A growing online campaign to persuade American shoppers to boycott Ivanka Trump’s fashion products and the retailers that stock them, called #GrabYourWallet, appears to be biting.
Footwear website Shoes.com stopped selling shoes from the Ivanka Trump Collection shortly after her father became the shock winner of the US presidential election.
Now US interior decor specialist Bellacor has dropped the Trump Home range of chandeliers and other home fittings and accessories from its website.
Both companies had been targeted by California businesswoman Shannon Coulter, who created the hashtag #GrabYourWallet on Twitter in October after the audio tape emerged revealing Trump boasting about sexually assaulting women in 2005.
Coulter said Trump’s bragging reminded her of being sexually harassed by her boss at a Silicon Valley job in her youth, and the tape scandal inspired her to launch the campaign, she told the Guardian in an exclusive interview at the time.
Coulter was outraged by Trump’s behavior but also by Ivanka’s continued vigorous support for his presidential bid (despite a mild admonition), while at the same time she continued to promote her fashion and lifestyle brand, which is aimed at independent-minded, stylish working women.
“I’m elated,” Coulter told the Guardian on Thursday night about Shoes.com and Bellacor’s decisions.
The retailers have not cited #GrabYourWallet specifically in their decisions, but contacted supporters of the campaign who had complained to them to say that they were dropping the products.
Shoes.com and Bellacor did not immediately respond to requests from the Guardian for comment on Friday.
Coulter’s tweets about her campaign have been viewed more than 9m times and the #GrabYourWallet hashtag has been read or shared via social media 200m times in the 40 days since it was created, according to analysis of Twitter traffic.
She began by posting a list of chain stores that sell items from the Ivanka Trump Collection, including names that dominate American high streets and shopping malls such as Macy’s, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus, as well as leading online retailers such as Amazon and shoe seller Zappos. She urged consumers not only to boycott the companies but to contact them directly to complain.
Seasonal retail sales in America traditionally reach annual highs in the period from next week’s Thanksgiving holiday until after Christmas, and none of the biggest retailers have yet agreed to drop products that carry Ivanka’s or the Trump family’s name.
“I have plenty of indications that the larger players are paying very close attention to this. I’m not surprised that the smaller players would be the first to drop the products, however. And I know the message is getting through,” said Coulter.
Meanwhile, the #GrabYourWallet campaign has sparked a backlash from spirited Trump voters keen to encourage consumers to boycott any retailers that drop the Trump brand.
.@shoesdotcom is NOT interested in the business of 60 Million Americans and are engaging in corporate terrorism against Ivanka. pic.twitter.com/K9DmiWNKiK
— Steph (@steph93065) November 17, 2016
Undeterred, Coulter is considering developing #GrabYourWallet into a larger-scale ethics monitoring system that rates companies by how well they respect women and “inclusiveness in general”, she said.
“It could be measuring how many women or people of color they have in senior executive leadership, the ethical dimensions of the products they carry. We want to support companies that take the high road,” she said.
Coulter also plans to travel from her home in the San Francisco bay area to Washington DC to rally #GrabYourWallet supporters to join what’s being billed as a Women’s March on Washington, a demonstration in the works for 21 January 2017, the day after Trump’s inauguration as president.
