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Target is discounting everything to win shoppers back amid boycott
Reuters
Target is launching a first-of-its-kind one-day sale to try and boost back-to-school shopper traffic amid a boycott over its bathroom policy.
The retailer is offering a 10% discount on everything in its stores and online on Sunday. Target is calling the event #TargetRunDay.
It marks the first time Target has ever offered a 10% discount both in stores and on its website.
The sale comes after Target last week reported its first quarterly traffic decline in more than two years.
Target's same-store transactions, which is how traffic is measured, fell 2.2% in the second quarter. Overall, sales fell 7.2% to $16.2 billion.
"In the second quarter, our No. 1 challenge was traffic, which affected sales in all of our merchandise categories," Target CEO Brian Cornell said last week on a call with analysts.
Shopper traffic is falling amid a boycott over Target's new policy, announced earlier this year, that welcomes customers to use any bathroom or fitting room that matches their gender identity.
The announcement triggered an immediate backlash. Critics said the policy opened the door for sexual predators to victimize women and children inside the retailer's bathrooms, and more than 1.4 million people signed a pledge to stop shopping at Target unless it reversed the policy.
Target is now installing single-occupancy bathrooms in all of its stores to give critics of the policy more privacy. The new bathrooms, which already exist in a majority of Target stores, are costing Target $20 million to install, Fortune reports.
To take advantage of Target's sale on Sunday, shoppers can cut out the coupon from Sunday’s weekly and take it to Target's stores, or text "RUN" to 827438.
The discount will automatically apply to purchases made online.
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