- Former Target vice chairman Gerald Storch believes the company’s ‘duck-friendly’ swimwear sets Target’s Pride collection apart from the rest.
- Other companies carried color palettes and gingerbread houses that were ‘fine’ because ‘who cares? Everyone carries those things’
- Target suffered another financial setback after JPMorgan downgraded its stock as its market value fell to $12 billion.
The retailer’s biggest mistake was selling ‘duck-friendly’ swimwear for Pride, which led to a $12 billion loss since mid-May, a former Target executive said.
Former Target vice president Gerald Storch believes the company’s controversial ‘duck-friendly’ swimwear sets Target’s Pride collection apart from the rest.
‘I’ve never seen a case where one item, that duck swimsuit, made the difference against the competition. That is the big mistake [was] He did,’ he said Fox and friends.
Other companies carried color palettes and gingerbread houses that were ‘fine’ because ‘who cares? Everyone carries those things.’
Target suffered another financial setback after JPMorgan downgraded its stake as its market value fell to $12 billion amid backlash over its controversial LGBTQ Pride product launch.
‘Target stock has definitely underperformed by 11 per cent year-to-date. So it’s not good, and of course, ignoring the whole issue here doesn’t help. It’s very distracting to see this happen in business. But there are more fundamental concerns with the environment, with consumers and with business here,’ Storch said.
Shares of the brand fell for a ninth straight day on Wednesday, down 2.14 percent, as the company is in the midst of its longest stock loss in 23 years.
Before the controversy, the company’s market value was $74 billion, and shares were trading at $160.96 at the close of business on May 17.
Despite the brand’s attempts to bounce back from its disastrous campaign, continued stock declines led JP Morgan to downgrade its stock from ‘neutral’ to ‘overweight’ on Thursday.
‘We continue to believe that consumer spending is broadly weakening as the share of wallet shifts away from inventory (51% [Target’s] (sales) are underway,’ wrote JP Morgan analyst Christopher Harvers, per MarketWatch.
Horvers also cited ‘recent corporate controversies’ as the reason Target suffered devastating financial losses, which came after an ‘impressive run of 12 consecutive positive quarters’.
As customers rebelled against the move, the brand made ‘adjustments’ to its Pride merchandising plans, including removing displays ‘that were at the center of highly significant confrontational behaviour’ in some of its stores, CEO Brian Cornell said in a statement last week. week.
Some Southern stores were forced to move merchandise — many of which were designed by Eric Cornell, a self-proclaimed transgender and Satanist — to the back of the stores.
Additionally, Storch, who now owns his own company, said the company’s decline began on May 18 when rival Walmart reported a ‘seven percent gain in comp sales.’
‘Target reported flat sales, flat for the year at Target, up seven at Wal-Mart. “There’s no way the comparison looks good,” he said.
‘While there’s no doubt that boycotts are part of the problem, if you read the reports on Target over this period and the analysts are associated with investors, they’re buying shares, or in this case perhaps selling a volume of shares. They are more concerned with fundamental business issues.
‘You know, they are [Target] Definitely not handling this well, trying to deal with it on the way in or out. But I don’t think it will be a big problem for them over time.’
