Luxury department store, Nordstrom Inc., announced it would no longer carry Ivanka Trump's clothing and accessories line, which the President deemed as "terrible." Nordstrom claimed the reasoning behind discontinuing the brand was due to sales performance and that alone.
Ivanka, as well as members of the White House staff, have called this a political action and claim that there has been no decline in sales for the clothing and accessories brand despite Nordstrom's statement. President Trump's press secretary, Sean Spicer, said the decision made by Nordstrom to discontinue sales of the fashion line is "a direct attack on his policies in her name."
Even though Nordstrom denies that the discontinuation of the fashion line is due to political reasons, could this cause other major department stores carrying Ivanka's line to follow suit? While some are more focused on the President's tweet regarding Nordstrom's decision, other's are honing in on other retail outlets to see what their next move will be.
Marshalls and T.J. Maxx notified their employees to dispose of any signs in the store for Ivanka Trump's fashion line last week and Nieman Marcus discontinued online sales for Ivanka's jewelry line. Will this create a snowball effect, or is this yet another blip on the fashion/political radar?
In an anti-Trump movement, the hashtag #GrabYourWallet was created by Shannon Coulter and Sue Atencio in an effort to get people to boycott companies and retailers that affiliate with the Trump family and name.
A spreadsheet containing a list of names of retailers and businesses circulates around the general public to notify them of which companies continue to sell Trump merchandise and products created by the family. The first company to discontinue Trump products due to this movement was Shoes.com and according to the movement's website, 15 other companies have been removed from the spreadsheet due to discontinuing Trump products.
Would you deem this action of retailers fair or unfair? If Nordstrom's decision to remove Ivanka Trump's line from its inventory is solely because of its sales performance, that seems pretty fair to me.
While other stores and businesses are adamant about not carrying Trump products in an effort to boycott the President and his policies, this case seems to have a gray area. Regardless of the truth behind Nordstrom's decision, it is likely that other major retailers will follow in Nordstrom's footsteps and take action.