Seven days ago, Nordstrom made a decision any savvy department store would do: it looked at the market and the general milieu of fashion and brought stock accordingly. Business as normal. Well, not quite as their seemingly innocuous decision snowballed into a trolling sesh by the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump.
Last Thursday the American department store chain released a statement announcing it was severing its ties with Ivanka Trump’s shoe line. ‘We’ve said all along we make buying decisions based on performance,’ it reads. ‘We’ve got thousands of brands – more than 2,000 offered on the site alone. Reviewing their merit and making edits is part of the regular rhythm of our business. Each year we cut about 10 percent and refresh our assortment with about the same amount. In this case, based on the brand’s performance, we’ve decided not to buy it for this season.’
It’s no surprise that Ivanka’s collection has lost popularity as her father’s objectors have called for boycotts of all and any Trump businesses. The #GrabYourWallet campaign, which started growing momentum in October, asks shoppers to stop purchasing from Trump, his family and his donors.
The President’s daughter didn’t take well to this snub. As a riposte a spokesperson tried to shirk off the brand’s snub, saying: ‘The Ivanka Trump brand continues to expand across categories and distribution with increased customer support, leading us to experience significant year-over-year revenue growth in 2016.
‘We believe that the strength of a brand is measured not only by the profits it generates, but the integrity it maintains. The women behind the brand represent a diverse group of professionals and we are proud to say that the Ivanka Trump brand continues to embody the principles upon which it was founded. It is a company built to inspire women with solution-oriented offerings, created to celebrate and service the many aspects of their lives.’
While Nordstrom became the toast of social media, congratulated for its bold – and some believe political – move, Donald Trump started drafting his own response. In a tweet yesterday that could be considered a presidential conflict of interest, he said: ‘My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person -- always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!’
Determined to get the last word, Nordstrom responded to his trolling: ‘To reiterate what we’ve already shared when asked, we made this decision based on performance. Over the past year, and particularly in the last half of 2016, sales of the brand have steadily declined to the point where it didn’t make good business sense for us to continue with the line for now.’
Even though the President has always portrayed himself as a soothsayer of business, his trolling has done more good than harm to Nordstrom. As the markets reacted to Trump's tweet, the brand's stock initially dipped. But, by the end of the day, it aggressively jumped up by 4%.
Moral of the story: protesting with your pocket works.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.