Foot traffic at Target declined for the fourth consecutive month since it rolled back its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts in January, and a reputation analytics company reports that the retailer’s reputation has suffered, too.

For the month of May, foot traffic fell 1.6% YoY, which while nothing to pop the bubbly over was less grim than previous declines in February (-9%), March (-6.5%), and April (-3.3%), according to Placer.ai. While correlation—we’ll say it again—is not causation, the traffic slump began after Target announced it was rolling back its DEI efforts on January 24, the day after President Trump said he was acting to “abolish all discriminatory diversity, equity, and inclusion nonsense…throughout the government and the private sector.”

Costco, which rebuffed calls to dismantle its DEI program, saw its foot traffic increase 5.1% YoY in May, following increases for the previous three months when traffic fell at Target, up 2.2% in February, 7.5% in March, and 3.4% in April, per Placer.ai.

Foot traffic has been down for 16 of the last 18 weeks at Target, inching into positive territory only for the weeks that began April 14, when it was up 0.4%, and April 21, up 0.1%. For the same 18 weeks, traffic was down at Costco for only one of them, falling 2.5% on the week that began April 14.

“This is concerning”: Reputation analytics firm Caliber, meanwhile, has found that Target’s reputational score fell over the same period on multiple metrics, according to data it provided exclusively to Retail Brew.

Keep reading here.—AAN

Amazon’s summer Prime Day could be light on deals as sellers don’t want to quickly sell through the inventory they stocked up on before tariffs hit.

Three agency heads told Retail Brew that instead of going all-in on Prime Day, some Amazon sellers are being pickier and more strategic about how they discount their catalogs. In the last few months, some Amazon sellers have also had to raise prices by 15%–20% due to costs tied to tariffs.

Put together, the Amazon experts said many brands are hesitant to commit to even Prime Day sales, because the market feels unpredictable and sellers are worried about running out of inventory too quickly.

Keep reading here.—VC

The call came in from China around 3 a.m. on April 14. With 145% tariffs about to take effect, Landzie Founder and CEO Andrew Laplante recalled how his biggest supplier gave him an ultimatum: He had five minutes to decide if he’d like to cancel Landzie’s latest order or ship it out as planned.

For a small New Jersey-based lawn care equipment company, it was a tricky decision, but Laplante ultimately decided it was more important to stay stocked up than potentially lose out on cost. “We said, ‘No, please ship it,’” he said.

In the weeks since making that decision, during which time a 90-day pause on tariffs went into effect, Landzie’s response to the trade conflict has evolved from a simple yes or no decision in the middle of the night to a series of considered strategic pivots, which have prioritized keeping product flowing over cutting imports.

Keep reading here.—AV