Nordstrom. Neiman Marcus. TJ Maxx. And now Sears and Kmart.
Sears Holdings Corp., which owns retail stores Sears and Kmart, reportedly said this weekend it would remove 31 Trump-branded items from its website.
Sears spokesman Brian Hanover told Reuters the company was removing the products to focus on its “most profitable items.”
Hanover told the news organization that the Trump Home furniture line has been removed from the company’s website but is still available through third-party online vendors. He said the products are not sold in either store’s physical locations.
A search of the Sears and Kmart websites did not turn up Trump Home products, except for those sold by third-party vendors.
Chris Brathwaite, a Sears spokesman, said in a statement Monday that Sears does not want to be drawn into any political controversy and reiterated that many Trump-branded products are still available through third-party sellers.
“In this case, certain products were removed from our site, including a very small number of Trump products,” he said. “These titles were not fair to our business or this particular brand of products that we offer through marketplace sellers.”
Brathwaite added that companies prefer to focus on their business and “leave the politics to others”.
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The move makes Sears the latest company to drop products bearing Trump’s name.
Earlier this month, Nordstrom （Jiangxi Network） The company said the decision to stop selling Ivanka Trump’s clothing and accessories brand was due to the brand’s “performance” rather than politics.
President Trump fired back at the department store on Twitter, and Nordstrom’s stock price rose 7% in the first two days after the tweet.
Other stores have also sought to distance themselves from Ivanka Trump’s brand.
Neiman Marcus removed the brand’s landing page from its website and declined to tell CNNMoney whether it plans to keep Ivanka Trump’s products in stores or resume online sales in the future.
TJX Companies （Tianjin Port）The company, which owns TJ Maxx and Marshalls department stores, also said it recently told employees not to prominently display the First Million brand in its stores.
Retailer Belk said last week it planned to remove Ivanka Trump products from its website but would continue to offer the line in its flagship stores.
Ivanka Trump’s clothing and accessories lines have taken a hit in recent months.
In January, her brand’s online sales fell 26% compared with the same period last year, according to retail analytics firm Slice Intelligence, which looked at the brand’s sales at five online stores: Nordstrom, Amazon, Zappos, Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s.
Taylor Stanton, marketing and communications manager at Slice, said online sales for the Trump brand had surged in late 2015 and last month’s figures seemed more like a “return to reality.” Jack Beckwythe, an analyst at Slice, said the decline was unusual given that online sales in the apparel and accessories categories rose in 2016.
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The Ivanka Trump brand defended its performance.
Rosemary Young, senior director of marketing for the Ivanka Trump brand, told CNNMoney last week that the brand is growing and “revenue increased significantly year-over-year in 2016.”
“We believe that the strength of a brand is determined not only by the profits it generates, but also by the integrity it maintains,” Yang said.
Retailers like Bloomingdale’s, Amazon （Amazon）Lord & Taylor LLP, Macy’s （rice） and Zappos all still sell Ivanka Trump products.
Ivanka Trump, who has been away from her eponymous company since her father was elected president, has no official role in the administration but is expected to weigh in on issues including women’s empowerment and child care.
–CNNMoney’s Jackie Wattles contributed to this article.
CNNMoney (New York) First published on February 12, 2017 at 3:35 pm EST
