Sears Holdings announced Feb. 11 that it would no longer sell Trump Homes items in the online stores for its Sears and Kmart brands.
Now it just needs US president Donald Trump to respond with a Twitter attack—and the beleaguered US retailer could hope for a bump in its share price.
That’s what happened to Nordstrom, whose stock rose more than 7% after being lashed on Twitter by the president for dropping first daughter Ivanka Trump’s brand.
<img class=”alignnone wp-image-908344 size-hero-m” src=”https://qz.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/nordstom2.png?w=640″ alt=”How Nordstom’s share price reacts to a Trump tweet” width=”640″ height=”400″ />
Sears and Kmart said they stopped selling online 31 Trump Home items, including furniture, lighting, and bedding. Neither stocked Trump Home merchandise in brick-and-mortar stores, though Sears Holdings said the products could still be available “online via third-party Marketplace vendors.”
Sears Holdings implied that other, non-Trump Home items had also been removed as part of its “initiative to optimize its online product assortment.” The company said in a statement: ”We constantly refine that assortment to focus on our most profitable items.”
Unlike Nordstrom, Sears Holdings didn’t say explicitly whether the decision had to do with a lack of customer interest in Trump-branded products. Internal data obtained by the Wall Street Journal showed a steep decline in Nordstrom’s sales of Ivanka Trump goods last fiscal year, decreasing by 32%. Sales fell in 45 out of the 52 weeks and were particularly disappointing in the weeks leading up to the US presidential election.
As of this writing, Trump has yet to make his thoughts known about Sears Holdings’ move. He has never tweeted about Sears before.