Sears, Kmart Dropping 31 Trump Home Items From Online Stores

Image courtesy of Jeepers Media

Last week saw multiple retailers either dropping or de-emphasizing Ivanka Trump-branded products in their stores, and now two more chains are stepping back from the family name: Sears Holdings announced over the weekend that Kmart and Sears are pulling 31 Trump Home branded products from their online stores.

The company said on Saturday that the decision is part of push to focus online business on the most profitable items. Neither Kmart nor Sears sold Trump Home products — which includes furniture, bedding, and lighting — in retail stores, a Sears Holding spokesman told Reuters.

“As part of the company’s initiative to optimize its online product assortment, we constantly refine that assortment to focus on our most profitable items,” he said in a statement. “Amid that streamlining effort, 31 Trump Home items were among the items removed online this week.”

Those items can still be found through a third-party vendor, the spokesman said, without providing additional information about the products.

Last week, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Belk, TJMaxx, and Marshall’s made moves to either drop Ivanka Trump-branded products entirely, or deemphasize them in stores. On Thursday, senior White House official Kellyanne Conway went on TV and told people to “Go out and buy Ivanka’s stuff.”

Soon after, the U.S. Office of Government Ethics said its website had been pushed offline by the apparent rush of people looking to voice their opinion on the matter.

UPDATE: In a blog post on Monday responding to recent media reports, the company noted that “any fair observer” who searches for Trump or Ivanka Trump on Sears.com will still find “hundreds of products available for purchase.”

“All of these products are offered by our marketplace sellers and not directly by Sears or Kmart,” the company said. “The headlines do not do justice to our business or this specific brand of products that we offer through our marketplace sellers.”

The post notes again, that Sears “constantly” monitors products for productivity, “adding products that are in demand and removing products with lesser demand.”

Any products that are found to be unsafe or inappropriate may be removed as well, Sears notes.

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