The Bloomberg Second Measure report showed that Walmart and Target saw year-over-year sales declines of 8% and 10%, respectively, on Feb. 28. However, both retailers bounced back over the next two days, aligning with typical consumer spending patterns. These fluctuations are consistent with broader trends observed throughout 2025, the report said.
Indeed, consumers’ wallets stayed open
Additional data from ecommerce analytics firm MikMak shows that Amazon’s share of online traffic increased from 23% to 32% between February 28 and March 2, showing no significant impact from the boycott, according to MikMak CEO Rachel Tipograph.
Walmart saw a slight decline, with its share of traffic slipping from 29% to 27% during the same period, largely due to Amazon’s gains.
Instacart, which was not targeted by the boycott, experienced the steepest drop in online traffic, falling from 23% to 15%, according to MikMak. By March 2, Instacart’s share of online traffic dipped to 11%
Ad agency Wpromote tracked sales for more than 50 retail advertisers during the boycott. Total sales on February 28 had less than a 1% change compared to other Fridays in February, according to Wpromote’s data.
“We saw that consumer wallets stayed open,” said Natalie McCaffrey, VP of audience strategy and insights at Wpromote.
McCaffrey added that the boycotts did not affect ad spend. WPromote did see a 27% drop in ad conversions on Feb. 28, but McCaffrey noted that this decrease in ad performance isn’t necessarily tied to the boycott. Instead, it aligned with typical fluctuations seen on Fridays throughout the month. She added that other economic factors, such as tariffs and broader economic uncertainty, likely played a role in the observed dip.
Wpromote also tracked social media posts related to the boycott, finding that hashtags about the boycott barely gained traction. The agency’s benchmark for virality is a hashtag that accelerates from zero to 100,000 mentions within a few hours. However, the boycott’s main hashtags—#economicblackout and #economicboycott—only reached 60,000 mentions, according to McCaffrey.
