether they may have an impact on the company's bottom line, and we talk

to black entrepreneurs who sell their goods at Target and tell us how they fared. So when Target changed its diversity, equity, and inclusion policies in January, it made some shoppers unhappy. We reached out to Target for a comment on this series and they responded with the following written statement. We are absolutely dedicated to fostering inclusivity for everyone, our team members, our guests, and our supply partners. To do that, we're focusing on what we do best, providing the best retail experience for the more than 2,000 communities we're proud to serve. In the weeks following Target's DEI rollback, several organizers from around the U.S. announced

boycotts against Target. One came from a church outside Atlanta. In the season of Lent, which is the 40 days leading up to Easter, our church is going to be in a fast. A 40 days of consistent prayer. I am calling for a 40-day fast from Target. That's Jamal Bryant. He's the senior pastor at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, a predominantly Black congregation

of 10,000 in Stonecrest, Georgia. Not since the Montgomery Bus Boycott has Black America come together in such a unified vision, a unified focus, and a unified front. The boycott, dubbed Target Fast, came with four demands. In addition to honoring its previous pledge of committing $2 billion to Black-owned businesses and restoring its previous DEI commitments, the boycotters asked that Target deposit $250 million into Black-owned banks, and that it create community retail centers at 10 historically Black colleges and universities. The boycott kicked off on March 5th and was scheduled to end on April 20th, Easter Sunday.

Producer Jess Jupiter and I were at New Birth's Easter Sunday service to learn where the boycott stood. You may be seated. You may be seated. Can I thank those of you that have been on the Target fast with us. If you ain't been on the Target, open up your mouth and give God glory. Earlier that week, Bryant had met with civil rights leader Reverend Al Sharpton and Target CEO Brian Cornell in New York City. To Bryant, even just having the meeting and its location was a sign that the boycott was successful.

We didn't meet in Minneapolis. They flew to New York. And so I think their presence spoke to our impact. At the church service, Bryant said that Target told him that the company would complete its pledge of $2 billion for black businesses. But Bryant said that they had not agreed to all four demands. A Target spokesman confirmed that the meeting happened

but wouldn't discuss any details. So I told them, well, I'm getting ready to tell you, we ain't going back in there. So the fast shifts to a full-out boycott. Bryant and his team are still figuring out the details for the next phase of the boycott. But what started as an initiative with a clear end date

now could go on for the foreseeable future. Bryant told me that getting to this point hasn't been easy. In the last two weeks, it was the last mile of the Boston Marathon. People said, pass, is it over? When would this be over? When they found out that I was meeting, did we come out? Is this finished? But people have to get a second win to know that we have been doing this for 10 weeks. But the Montgomery bus boycott went for 381 days. We really got to gather our strength to see a win really means a lot to the morale and to the momentum of our people.

For Bryant, ending the boycott will be Target's job, not his. Again, I really think that the yeoman's job is going to be Target's responsibility. A lot of people, no matter what I said today, we're not gonna go back in. And so I am not a salesman or a pitchman for Target. When and if their time comes, then they're gonna have to do the heavy lifting. The organizers behind Target Fast have partnered with other black activists

who created boycotts against Target over its DEI pullback, such as Nina Turner, a former state senator from Ohio and the founder of the pro-labor nonprofit, We Are Somebody. So the message is that we're all in this together. There's power in our purchase and people should join us in this boycott because you don't have to do a whole lot. It's easy to join.

Just don't shop at Target. There are other boycotts going on too, like one organized by civil rights lawyer Nakeema Levy Armstrong out of Minneapolis. She announced a national boycott on January 30th in front of Target's headquarters there. Target has been a central part of this community and the lives of many people in this community. If something like this is happening in our backyard and it's involving a company that has stated values

around diversity, equity, and inclusion, has made this commitment in the aftermath of George Floyd being killed, we're not gonna let this happen on our watch without a fight. It's hard to know how many people across the US are participating in one of these organized boycotts.

Jamal Bryant said at the church service that, by Easter, 200,000 people had signed up on Target Fast's website. Meanwhile, other shoppers have independently decided to take a break from Target because of its change in DEI policies. I completely refuse to spend my money with Target. Lawrence Carter is a Black 29-year-old living in Dallas. Right after Target's announcement, he said he stopped shopping there, even though there's a store right around the corner from his home.

He says he wants to show the company that it does need diversity. We live in a consumer economy, so the biggest way that you can say, I don't like this, I don't agree with the direction that this is going, is to spend money or not spend money at a particular location. 46 year old Terry Cripps, a white woman who lives in Jacksonville, Florida, is also boycotting Target indefinitely.

Not only did she say she spent a few thousand dollars a month at Target, but she used to work there when she was younger. And so that made the DEI rollback feel personal. The very day that I learned that they were going to be dropping their diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility practices, I was shocked. I was absolutely shocked. This was a company that actually aligned with my moral values. And so when I heard

that, it's almost like it was a gut punch. Of course, not all Target shoppers feel this way. Producer Jess Jupiter and I spoke to two friends, Marissa and Shannon, outside the Brooklyn Target. They had both heard about the boycott, but only Shannon had changed her shopping habits because of it. I'm curious if you heard about that at all? Has it affected your shopping? I have the boycott. You have?

I have not. For Marissa, who was still shopping at Target, she said it was primarily because of the convenience and the price that Target offers. Honestly, like, if I get it at Bodega, it's going to cost three times the price. And I mean, I can't afford that. So it is Target. Yeah. Target's got the stuff.

Fair enough. So the price is more important than like the other stuff going on with the company. I mean, I'm not going to say it's more important, but my financial well-being is most important to me. Some people have cut back on their spending at Target. Others haven't. So are the boycotts actually affecting Target's bottom line? More on that after the break. To support sustainable food production, BHP is building one of the world's largest hot

ash mines in Canada. Essential resources responsibly produced. It's happening now at BH since Target made changes to its DEI policy. How has its business been affected since then? When asked by reporters, Target has not given details. Here's reporter Sarah Nassauer, who covers Target for the Wall Street Journal. Target did have an investor day earlier this year after they released earnings. Almost every single reporter, except for a few, tried to get Target to comment

directly on whether, you know, a negative reaction to how it was handling DEI was having an impact on sales or traffic. And the executives did not directly answer the question. So I could see something like that happening again. Well, there'll be some question of it, and we'll just have to wait and see how they respond. For this series, we also asked Target whether the boycotts are affecting its business, and they didn't answer the question.

The effect on Target's business is something that financial analysts are also wondering about. There's another boycott fresh on their minds, the 2023 boycotts over Pride merchandise, during which customers offended by a transgender-friendly swimsuit knocked down displays, threatened store employees, and put posts on social media with video from inside stores. They also stopped shopping at Target, which had an impact on the company's quarterly and annual revenue.

Now, with these latest boycotts around DEI, analysts are looking for signs that history could be repeating itself. This so far has been a lot smaller than the boycott that Target initially went through. The target the boycott Target initially went through was about five points of their business, about five percentage points, five percent of their business went away. That's Bill Kirk, a managing director at investment bank Roth Capital Partners, where he covers, among other things, retail. He's recalling that for its second quarter in 2023, target sales declined about five percent. And this so far does not seem like a five points of business, but that's why it's

a risk everybody needs to pay attention to, because if it does get bigger, things get worse quickly. Kirk is one of the many analysts who are watching to see if that risk does get bigger. One place he's looking is online sentiment. We're trying to monitor just how loud it gets and if it starts to kind of escape maybe the groups that are organizing it. Because once it gets out of that immediate group, then it becomes a kind of a real boycott. AltIndex is a website that provides alternative data for investing.

It calculates investor sentiment by scanning online investor forums and then feeding that into an artificial intelligence model to assess whether the post is positive or negative. According to Altindex's data, investor sentiment around Target between January 1st and April 30th of this year remained positive, though it fell about 12%. In the same timeframe, Walmarts fell 19% and Costco's rose about 16%. And what about Target's stock price? As of May 16th, it has fallen about 27% so far this year. In comparison to the broader market, as measured by the S&P 500, that was up 0.7% in the same

period. Last month, Target's stock hit its lowest price in more than five years and recorded its worst performance to start a year through May 16th since 1973. But Michael Baker, managing director and head of consumer research at investment firm D.A. Davidson, isn't put off by that. He has a buy rating on Target's stock because he thinks its price will go up in the future. It hasn't done particularly well, but we think that's reflected in the stock price. We think there's a lot of bad news priced in. One way to get a sense of how Target's business is doing

is with traffic data. How many people are actually in stores? Now, this data isn't always accurate, but it can give us a sense of the trend. Also, the boycotts may not be the only reason for Target's presumed traffic decline. We'll get into that a little later. Still, traffic data is something that Joe Feldman,

Senior Managing Director at Consulting Brokerage Firm, tells the advisory group, monitors closely. We track traffic data through some third-party resources like Placer AI, and their data would indicate that you've seen a little bit of an impact from the boycotts. Early days when they target first announced that DEI changes, you saw a fairly sizable drop off in their traffic and demand trends.

We'll see what they say about the first quarter, but it does feel like it's been a little bit softer. Location analytics company Placer AI uses tens of millions of devices, like cell phones, to track people's locations as they shop. In the month of March, data from Placer AI showed that foot traffic in Target stores was down 6.5% from the year before. Walmart's foot traffic during that same timeframe fell 3.8% and Costco's was up 7.5%. Traffic isn't the only kind of data that can give us a sense of how Target is doing.

Another type to consider is consumer spending. A company called Numerator collects consumer spending data and has assembled a panel of 150,000 people that it says are balanced to be representative of the entire US population. According to Numerator's data, in the four weeks ending February 9th, when some of the earliest boycotts had started, black shoppers spent 27% less at Target than they had in the same four-week period a year earlier. But they spent 55% more at Costco and 38% more at Walmart.

And it's not just analysts looking at this data. The boycotters are presenting it as a way to show their efforts have been successful. Here's Nina Turner, one of the organizers. As we can see, we're diminishing foot traffic. The stock shares are going down on target, we are having some successes. But measuring the success of a boycott isn't always straightforward.

Braden King, a professor at the Kellogg School of Management, has spent his career thinking about this. He told me that, yes, boycotts do work, just not in the way that most people think. So boycotts tend to be effective not because they have an effect on consumer sales, but rather because they create a lot of negative media attention for the company that they're going after. And that creates a reputational threat, which companies don't like. And so they tend to respond to boycotters because they're trying to avoid a hit to

their reputation. When faced with a boycott like the one against Target, King says companies have a few ways to approach it. What companies want to do is immediately get out of the news. And so right now, one of the things that Target has going for them is that the news cycle is very short and there's lots of noise. One strategy they might take is simply to wait it out, knowing that eventually other things are going to take on more importance for these activists and consumers than what is occupying their attention right now.

In fact, it's highly likely that in six months we will not be talking about this at all. But boycotts aren't the only challenges to Target's business right now. More on those after the break. It's not just the boycotts. Target's business is facing a number of challenges. Here's Joe Feldman from Telsey Advisory Group. I think in the big scheme of headwinds against Target, boycotts ranks lower. I think the boycotts, it's like a small group of people making a loud claim. And the reality is that the day-to-day and the average consumer is not really responding

to that. I do think that they've made an impact, but I'm much more worried about tariffs and the impact that that might have on their business and the broader consumer environment. Analyst Bill Kirk ranked his concerns for Target's business. Tariffs one, Walmart two, consumer health three, and then the boycott kind of comes in with that consumer health. Like how's that consumer feeling about Target? So I guess that would list it fourth. Tariffs are highest on his list because Target is more exposed to their impact than some of its competitors. Among the companies I cover, Target sources the most product internationally. They import the most stuff, more than even Walmart.

Also, Target carries more things that people want and don't necessarily need, which puts the company at risk when shoppers' budgets get tight. Here's reporter Sarah Nassauer again. If you're feeling a little cash strapped, you might not need the throw pillow or the new jacket or whatever. And so you might forego that purchase. So there's a sense that it's just more discretionary and that means that as prices overall go up because of tariffs potentially,

that Target could lose some market share. Another potential risk for Target, backlash from shoppers opposed to DEI. Activist investor Robbie Starbuck uses social media to stoke outrage about companies' DEI policies and pushes for companies to change them. Walmart, Tractor Supply, Deere, and Harley-Davidson are just some of the companies

that were targeted by Starbuck and later changed their policies, though many cited other reasons for the rollback. In November, when Walmart announced changes to its DEI policies, Starbuck indicated that he was setting his sights on Target. When Target announced its DEI changes, Starbuck published a video taking credit. "...knowing that a story was coming, Target executives wisely got together and figured

out how to get rid of some of these woke policies. And when we learned they were making changes, we decided to focus on the changes instead of going through and exposing all the crazy stuff, which can happen at a later date if they continue with craziness. Target declined to comment. A number of Target shareholders sued the company, claiming that Target had not disclosed the risk of boycotts around its DEI and environmental, social, and governance policies, and that Target, quote, downplayed the scope of consumer boycotts after they began. The company's regulatory filings show that, starting in 2021, the retailer warned that its position on DEI and ESG could harm its reputation and result in boycotts. We reached out to Target about this and they declined to comment. Americas Reid, a professor of marketing at the Warden School says that no matter what Target did,

it wasn't gonna please everyone. You're basically gonna irritate everybody because you're sort of trying to like walk the fine line, you're trying to sort of split to like walk the fine line, you're trying to sort of split the difference. It doesn't work. The boycotts have likely had an impact on Target's business. How big an impact isn't totally clear yet. But there's one group that's really feeling the effects of the boycotts. Black business owners with products carried by Target now worry that they might

be at risk of losing some business over DEI. Take Houston White. As a child in Minneapolis, White grew up shopping at Target with his mom. In 2019, he said that he met some Target executives when they started coming into his barbershop. And they just wanted to hear about my insights and thoughts around how they could connect with their guests, but then also how they could retain talent of color. Soon, White was selling some of the items that he had on sale in his barbershop just in the local Minneapolis Target store.

Those sold well, and after a year and a half of development in collaboration with Target, he brought his apparel collection to Target stores nationwide and online in 2022. He also now sells coffee and personal care products with his brands, the Get Down Coffee Company and Fresh by Houston White with Target. White says that when he learned about Target's changes to its DEI policy, he was disappointed, but trusted that Target was doing what it needed to do to stay in business. I was extraordinarily disappointed, honestly, by the reaction of my community. I didn't want to have a knee-jerk reaction that could lead to a lot of unnecessary collateral damage to a lot of brands that I think that this institution means to do well, but we're just in a very difficult environment.

So I felt like, let me give them some grace and see where this is going. Though he says his bottom line has suffered, White says his collaboration with Target is still strong and he's optimistic for the future. We still are doing fine and we'll weather the storm. We've seen some softness in certain areas, but still feel good about the overall direction. Beautiful Curly Me is another company that's been feeling the impact. The company sells black and brown dolls with curly hair

and braids. Its CEO is 13 year old Zoe Oli and Ivana Oli is its COO and mom in chief. Mom in chief is a fun name the team gave me because our company is actually run by my now 13 year old daughter. And so I'm mom and so I have to kind of take care of all the things that an adult needs to take care of. Beautiful Curly Me started selling its dolls in Target stores last year. Oli said that's become a six figure revenue stream for the company. We've definitely seen our sales affected, our sales at Target specifically.

We've definitely seen our sales affected, our sales at Target specifically. So yes, we've seen the entire category kind of decline in sales. Despite this, Oli says they have a good relationship with our Target rep and even hope to expand their partnership in the future. It's such a big deal to get on Target shelves. It's not an easy feat for us to get on Target shelves. So as hard as it is to get on, it's actually easy for them to kick us off the shelves if we're not performing. And so for us, our focus was really all about

just maintaining the relationship we have with our buying team and the fact that we've seen success since we launched on their shelves has been our priority. So the boycotts have definitely affected some black entrepreneurs, but even so some business owners see it as an opportunity So, the boycotts have definitely affected some black entrepreneurs. But even so, some business owners see it as an opportunity to find a new way to connect with customers.

To be honest, I feel empowered by that, actually. Because I believe in community. That's how we build our brand. Kim Roxy is the founder of La Meek Beauty, a vegan makeup company. Target started carrying her products on its website almost two years ago. Kim Roxy is the founder of Lameak Beauty, a vegan makeup company. Target started carrying her products on its website almost two years ago. We have felt impact from our sales on Target.com. But what I will say is that we're seeing better awareness from like a community level, more grassroots.

I was speaking to her at the Bullseye Black Market, a marketplace of black entrepreneurs put together by the organizers of the Target Fast Boycott. Roxy had flown from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Atlanta to try to reach more customers directly. And though she was a little worried for the next phase of her business, she was upbeat. I'm not wallowing. You know what I mean? I'm not wallowing because I know that there's another wave of support that's coming. So if I can just hold out, I think it'll work.

Some Black small business owners who don't have their products carried by Target say that given the opportunity, they would still work with a retailer. Malik Saleem, who runs a plant-based laundry detergent company called True, is one of them. Yeah, we're not boycotting anybody. We want everybody to carry our product because it's a universal product. So yeah, we want everybody to care our product. So what does Target's future look like? Despite the damage the boycotts have done to Target's reputation, most of the analysts I spoke with said they're generally optimistic about Target's future.

And according to factset, as of May 16th, 13 ratings firms said Target stock was worth buying, 23 thought it was worth holding onto, and one recommended selling. Last week, equity research firm Bernstein pointed to the DEI strike as one of the reasons Target's business has suffered and said that these boycotts seem to be having a more negative impact on the company than the 2023 Pride boycotts. A Target spokesman declined to comment on the impact of this boycott compared to the

2023 boycott. As for the boycotters, they're still not shopping at Target. They say they won't end the boycott until the company meets their demands. Here's Target Fast organizer Jamal Bryant speaking at the Easter Sunday service. Ladies and gentlemen, whether you realize it or not, we are now in the new civil rights movement. At New Berkeley, you are in the epicenter of what is getting ready to take place. Target is expected to report its quarterly earnings on May 21st. Ahead of those earnings on the week of May 4th, Target CEO Brian Cornell sent an email to staff reiterating the company's core values.

We are still the Target you know and believe in. A company that welcomes all and aims to bring joy to everyone every day. We will always be dedicated to serving millions of guests in all 50 states and our more than 400,000 team members across 2,000 communities, which means we will keep finding new and different ways to meet people where they are. But our values, inclusivity, connection, drive, are not up for debate. They are non-negotiable, period. Analysts anticipate that the company, like many others,

will lower its outlook for 2025. How big a role the boycotts play in that and how the company talks about them is still anyone's guess. And that's it for What's New Sunday for May 18th. This series was produced by me, Alex Osola, with supervising producer Michael Kosmides. Additional support from Philana Patterson, Chris Zinsley, and Anthony Bansi. Michael Laval and Jessica Fenton are our sound designers and Rhodar Theme Music. Aisha El-Muslim is our development producer.

Scott Salloway and Chris Zinsley are our deputy editors. And Falana Patterson is the Wall Street Journal's head of news audio. I'm Alex Osala, and we'll be back tomorrow morning with a brand new show. Until then, thanks for listening.