Target, Amazon, and Home Depot face new holiday sales boycott | Official Website of Louis Velazquez, entrepreneur, finance guy and tech innovator

A number of consumer groups are supporting the effort.
Boycotts generally have a limited impact.
There are some signs that may be changing.

Consumer boycotts have a very mixed track record, but in recent years, they have had a significant impact on some major consumer brands.

Most famously, the Kid Rock-led boycott of Bud Light damaged the Anheuser-Busch brand significantly. But that was a somewhat special circumstance, because people who were mad that Bud Light would do a small internet-only promotion with a transgender influencer could simply switch to another similar beer.

In many cases, boycotts don’t work because consumers tend to act in their self-interest. If the boycott requires an actual sacrifice, it’s usually something most people won’t do.

Or, to put it in practical terms, you may not like Disney putting gay characters in movies, or your may believe that the Mouse House does not do enough for its LGBTQ+ employees, but you probably won’t skip the next Star Wars, Marvel, or Pixar content if you enjoy those franchises.

Activists who call for boycotts usually set out “to put financial pressure on a company” by convincing consumers to shop elsewhere, shared Northwestern Insititute for Policy Research (IPRA) associate Brayden King, a professor of management and organizations, on the Northwestern website.

“But it turns out that’s not the way that boycotts usually work,” he wrote. “The typical boycott doesn’t have much impact on sales revenue.”

That does not mean boycotts never work, however, and a new boycott plan called “We Ain’t Buying It” aims to cause economic harm to Amazon, Target, and Home Depot over the holiday season.

Notable retail boycotts (last 5 years)

Target DEI/40-Day Fast (2025) Protested Target’s DEI policy rollback.
Resulted in a measurable drop in sales and foot traffic.

Source: Washington Post
Economic Blackout: 24-Hour Spending Freeze (Feb. 28, 2025) Targeted Amazon, Walmart, Target.
Some sales drops among African American consumers; uneven overall impact.

Source: Numerator
Bud Light Boycott (2023) Triggered by marketing with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
U.S. sales dropped up to 26%; brand lost top market position.

Source: Vox

The Bud Light boycott was effective.

Shutterstock

A call to boycott Amazon, Target, and Home Depot

The group Black Voters Matter has called for a boycott of companies that have openly dropped diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in response to pressure from President Donald Trump.

‘‘We Ain’t Buying It” is a nationwide economic pressure campaign taking action against corporations that have colluded with this administration. Companies like Amazon, Target, and Home Depot have caved to Donald Trump’s bigoted and anti-democratic attacks on our communities and our values,” the group shared on its website.

Black Voters Matter detailed some of the reasons for the boycott:

From cravenly abandoning their commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) to enabling the terrorizing of our communities, corporate collaboration must stop.
All year, companies like Target, Amazon, and Home Depot have quietly collaborated with Trump to entrench his power and to do his bidding.

They are being joined by other progressive groups in the boycott.

“We won’t stand for it,” said Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of Indivisible. “This week, we’ll send a clear message: Stop complying with this lawless, vicious, bigoted agenda. Stand up for American democracy, civil rights, and our communities. Our dollars will go to people who share our values.”

More Retail:

Glo Sahay, National Coordinator at 50501, believes that people have the power to send a message.

“People are being told to tighten their belts while corporations post record profits. We’re saying enough. ‘We Ain’t Buying It’ isn’t about guilt, it’s about power. When we pause our spending together, we expose just how dependent these systems are on our everyday choices,” she said.

Inflation makes boycotts less effective

“Inflation is weakening the power of consumer boycotts, because people have less discretionary budget to align all purchases with values,” according to a Morning Consult report.

21% of consumers say they’ve boycotted a brand for political reasons, a 10-percentage-point drop from 2021.
Inflation-driven economic pressures are largely responsible for this shift: Consumers now have less flexibility in their budgets to shop according to their values.
Messaging about environmental, social, and governance practices is less relevant to shoppers when their budgets are squeezed, but consumers will still punish brands that cross ethical lines. Source: Morning Consult

Because the economy is already distressed, it may be hard to tell whether a boycott is effective or whether a store is losing sales simply because spending has decreased in certain areas.

“The (market share) pie is just so big,” Marshal Cohen, chief retail advisor at market research firm Circana, told KCRA. “You can’t afford to have your slices get smaller. Consumers are spending more money on food. And that means there’s more pressure on general merchandise or discretionary products.”

It’s also challenging to conduct a boycott over a sustained period of time.

“Media reports that a company behaves in a socially nonresponsible manner frequently result in consumer participation in a boycott. As time goes by, however, the number of consumers participating in the boycott starts dwindling,” the Journal of Business Ethics shared.

A March 2025 study, Vanishing Boycott Impetus: Why and How Consumer Participation in a Boycott Decreases Over Time, shows that customer behavior may be changing.

“Consumer boycotts have emerged as a significant force in modern markets, with research indicating that up to 42% of multinational corporations and 54% of prominent brands currently face such actions. The growing prevalence of consumer activism represents a fundamental shift in consumer-corporate relationships, where ethical considerations increasingly drive purchasing decisions,” the study reported.