Please don’t boycott Target: That’s the message from Black founders and influencers to consumers about a blacklash against the retailer’s decision to end its diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
Reuters
With the U.S. political climate trending right, the Minneapolis-based company announced the move on Friday prompting calls for a boycott of its stores from labor advocacy group We Are Somebody and a Minneapolis city council member.
The campaign would be aimed at hurting the company’s sales and preventing Target from profiting from products by minority-owned companies, advocates said.
But Black-owned companies and entrepreneurs urged against a boycott on Monday, saying they would lose revenue and consumer exposure, which would harm the brands more than the retailer.
“If we all decide to boycott … so many of us will be affected and our sales will drop — our businesses will be hurt,” Tabitha Brown, an actress whose kitchenwares are sold at Target, said in an Instagram post.
Target did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Building on previous inclusivity efforts, Target in 2022 set a goal of making a financial commitment of more than $2 billion to Black-owned businesses by 2025 and to have more than 500 Black-owned brands in its stores. The company has said it was on track to meet its goals.
Consumers who want to boycott Target should instead spend their dollars on products from Black-owned businesses at the retailer, said April Showers, founder and chief executive of toy, apparel and home goods brand Afro Unicorn, which has been sold at Target since 2022.
“Target is about money,” she said. “Target is not going to remove any of our products if they’re performing well, so we’re saying be strategic with your dollar.”
A boycott of Target could also hurt the growth potential of Black brands due to reduced visibility and geographic footprint if their products start to be dropped from the chain’s nearly 2,000 stores and on its website.
“If you don’t buy our products in Target, they will cancel us from their shelves and make us buy back the products they already purchased from us,” Black-owned doll brand Beautiful Curly Me said on its Instagram account on Sunday.
Some backers of a Target boycott call for buying directly from Black-owned brands’ websites instead. But many founders do not want to miss out on the millions of shoppers who enter Target’s stores every week.
“We have dolls on our websites, but having your dolls in mass retail stores gives you a different kind of visibility to millions and really helps us expand,” Beautiful Curly Me said.
Target’s website on Monday highlighted Black-owned or founded beauty and personal care brands ahead of Black History Month, which begins Saturday. Such brands include actress Tracee Ellis Ross’ Pattern hair products and actress Gabrielle Union-Wade’s Proudly baby items.
DEI initiatives sought to address longstanding structural racism and sexism by promoting opportunities for women, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ people and other underrepresented groups.
Arising after the Black Lives Matter protests and George Floyd’s killing in 2020, Target’s moves were accompanied by initiatives to help minority employees advance their careers, diversify its suppliers and ensure stores were welcoming to LGBTQ, Black, Asian, veteran and disabled shoppers.
At the time, many U.S. companies embraced the trend. But the landscape has shifted including a Supreme Court decision against affirmative action and the election of President Donald Trump, who ordered the federal government to end its diversity programs. Conservatives argue DEI is based on favoritism rather than merit.
Walmart, Meta and McDonald’s are among the brands that have rolled back DEI policies recently.
But Target’s decision struck some of its critics as a betrayal, saying the retailer’s initiatives attracted a younger, more diverse consumer base.
Tamala Barksdale, managing partner at brand consultancy 360 Agency, said Target’s move was “a break in trust” with its customers who believed in its efforts.
Hot on the heels of its strong Christmas trading update, news has emerged that performance and athleisure brand Castore could be mulling a stock exchange listing.
The company has become a major player in the sports and sports-influenced clothing market in just a few short years and an IPO would underline its status as it increasingly competes with major names like Nike and Adidas.
The Times reported Thursday that Castore’s sibling founders Tom and Phil Beaton would consider floating its shares.
“I very much focus my time and energy on building the best brand and business that I can because if we do that there’ll hopefully be some exciting options for us from a capital event — an IPO is one of those options,” said Tom Beahon, who’s co-CEO with his brother.
But it doesn’t look like it will happen just yet (if at all) with Beahon adding: “As a proud British entrepreneur I would love to be able to IPO the business in London but there’s nothing on the immediate cards on that front.”
UK companies haven’t always had a good experience of listing on the stock exchange and can be punished severely by shareholders if they underperform.
A stock exchange listing isn’t to be taken lightly. Apart from the costs involved, it means company problems play out in the full glare of regulatory publicity. There’s a recent history of names such as Superdry, Ted Baker, Quiz, In The Style and more de-listing as their performances declined. And others that remain listed — such as Dr Martens, Burberry, Mulberry, M&S, Frasers Group, THG and JD Sports — can see share prices soaring but have also seen their prices dropping sharply if their sales and profit figures disappoint investors.
But for now, Castore is far from disappointing. The company saw a 16% increase in festive season sales, helped by its various sports team link-ups and also by more women than ever buying into its offer.
The brand was founded only 10 years ago and counts New Look founder Tom Singh and tennis star Andy Murray among its investors.
It has benefited from consumers seeking something different from the big-name sports brands with Beahon saying that “more nascent challenger brands [like On and Hoka] have come into the market. Castore is in that cohort, Gymshark is in that cohort and customers are willing to try new brands that are not the Nike swoosh or the Adidas three-stripe”.
Castore has its own stores but the majority of its revenues are online, although this balance could shift as it opens more physical spaces.
As well as saying it will open between five and 10 stores this year, Beahon said “we will be announcing a number of very large … flagship partnerships this year, both in the UK and internationally. We do see international growth as key to the next stage of Castore’s growth as a business”.
British finance minister Rachel Reeves spelled out her plans to revive the country’s slow-moving economy on Wednesday, adding to recent pledges to reform investment and planning rules with a commitment to back airport expansion at Heathrow.
Below are the key actions the government has announced to remove hurdles to growth since taking power last July:
PLANNING The government plans to limit the number of legal challenges that opponents can bring to slow major infrastructure projects.
At present, even legal challenges deemed to have little chance of success can be brought back to the courts three separate times. New rules are designed to ensure that in the weakest cases only one such challenge can be made.
The current first attempt – known as the paper permission stage – will also be scrapped.
HEATHROW RUNWAY EXPANSION On Wednesday Reeves gave her backing for the construction of a third runway at London’s Heathrow Airport.
Successive governments have dithered about expansion of the site in west London, with politicians caught between the need to build more capacity and concerns about pollution and carbon emissions.
Reeves said she wanted permission granted by the end of this parliament, which is due to end in 2029. The head of Heathrow, Thomas Woldbye, said it could be operational by 2035.
OXFORD-CAMBRIDGE CORRIDOR The government will further support the “growth corridor” that exists between the university cities of Oxford and Cambridge by working with industry and local government to speed up the building of homes, laboratories and transport networks, including a direct train line.
The area, which is home to fast-growing companies spun out of the universities and to industry leaders such as AstraZeneca, could add up to 78 billion pounds ($96.8 billion) to the overall economy by 2035 if plans are implemented, industry experts say.
PENSION REFORMS New pension reforms are set to allow the release of what the government calls “trapped” corporate pension surpluses – estimated to be worth more than 100 billion pounds – to be invested in the wider economy.
The government has said legislative changes could enable all defined benefit pension schemes to change their rules to permit the use of such funds where there is trustee-employer agreement.
Reeves also wants to build a slew of “megafunds,” with plans to consolidate about 60 defined contribution pension schemes and 86 Local Government Pension Schemes to make them more cost-efficient and large enough to bankroll ambitious projects.
INVESTMENT Reeves has said the National Wealth Fund and the Office for Investment will work with local leaders to drive regional economic growth by focusing on sectors such as technology, manufacturing and green energy.
HOUSING The government said there would be new mandatory housing targets, including building more homes where housing is least affordable. Local authorities have been tasked with coming up with timetables for new housebuilding plans or else risk intervention from ministers. The measures are part of the government’s efforts to meet a pledge to build 1.5 million new homes in the next five years, including ordering local authorities to build more houses.
REGULATORY RESET The government has urged the country’s regulators, including competition, energy and water, to remove barriers to economic growth, asking them to create a regulatory environment that boosts investment and innovation.
Reeves forced out the chairman of the country’s competition watchdog last week, saying he did not agree with her views on how to speed up Britain’s economy.
FINANCIAL REFORMS Earlier this month, the Bank of England (BoE) delayed the implementation of tougher bank capital rules by a year to January 2027 in order to gain clarity on what the United States will do under Donald Trump as president.
In October, the BoE proposed moving to a five-year bonus deferral period for all senior managers, down from the eight years some face, relaxing rules that were put in place after the global financial crisis.
Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority in December outlined proposals for a new platform to enable trading in shares of privately-owned firms to help the country’s lacklustre capital markets and encourage new IPOs.
The BoE is also planning to lower its proposed capital requirements for lending to small and medium-sized businesses.
In 2023, the previous Conservative government scrapped a decade-old cap on banker bonuses.
The founder and majority owner of UK menswear retailer has hit out at the government over its move to raise employer National Insurance and the Minimum Wage in April, calling the measures “anti-business”.
Nick Wheeler said the decisions were to blame for him curbing investment in Britain, and instead targeting investment overseas, he told The Telegraph newspaper.
He said this week: “With the National Insurance changes, the Minimum Wage increase and the bureaucracy that [the government] is putting into businesses, it’s just ridiculous.”
The minimum wage increase will give workers aged 21 and over an extra 77p an hour from April.
He also claimed chancellor Rachel Reeves’ policies were “driving out wealth-creating people from the country.”
He referred to her Budget-introduced policies as “anti-business”, adding that a recent move by Reeves to ask regulators for ideas on how to drive growth “was misguided… Regulators know how to stop growth. What they know is how to regulate the hell out of the country and stop everything.
“[The government] is saying the UK is open for business and they’re trying to get people to invest here. Well I’m saying, I’m sorry but I’m not going to be investing in the UK.”
Wheeler said Charles Tyrwhitt still planned to open some stores in the UK this year but he added: “Given the choice, I will invest overseas, which is a real shame. When we look at where we’re investing, it’s the US, it’s Germany, Australia, France, Sweden. It’s overseas growth.”
Expansion is based on Wheeler saying the business is only getting stronger with Charles Tyrwhitt having grown every year bar three since he founded it at university, he noted.
The plan is to open 10 stores a year, from 52 currently.
He added: “I always said, when this business stops growing, I’m not interested anymore”, but noted he has freedom to make longer-term decisions as he owns 95% of the business.
“I’m not thinking about next year, I’m thinking about 30 years’ time. If ever there’s a question about one of our stores looking tired, I’ll say, just redo it.
“If you’re planning to sell out in three years, then you’d think I don’t want to spend a million quid doing the store.”
Most recent accounts for the retailer showed sales jumped more than 45% to hit £269 million financial year to July 2023, ahead of pre-pandemic levels.
Entertainment8 years ago