Ivanka Trump shutters apparel line as sales plummet 53.9 percent

Ivanka Trump shuttered her apparel line in late July in order to focus more of her time on her responsibilities in Washington. This isn’t the first time Ivanka, the daughter of President Donald Trump, and her brand have been at the forefront of the news; in October of 2016, the #grabyourwallet movement quickly went viral as followers of the hashtag were urged to boycott brands that did not distance themselves from Presidential Candidate Trump in the wake of his infamous Access Hollywood tape (we wrote about the impact of that movement in this very space).

The news of Ms. Trump closing her apparel line came after several department stores dropped the brand, which led to a drop in sales. According to Rakuten Intelligence, sales of Ms. Trump’s brand dropped a sharp 41.8 percent year-over-year from 2016 to 2017. For the sake of comparison, the four categories where Ms. Trump’s brand lives -- Shoes, Apparel & Accessories, Jewelry & Watches, and Fragrance -- which will be referred to as “the Ivanka categories”, grew 18.8 percent in the same time.

Looking at just the first six months of 2017 and 2018, sales for Ms. Trump’s brand are down 53.9 percent year-over-year. This is a significant decline, as they were down only 29.3 percent year-over-year for the identical period the year before.

Overall sales of the Ivanka Trump brand are down, but the severity of the decline looks to be toeing party lines. Illinois, New Jersey, California, and Massachusetts--the states with the largest decreases in buyer numbers (over 40 percent year-over-year) voted Democrat in the 2016 Election, while the states with the smallest decrease in buyers: Florida, Georgia, and Ohio all voted Republican. In fact, Michigan is the only state to show any kind of buyer growth year-over-year with a 7.1 percent increase. When grouped together, the remaining Democratic-voting states saw a 33.2 percent decrease in buyers, whereas Republican-voting states increased by 13.9 percent.

Overall, buyers who live in states that voted Democrat in 2016 declined 38.2 percent while contributing 49 percent less revenue in 2017. Buyers who live in states that voted Republican also dropped, though not as much. Republican-voting buyers dropped 6.4 percent for Ms. Trump’s brand in 2017 and contributed 30.9 percent less revenue than in 2016.

The Ivanka Trump brand has been zigging where the four categories have been zagging. The Ivanka categories have seen healthy growth across all age groups, whereas Ms. Trump’s brand has seen significant negative growth across all ages younger than 55. The only age groups Ms. Trump is seeing growth in are 55-64 year olds (4.8 percent), and 65+ year olds (53.1 percent). Meanwhile, among 25-34 year olds, the brand has seen a 52.6 percent decrease in buyers, and among 35-44 year olds, the brand has seen a 37.9 percent decrease. For comparison, the lowest growth rate seen by the four categories from 2016 to 2017 is 9.6 percent among 25-34 year olds.

With a panel of over 5.5 million online shoppers, Rakuten Intelligence gives the most detailed, and accurate digital commerce data available, and is reported daily.

Rakuten Intelligence is the only service to measure digital commerce directly from the consumer, across all retailers, at the item level, and over time. Our retailer-independent methodology precisely measures commerce as it happens. By extracting detailed information from hundreds of millions of aggregated and anonymized e-receipts, Slice can map the entire Purchase Graph, connecting each and every consumer to all their purchases.

Rakuten Intelligence gets its data from e-receipts – not a browser, app or software installed by the end-user – so its measurement reflects comprehensive shopping behavior across multiple devices, over time, which are key in an increasingly omnichannel retail world. Slice Intelligence is the exclusive e-commerce data provider for NPD’s Checkout Tracking e-commerce service.