Black Beauty Founders Say Target Boycott Cut Both Ways

The boycott's financial toll on Target is not in dispute. Founders and executives point to the retailer's own published numbers as evidence that the protest moved the needle, though they note a multibillion-dollar chain can absorb a bad year in a way that most of its smaller Black-owned vendors cannot. Target already appears to be recovering from the revenue dip, they add.

The brands least able to ride out a sales slump were the ones that took the heaviest hit, according to those weighing the campaign's results. The boycott is described as having achieved a measurable effect on Target's top line while leaving many of the businesses it was designed to champion more exposed than before.

At the center of the dispute was a $2 billion commitment to support Black-owned brands, largely through merchandising and purchase order dollar value, which Target was pressed to follow through on. On paper, that pledge reads as a victory for the campaign's organizers.

In practice, the mechanics worked against the brands. If shoppers stop buying anything at Target, their products sit on shelves, turn into slow-moving inventory and eventually get delisted — a cycle that landed disproportionately on Black-owned labels rather than on the retailer itself.

Some of those interviewed conclude the boycott harmed more than it helped. The stated aim was to punish Target or force it to act, they say, but the fallout inadvertently punished the very brands the protest was intended to benefit.