17589: At Target, Black Beauty Is Nearly Invisible.

 

From Modern Retail at Digiday…

Target’s new beauty selection has almost no Black-owned brands

By Mitchell Parton

 

Target’s refreshed beauty assortment aims to promote emerging brands, but it includes very few from Black entrepreneurs.

Target Beauty Studio is set to launch Sept. 10 in more than 600 Target stores and on the company’s website. The new beauty selection replaces former Ulta Beauty shops within Target stores and will feature more than 1,600 products from 90 brands, largely brands new to Target.

Of the 90 brands listed as part of the new beauty assortment, Modern Retail could only identify two with Black owners or founders: hair-care brand Briogeo and Glamazon Beauty, a line of cosmetics. Otherwise, the selection appears to mostly include brands owned or founded by white or Asian entrepreneurs, with around a dozen Korean brands. More than two-thirds of the brands are new to Target.

The Beauty Studio doesn’t represent Target’s entire selection of beauty products, which may be found elsewhere in the store or online. Still, the lack of representation in the more curated assortment has raised questions from founders and outside consultants about Target’s desire to sell and promote products from Black-owned businesses. It remains unclear whether Target failed to recruit such brands to the program or if brands refused to take part in the new beauty initiative.

A Target spokesperson told Modern Retail that the collection was focused on beauty brands from around the world, pointing to Korean, Japanese, Mexican and French brands. Nearly 40% of the brands were founded by “diverse” founders, they said, but did not explain how they define that word. They added that offerings of Black-owned and -founded brands are comparable to its previous in-store experience, likely referring to the Ulta shops. The selection still does include products in a range of shades for different skin complexions.

“Getting back to growth starts with investing in the categories and experiences where Target is uniquely positioned to win, all through our distinctive combination of style, design and value,” a Target spokesperson said in a statement, adding that new brands and products will launch throughout the year.

The company also said it has helped to introduce and grow Black-owned brands through opportunities such as exclusive launches and programs designed to expand access to mass retail.

Modern Retail previously reported that Black entrepreneurs have described Target as a frustrating wholesale partner and that Black-owned brands once featured at Target have been removed from the retailer’s assortment without explanation. Some have voluntarily stopped working with Target because of the company’s handling of their brands’ inventory, lack of communication, or decision to end diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives last year.

Who still signed on

Former Goldman Sachs vp Nancy Twine started one of the two black-founded brands in Target Beauty Studio, Briogeo, in 2013. She was the youngest Black woman to launch a product line at Sephora, according to the brand’s website. In 2022, Twine sold the brand to Wella for nine figures, she told Forbes. Neither Briogeo nor Twine immediately responded to requests for comment.

The other brand, Glamazon Beauty, was founded and formulated by celebrity makeup artist Kim Baker in 2017. Baker remains the founder, CEO, creative director and majority owner, according to the company. Baker told Modern Retail in a statement that Target has proactively offered access to resources, marketing support and guidance to support the brand.

“Target has been a dream retailer for me for many years, and from the beginning of our partnership, I’ve felt seen, heard and supported,” she said. “We work with a diverse team that has been thoughtful about how Glamazon shows up and how we authentically serve women across shades and ethnicities.”

Baker also said her partners at Target have been receptive to ideas on using her platform to create visibility and opportunity for other entrepreneurs and minority-owned businesses. She added that she was not involved in determining the Beauty Studio assortment.

“I can only speak from my own experience, and I’m incredibly grateful for the partnership we’ve built with Target,” Baker said. “My focus now is on making the most of this opportunity, serving our customers exceptionally well and using Glamazon’s growing platform to help open doors wider for those coming behind us.”

Target revealed the details of the Beauty Studio just days after it pulled a children’s Halloween costume from its shelves Monday, following social media backlash and criticism that it was similar to racist Jim Crow-era minstrel caricatures. The company apologized in a statement: “The costume is offensive and should never have been part of our assortment,” the company said. “It is no longer available for sale.”

“When you don’t have diverse voices and, more importantly, diverse life experiences in a room, people don’t see the problems that are around the corner,” said Christy Pruitt-Haynes, a consultant and strategist with a background in human resources and DEI. “When you have a room full of executives who all have the same blind spots, that means you’re missing the potential problems that situations could present.”

Target last year concluded its three-year DEI goals, concluded its Racial Equity Action and Change initiatives, stopped all externally diversity-focused surveys such as the HRC’s Corporate Equality Index, and renamed its “supplier diversity” team to “supplier engagement.” Still, the company said it fulfilled its 2021 commitment this year to invest $2 billion in Black-owned businesses and that most of the new partners it brought in remain partners today.

Critics of Target’s DEI decision said it was an about-face from the company’s previous work to uplift Black-owned brands. The company had previously made public statements on racial equity and investing in scholarships, business consulting and sponsorships aimed to support marginalized groups, especially following the murder of George Floyd in Target’s hometown of Minneapolis.

In May, a Target representative told Modern Retail that the company still had hundreds of Black-owned brands on its shelves, double what it had in 2020, and that it has continued to partner with Black designers, creators and founders.

Potential solutions

Meanwhile, other retailers in 2020 and 2021 signed on to the Fifteen Percent Pledge, a nonprofit that calls on major retailers and corporations to commit 15% of their annual purchasing power to Black-owned businesses, as Black or mixed-race people make up about 15% of the U.S. population. This includes Ulta Beauty and Sephora, who have partnered with the organization on accelerator programs or grants for underrepresented founders as recently as this year.

“What we really want to look at when we look at these things is the percentage and how that compares to the percentage of the population at large,” said Lola Bakare, a CMO advisor, inclusive-marketing strategist and author of “Responsible Marketing.” Two of 90 brands being from Black founders would make up about 2% of the Beauty Studio assortment. “I think the average consumer might be glad there are two, but what we also know is that they can do so much better.”

Bakare said Target should consider the Fifteen Percent Pledge as a potential solution. “Let’s not have another apology,” she added. “You want to replicate what Sephora and Ulta are doing? Replicate them all the way and take the Fifteen Percent Pledge.”

Danyail Lawton, founder and CEO of consultancy BoldMoves — which specializes in public relations, reputation management and crisis management — and a former people operations manager for the U.S. Air Force, said Target’s new CEO, Michael Fiddelke, should have made a public announcement on DEI when he entered the role to avoid deterring consumers or brands any further. She said Target executives need to address the issue directly to move on from it.

Former Target CEO Brian Cornell wrote about uncertainty over Target’s values in an email to staff last year, but communications, marketing and leadership consultants said the message was vague and failed to reassure people about any continued commitment to underrepresented groups.

“The longer it goes without being addressed, the more challenging it is going to be to gain that momentum and credibility back,” Lawton said. “The longer it goes without being addressed, the more people are going to speculate and the more people are going to make their own narratives, and that’s what you want to avoid when you’re dealing with the public in the communications role.”

Pruitt-Haynes similarly said Target could win back brands by making a public statement about wanting them in its store. “That implies a level of support and consent,” she said. “They would start to see a return of their consumers, which would lead to more sales.”

17582: More Zapping Target For Costume Cultural Cluelessness.

 

Adweek published a seemingly self-promotional perspective from the Chief Marketing Officer of Zappi, providing unsolicited advice for Target in the wake of its latest Halloween hijinks.

Pointing to another Target Halloween costume controversy involving Anne Frank insensitivity (depicted below), the piece underscored MultiCultClassics’ recognition that trick-or-treating brings regular trouble to the mega-retailer.

After droning on about data, the author closed with a hopefully unintentionally patronizing statement:

“But no amount of testing can make up for one cold, hard fact. Somebody who could have looked at this costume and immediately seen the problem was either not involved, or wasn’t heard early enough to stop it.”

Um, it’s more likely that nobody creating Target content possesses the cultural competence or authority to make such a call.

In short, the marketing team at Target probably looks like the leadership team at Zappi.

Unsolicited advice for Zappi CMO: People in exclusive glass houses…

A Retailer’s Checklist to Prevent the Next Target Costume Blunder

Target’s repeat offense shows why ‘pull it and apologize’ doesn’t work. Here’s what retailers should actually change.

By Nataly Kelly

In 2020, Target pulled a children’s costume from its website after shoppers pointed out that it evoked Anne Frank. Six years later, the retailer is apologizing again, this time for a children’s Halloween costume that critics said evoked racist minstrel caricatures.

Target responded in typical corporate fashion. It pulled the product, apologized, and promised internal reviews of the situation. But we all know that the veil of proactivity fades in favor of waiting for all of the uproar to blow over. 

When does an apology stop being a checkbox exercise as opposed to a genuine learning moment? 

A massive corporation like Target no doubt has checks, balances, and stage gates for almost everything. And there’s real volume and pressure behind seasonal innovation. 

Target has said some of its strongest recent performance has come in the fall, and nearly 70% of its Halloween assortment this year is new. That’s a lot of innovation moving through an organization quickly. 

One offensive product is a mistake; two is a concerning trend. 

When a similar failure happens again, it raises a harder question: What did the organization actually learn the first time?

The bar is high and teams are stretched thin trying to find ideas that land. Products are tested for risk—things like choking, flammability, sizing, cost. What’s too often disconnected is how an individual product might affect perception of the brand. 

There is no innovation without brand, and no brand without innovation. But the teams tasked with each are often operating separately.

So what should retailers do differently?

Classify products by their potential for brand risk

A costume carries fundamentally different risks than a towel or a blender. Costumes regularly venture into the territory of culture, identity and at times, appropriation. In a Talker Research survey of American parents, 29% said costumes built around cultural stereotypes should be pulled from stores. For anything involving blackface, that number rose to 43%. Some lines are clearer than others. Seasonal deadlines make that scrutiny harder, but also more important. 

Review the whole, not just the parts

Teams need to look at the composite, not just the individual components. In the Target example, a children’s striped bodysuit alone reads as a clown suit. Add a black mesh mask with a snaggletoothed grin. Then add black gloves and a tiny top hat with a flower on the brim. Most companies review the tech pack and never review the photograph of the image, but the photograph is what the customer ultimately sees, and reacts to.

Look closely at consumer signals

Before this conversation exploded on social media, shoppers were already flagging the costume in Target’s own product reviews. That’s the kind of signal companies spend enormous amounts of money trying to find. Another problem is often that the people moderating product reviews don’t talk to the people creating products, and most of those folks are not getting feedback directly from consumers whatsoever. In a hundred-thousand-person company, things fall through the cracks. Consumer research only helps if it can travel horizontally across the organization, and can be accessed quickly enough for every employee making a decision that affects the brand to act on it. At many companies, access to consumer testing is not yet democratized and widely available. 

Address the cultural problems no checklist can solve.

No one wakes up hoping to destroy brand equity and alienate consumers. Companies repeat mistakes when they treat their own response as a project with an end date instead of a system that has to be built and maintained for the long term.

Think about what six years does to an organization the size of Target. The team that felt the heat in 2020 is gone. The vp that commissioned the internal review may have retired. The consultant that curated the design invoiced and moved on. The task force fizzled out not long after the news cycle. And the document with the retro is still sitting in a drive nobody opens under a name that no longer has any relevance. 

That requires better consumer feedback and more connected data. But no amount of testing can make up for one cold, hard fact. Somebody who could have looked at this costume and immediately seen the problem was either not involved, or wasn’t heard early enough to stop it.

Target will recover, and eventually the news cycle will move on, as it goes. But while consumers can look past a mistake, it’s very hard to undo how a brand made them feel. The goal shouldn’t be to get better at apologizing. It’s to build an organization that remembers why it had to apologize in the first place, and keeps the next embarrassing mea culpa from happening.

17580: Outraged Public’s Not Clowning Around With Target.

 

People reported Target took heat for hyping a racist Halloween costume (depicted above).

It’s not the first time trick-or-treating at Target touched off trouble. It’s also not the first time “Black guests” have been personally and/or professionally disrespected by the mega-retailer.

Given Target was among the first to diminish DEIBA+ initiatives in recent times, the latest Halloween scandal is, well, scary.

Target Pulls Clown Halloween Costume After Backlash, Says ‘We Got This Wrong’ in Apology Note

The costume was called out on social media for being racially insensitive

By Madison E. Goldberg

 

Target has removed a clown Halloween costume following criticisms that it evoked blackface, minstrel shows and racist imagery.

 

“An apology from us: We removed an offensive Halloween costume that should never have been part of our assortment,” Target wrote in a statement shared on social media on Monday, Aug. 24. “It is no longer for sale. As a company, we got this wrong, and we are deeply sorry.”

 

“We know this is especially hurtful for our Black guests, team members and partners,” the statement from Target continued. “Removing the costume is an important first step, and we are looking closely at how this happened and what needs to change to ensure this won’t happen again.”

 

In photos of the now-deleted costume, sold as “Kids’ Glows under Blacklight Circus Clown,” a young Black boy modeled the outfit, which featured a black-and-orange printed bodysuit and hood with an exaggerated smile and mini top hat.

 

The model’s pose, in which he stands with one leg and arm raised in a waving gesture, particularly sparked criticism for its affiliation with Jim Crow-era negative depictions of Black people, according to The Cut.

 

“Target, for real? I’m not surprised, but this is a new low,” comedian LaTrez Anderson said in a now-deleted Instagram Reel about the costume, per the outlet.

 

“The amount of people this costume had to go through to get approved says A. LOT. WHAT YEAR IS IT!?” an Instagram user commented on Target’s apology post.

 

Blackface is defined as “dark makeup worn to mimic the appearance of a Black person and especially to mock or ridicule Black people,” according to Merriam-Webster. The use of blackface in the U.S. was initially recorded through “minstrel shows,” in which white performers would wear blackface and mock Black people based on negative stereotypes, according to the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

 

The Halloween costume controversy comes nearly a year after Target rolled back Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Target CEO Brian Cornell later stepped down after 11 years with the company, it announced in August 2025. Target has faced consumer boycotts since early last year due to the DEI cuts, PEOPLE previously reported.

 

Anne and Lucy Dayton, the daughters of one of Target’s co-founders, called the company’s actions “a betrayal” at the time, CNN previously reported.

17500: On Black-Owned Brands At Target.

 

Digiday published a lengthy report on Black-owned brands feeling alienated—and abandoned—by Target.

 

The retailer’s decision to pull back inclusive initiatives triggered a DEIBA+ domino effect with collateral damage to cultures, communities, and cash registers.

 

Target has alienated Black-owned brands, founders say, as some startups vanish from its shelves

 

By Mitchell Parton

 

This story was first published on Digiday sibling Modern Retail.

 

In 2022, April Showers finally got her big retail break as her brand, Afro Unicorn, entered Target and Walmart.

 

Afro Unicorn is a licensed-character brand designed for women of color that sells hair-care products, books, apparel and more. For Showers, as a Black entrepreneur aiming to normalize Black beauty, getting into mainstream retail was a critical milestone.

 

“It wasn’t to help normalize it for us,” Showers said. “It was there to normalize it for everyone else, so that when a little white girl walks into the room and sees a Black girl, she doesn’t look at her any differently.”

 

Nearly four years later, however, Showers’ products are no longer found on Target’s shelves after the company pulled back from some diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Showers told Modern Retail that, as a result of Target’s decision, she decided to stop advertising Afro Unicorn’s presence at the retailer, adding that the brand’s sales at Target fell below the company’s standards and that its products were cleared from its shelves by the end of 2025.

 

Some Afro Unicorn plushes and a book are still available on Target’s website, but not in stores — speaking to how long it can take for a brand’s inventory to be cleared from warehouses. The brand is still available at Walmart and CVS Pharmacy.

 

This isn’t the way Showers wanted things to go. She said she initially pushed her community to do a “buyout” — as in buying all the Black brands at Target until they sold out — but they were resistant to it. She said her followers, Black or not, did not want to shop at Target as they felt like the company didn’t acknowledge it had made a mistake in how it pulled back from DEI programs.

 

“I never want to feel like I’m hurting my community or anyone around, so if you tell me we’re boycotting [Target], then we’re boycotting it; one band, one sound,” Showers said. “I did not like how Target never came out with a statement and really put it on the backs of the founders to figure this all out.”

 

Afro Unicorn isn’t the only Black-owned brand that has disappeared from Target’s shelves over the past few years. While Target’s DEI pullback hurt its reputation within the Black community, other Black founders Modern Retail spoke with said they found Target to be a frustrating wholesale partner, even before 2025.

 

A couple of founders said they struggled to get key information from their respective buyers, which hampered their sales. One described promotions they had to pay to participate in that they thought would be free. And, in the case of another founder, they only got an answer about their brand’s fate with Target — after months of unanswered emails — after going to a Target diversity executive, even though the brand wasn’t part of any supplier diversity program at Target.

 

Target representatives declined to share details on specific conversations or interactions with vendors, but said that it makes changes to its assortment based on how products are performing and what shoppers are looking for.

 

“Style, design and value are at the heart of our differentiated assortment, and emerging brands play an important role alongside national brands and owned brands,” a Target spokesperson said in a statement. “We’re proud of our long-term record of helping small businesses grow and reach new customers at Target, and will continue to create opportunities for new brands.”

 

Other Black-owned brands once featured at Target have been removed from the retailer’s assortment without explanation. These include Alikay Naturals and Oyin Handmade, which are still sold outside of Target. Some, like hair-care brand Curls Dynasty, have gone out of business entirely.

 

Entrepreneur and author Tina Wells said her luggage and accessories brand, WNDR LN, was built exclusively for Target but was canceled and removed from stores by late 2024. While some of her products are still listed on Target’s website, she said she hasn’t fulfilled an order to Target since August 2023 and that anything still available is back stock.

 

A representative for Black-owned skin-care brand GlowRx, in an email, said the brand “no longer being in Target was not our voluntary decision.” 

 

Some brands may have been removed from Target due to their sales performance.

 

“I’ve seen them kick out eight brands — not because they were Black, not because they were woman-owned and not because they were Latina-owned, but because they didn’t perform,” Melissa Butler, founder of vegan lipstick brand The Lip Bar, said in an Instagram video last year. She was warning her shoppers that the same fate could come to Black brands if customers were to stop shopping for them at Target as part of a boycott.

 

Target, for its part, is trying to position 2026 as a comeback year. This month, Target reported its first quarter of sales growth in more than a year as CEO Michael Fiddelke and his team have worked to refine its assortment and invested hundreds of millions of dollars in payroll and store technology to improve the guest experience.

 

And, Target continues to expand the number of Black-owned brands it carries in stores. It has hundreds of Black-owned brands in its stores, double the amount compared to 2020, the company said in an email. Last fall, it added KBB by Kahlana to its stores, which a press release described as “one of Target’s most in-demand women’s apparel and accessories brands.” It continues to spotlight Black-owned brands on its website, such as through a Black History Month collection featuring Black designers.

 

But even as Target adds new Black-owned brands to its assortment, it has burned bridges with others.

 

“I personally don’t feel like we saw any benefit,” from being at Target, one Black founder who spoke on the condition of anonymity said. The founder said their brand was dropped in the fall of 2024 after several years with the retailer. “We invested a lot of money and a lot of time, and we spent much more money than we ever made at Target. We were doing so much better before we were in store at Target, and if I could redo it, I probably would have just not done the partnership at all.”

 

The lingering DEI problem

 

One of the big driving factors that led many Black entrepreneurs, like Showers, to pull back on their support for Target was the company’s decision last year to walk back some of its DEI goals, programs and initiatives. That decision — and Target’s murky communications around what led to the pullback — led to some shoppers boycotting the chain. 

 

Last year, Target concluded its three-year diversity, equity and inclusion goals, concluded its Racial Equity Action and Change initiatives, stopped all externally diversity-focused surveys such as the HRC’s Corporate Equality Index and renamed its “supplier diversity” team to “supplier engagement.” Still, the company said that this year, it fulfilled its 2021 commitment to invest $2 billion in Black-owned businesses.

 

Showers said fellow founders would tell her they were waiting for Target executives to admit they made a mistake on DEI, but that she was never optimistic. Target’s pullback itself came off as performative, Showers said, given that it previously had embraced the Black and LGBTQ+ communities, such as by making public statements on racial equity and investing in scholarships, business consulting and sponsorships aimed to support marginalized groups.

 

“It was like a slap in the face to the community that basically felt that they helped build Target’s name in the urban sector,” Showers said. “The community was hurt. It was an emotional attachment that they had with Target, because they felt like Target was there for us.”

 

Target did eventually address the frustration last May, but in an internal email that communications professionals found vague and underwhelming and didn’t specifically address what the company did.

 

Target’s Fiddelke told the Associated Press in March that boycotts were among the things that impacted its sales last year. The company’s net sales decreased 1.7% to $104.8 billion from 2024 to 2025. “We’ve got trust to win back with guests, and we’ll be focused on doing it,” he told the outlet. “There’s no easy button to win back trust, but we’ll do the work.”

 

Shortly after Fiddelke’s comments that Target’s goal was to win back guest trust, Atlanta pastor Jamal Bryant in March said he was ending his boycott of the company after “productive” conversations with Fiddelke and others at the company, according to USA Today. Target, however, did not offer any concessions or reverse any changes it made to its policies, the newspaper reported.

 

However, organizers of another boycott — civil rights attorney Nekima Levy Armstrong, Jaylani Hussein of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and Monique Cullars-Doty of Black Lives Matter Minnesota — held a press conference, also in March, to say their boycott remains ongoing.

 

But the DEI pullback has continued to harm the company’s brand reputation, argues SOC Investment Group, Mercy Investment Services and Trillium Asset Management. The activist investors launched a campaign this month encouraging shareholders to vote against the re-elections of former Target CEO and executive chair Brian Cornell, as well as lead independent director Christine Leahy.

 

“Target’s brand has eroded, and it’s not from taking a stance, but from appearing disingenuous on social issues,” said Emma Bayes, deputy director of SOC Investment Group, in an interview. Her firm works with labor unions and their pension funds to promote good governance. 

 

“Retreating from DEI commitments that once defined it as a leader, Target undermined its credibility, made the brand feel inauthentic at a time when consumers are actively seeking companies that stand firmly and consistently by their values,” Bayes said.

 

Showers said she’s not completely against working with Target again, but would need to see a statement made addressing its previous decision on DEI, among other things.

 

“I don’t see myself going back until Target actually does what they did [before] 2024 and truly embraces women, Black businesses and all other marginalized businesses, like they did previously, publicly,” Showers said. “I know that would never happen.”

 

Showers took a six-figure hit just within her hair-care line after leaving Target, she said. Her company lost a total of $600,000 in revenue from 2024 to 2025, according to her. She attributes those lost sales to retailer boycotts in response to DEI decisions in response to the Trump administration.

 

“We were collateral damage because of this administration’s policies,” she said. “It was this administration, with their fear that they did to these retailers for DEI, that caused the hurt.”

 

A costly bet on Target

 

For other Black founders, their issues with Target stem from their belief that the retailer was not a good partner in giving their brands visibility and accessibility nationwide.

 

When Trey Brown and his brother Donovan appeared on “Shark Tank” with their Ride FRSH line of air fresheners in 2023, the two co-founders said their goal was to expand the business at retail. Later that year, that dream became reality. They landed a deal with Target to get their products into stores, which was supposed to begin their launch into mass retail, in addition to an agreement with AutoZone.

 

Instead, Target has been a nightmare for the Black-owned brand, as Brown described to Modern Retail. Shortly. After the launch, he said, customers would complain that they couldn’t find the products in the stores. He discovered the stores would have the items but not put them on the floor, and instead hold them in the back room.

 

Brown said Ride FRSH only ever got an answer about what happened to his brand this year from a Target diversity executive, even though the brand was accepted at Target as any other supplier, not as part of any diversity program.

 

“Why do I have to talk to the diversity initiatives guy to get an answer when I’m not even in a DEI program, and never was?” Brown said. “I should be able to reach the owner of the specific section, the buyer of the section. But somehow, nobody’s following up, and nobody gave a shit. So it just was like, ‘OK, so I have to go talk to the Black guy to get a response?’”

 

He said the executive apologized and said that’s not the way Target handles it, but that their solution was to get in touch with Target Plus — a third-party marketplace program that only deals with products sold online, not in stores. Brown said he was told by the diversity executive that it was “not likely” that he would get his products back on the floor.

 

Ride FRSH no longer appears on Target’s website; Brown said he’s not exactly sure when Target stopped listing the product or selling it in stores. He said Target has sent invoices to the brand that buyers would tell the brothers to ignore.

 

“Even when they [Target] had an opportunity to tell us that we were no longer with them, they just didn’t tell us that,” he said. In recent months, he has struggled to get an answer from Target’s buyers on whether the retailer has discontinued the relationship, and if so, why they have done so. He also said he hasn’t gotten any information on how the brand performed at Target.

 

“We’re stuck with a whole bunch of inventory, trying to figure out what’s going on,” Brown said.

 

The founder whose brand was dropped by Target in 2024 went through a similar ordeal. 

 

“We were told there was a change in product lineup, so they were just not going to move forward,” they said, adding that there was no other reason given as to why they were removed. “That was the whole conversation.” This founder, like Brown, said they had sent several emails to Target buyers without a response when trying to get information on a promotion they were supposed to be part of.

 

The founder said they paid for and warehoused at least $100,000 in product to be prepared for the next season with Target. Target had encouraged them to have the product stored in the U.S. rather than overseas, they said, so the brand would be able to get it to the retailer if the company needed a last-minute shipment instead of paying up to $30,000 to ship it from overseas.

 

“We’ve been, like, selling through it, slowly but surely, but we’re paying ridiculous amounts of money, like warehouse fees,” they said.

 

The founder said being at Target was costly overall, due to shipping costs, giving Target 50% of the proceeds and having to pay to change their packaging at the request of Target buyers. Additionally, the entrepreneur said they would have to pay if they wanted to be featured in certain promotions through Target’s Roundel retail media network, including Black History Month promotions. “If I wanted to pay $25,000 for marketing, I wouldn’t go in Target, I would just make an ad and go direct-to-consumer myself,” they said.

 

Finally, the founder said they had to pay for a certification in order to be featured on Target’s website as a Black-owned vendor. They said they had thought Target would give the brand free marketing opportunities during Black History Month or other events.

 

Brown, for his part, said he had no numbers on how Ride FRSH sold at Target, making it impossible to tell other retailers how they performed there. That could jeopardize future attempts at retail expansion. “If another retailer wants to come to us and ask us for numbers, we don’t have any,” he said.

 

He estimates he has lost $200,000 due to what happened with Target. What’s particularly frustrating, he said, is that it also compromises his direct-to-consumer business, because the brand stopped focusing as much on it to fulfill orders for retailers and because the capital it would use to invest in it is tied up with the retailers. 

 

“You just want a chance to have an even playing field somewhere in this country,” Brown said. From his perspective, “there were never any issues with our products, and we did everything we were supposed to do. But if you don’t put the products out on the floor, then how are we supposed to compete?”

17338: BHM 2026—Target.

Target celebrates Black History Month…? Target?!

17316: Protestors Target Target Again.

 

MediaPost reported Target is facing more protests, the latest episodes stemming from ICE agents “aggressively and violently” detaining two employees at stores in Minnesota.

 

Hey, seems like a natural transition from DEI dumping to ICE detaining.

 

Target Under Fire After ICE Detains U.S. Citizens

 

By Tanya Gazdik

 

Target is facing protests after Immigration Customs Enforcement agents “aggressively and violently” detained two employees at one of the retailer’s locations in its home state of Minnesota, according to a local official. 

 

The detention occurred at the store in Richfield, Minnesota on Jan. 8 after a “confrontation that began in the parking lot and spilled into the vestibule, according to local officials and witness accounts,” reported the New York Post. “Minnesota state Rep. Michael Howard said the agents entered the store without a warrant and physically detained the workers, while family members and witnesses alleged the incident amounted to racial profiling.”

 

One of the employees shouted, “I’m literally a U.S. citizen!” as agents escorted him toward a vehicle, The Wall Street Journal reported.

 

“Over 100 people gathered outside the Target on State Street holding signs with pictures of people who have been killed by Immigration Customs Enforcement,” according to The (Purdue) Exponent. 

 

The employees were assisting customers at the mobile ordering pickup parking spaces when they were stopped by agents led by a senior U.S. Border Patrol commander, officials said.

 

Howard told Newsweek that both individuals detained during the enforcement action at the store in Richfield were injured and later released, describing the arrests as “pure madness” and criticizing what he called an escalation of federal enforcement in his community that he says has created fear. 

 

“The Richfield incident is one in a growing number of violent encounters between civilians and federal agents captured on video since the killing of Renee Nicole Good by the ICE officer Jonathan E Ross on 7 January,” according to The Guardian. “Gregory Bovino, the senior US border patrol official who has become the public face of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement action in Minnesota and elsewhere, was present during the incident.”

 

According to Howard and video footage taken by witnesses, a team of ICE agents that had assembled at the Target forced two employees to the ground at the entrance to the store, then bundled them into a dark SUV.

 

“Target declined to comment,” according to The Minnesota Star Tribune. “The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that Border Patrol arrested a U.S. citizen for assault.”