#GrabYourWallet boycott targets Trump family on the retail front

An eye-catching shoe piques your interest and draws you in. Upon closer inspection, the label leaps out at you IvankaTrump, in simple gold lettering and you recoil as if stung.

That's the kind of reaction behind a growing boycott of the products emblazoned with the brand of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump as well as the popular, working women-targeted fashion linefrom his eldest daughter who has arguably been his most influential and effective family member during the current electioncampaign.

"The responses are visceral," Shannon Coulter, a San Francisco marketing expert who founded the #GrabYourWalletboycott earlier this month, told CBC News.

"I've actually been keeping a collection of the physical responses people are describing to encountering her products and a lot of them are physical: the word recoil is used quite a bit. Flinching. Running in the other direction. Feeling as if they'd just touched firein fact, or spiders."

After recent revelations aboutTrump's past boasting about groping women, the subsequentemergence of sexual assault and harassment allegationsand his campaign'sattempt to address the overall scandal, Coulter couldn't stand idle especially because it invoked memories of her own experience being the target of sexually predatory behaviour at work.

Though she describedtheIvankaTrump line, which has reportedly garneredrevenues of $100 million USin the last fiscal year,as"cute,"Coulter concluded she "just can't support businesses that profit from people who work on the Donald Trump campaign."

Waves of protest against Trump

Demonstrations against Trump, his products and business partnerships have stacked up since he first launched his bid for the U.S. presidency. Most recently, critics and opponentsgathered to protest the opening of the latest Trump Hotel in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday morning. Just hours earlier, Los Angeles police were called to investigate the extremevandalization of the reality TV host's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Protests at U.S. Trump rallies have inspired sister events in Canada, for instance inVancouverandToronto. Earlier in his campaign, Trump'shosting gig onSaturday Night Liveprovoked a significant demonstration, while his derogatory comments about Latino immigrants sparkeda wave of condemnation and partners to jump ship:broadcasters dropped his Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants,Macy'sstopped carrying hismenswearline and a host of companies ended projects tied to Trump.

Meanwhile, amid protests andlegal battles withinvestors, there have been calls for the owners of the Canadian Trump Hotels (inTorontoandslated to open in Vancouver in 2017) to drop the former real estate mogul, who now largelylicenceshis brand to hotel-condo developers.

The high-end chain itself might be distancing itself from its eponymous figure, with Trump Hotels announcing Monday itwill use the brand name Scion for new projects, rather than Trump.Recent surveys of consumershave noted a growing publicdistaste for the brand.

The power of the wallet

"All consumers are questioning the choices they make in the marketplace: where their things are made, who makes them, how they are made. This is becoming more and more important to consumers. This plays into all brands, but especially inIvankaTrump's brand," said JohnPylypczak, president of Concrete Design Communications.

Canadians weigh in on boycotting Ivanka Trump's fashion line

8 years ago

Duration 1:22

Shoppers outside of Toronto's Eaton Centre weigh in on their thoughts about a retail boycott of Ivanka Trump because of her dad, Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump.

"So much of her brand is tied into her name, and her name is so much tied into the personality of her father. That is a challenge, especially with what he's becoming known to stand for. Her [brand identity of] 'women who work' thatseems at odds with how her father perceives womenAfter this election cycle, she's going to have a lot of work to do to establish herself as a separate brand from her father."

SusieErjavecParker, a Canadian who began boycotting Trump products after thefirst presidential debate in September,returned a dress to Marshall's after discovering it was from theIvankaTrump Collection.

"As Canadians, we can't vote in the election, but I can vote with my wallet and I can decide not to purchase products that have the Trump name or brand on them," Parker told CBC News in Winnipeg.

In Canada, Hudson's Bay, Winners andNordstromare other major retailers that carry theIvankaTrump Collection.Nordstromwas the only one who commented to CBC about the boycott as well as the lone retailer to send a formal response to protest founder Coulter in the U.S.

"We have heard feedback from some customers. Right now we don't have plans to stop carrying the brand,"Nordstromspokesperson EmilySterkentold CBC News.

The latest Trump boycott, which has gained momentum and some celebrity endorsement since she launched it on Oct. 11, "is the perfect way to talk about not only what happened with the Trump tapes, but women's consumer power," founder Coulter said.

"It's really heartening to see women flexing their consumer power."