Boycotts

How many of you boycott stores or businesses because of political, religious, or other reasons?

I am a convenience boycotter, and not entirely consistent.

• I have boycotted Target since the 1980s because they refused to accept a check because I wasn't in their system. Well, they had just built the first store within hundreds of miles of where I lived a week before. I have never been back to a Target store. That's a pretty easy boycott because there is usually a good alternative next door or just down the street.
• I refuse to buy anything from Starbucks because the company has supported pretty much every political cause that I hate. The last straw (now a pun) was their support of gun control. We used to stop at Starbucks once in awhile while traveling, but I prefer Dunkin' Donuts and there are far more Dunkin' Donuts in the Northeast than there are Starbucks, and the prices are a whole lot better.
• Until they came out in favor of gun control, I used to shop at Dick's Sporting Goods from time to time, but they don't sell anything that I can't get cheaper online anyhow. Still, it's nice to be able to look at it and take it home after buying it. Online or off, there are other sporting goods stores that I won't buy from either, although I sometimes have to look them up to remember which are the good guys and which are the bad guys.
• I very much wanted to boycott Netflix when they appointed Susan Rice to their board and entered into a contract with Barack and Michelle Obama. But most everything I watch is from Netflix. Instead, I canceled my DVD plan with them, which I did like because they have some stuff on DVD that isn't available on streaming. So they lost about $10 a month from me since I had been on the 4-DVD plan.
• We switched our membership from Sam's Club to BJ's after the Sam's Club CEO said, in an interview, that Sam's Club would not do business with any company whose board members were white, or mostly white. Fine. If Sam's Club isn't interested in doing business with white people, I'll move to BJ's. They have pretty much the same stuff at the same prices, plus their gas is cheaper.
• With the exception of BJ's, which does offer better prices, I don't shop at stores that don't offer bags, or which charge for bags. Besides, BJ's has boxes, and they don't charge for them.
• There are some local stores and one restaurant that I haven't been to in more than a decade, including some that I used to go to often, because of political positions they took on some local issues that were important to me. I don't care what political positions an owner takes but when they take a position that I oppose as a business, and not as a private individual, then they have chosen to bring their business into it.
• I refuse to use a self-serve checkout unless they offer significant savings for doing their job for them. If they want me to work as a check-out clerk, they can pay me. On that issue, when BJ's put a bunch of self-serve counters in, in order to encourage people to use them, they had opened only two regular check-out counters, both of which had long lines. I was there the first day they did that, I think, and several people were at the manager's desk at the same time, complaining and threatening to leave their stuff in the cart and go elsewhere. While they still have the self-serve counters, they always staff their full-serve counters now,.

 

I knew you wouldn't be.

 

I forgot this one, which is one of the easiest boycotts I have ever done.

• I have been boycotting the NFL since they have been letting players take a knee during the national anthem. I even wrote on their Facebook page that I would never again watch an NFL game. I didn't mention that I had never before watched an NFL game or that football bored the hell out of me anyhow. That's the kind of boycott I like. If I were Catholic, I'd give up smoking and drinking for Lent. I might even give up beets.

 

Apparently, Netflix has lost a significant amount of business, from cancellations and a smaller number of new subscribers. It's hard to tell how much of that is from a conservative boycott and how much of it is from competition, though. Probably a mix, but in the face of competition, it's best not to add a boycott.

The bathroom scandal that Target got into has led to their losing business. I would have thought it would have started with their not taking my check, though. Target's big problem is that they are such an easy boycott. I've never seen a Target store that didn't have a viable alternative next door or across the street.

 

Shut up, Frank.

 

This is it for me, too ! You are exactly right, Shirley , and I will never watch a football game either; but I am not giving up my beets, not even for Lent.
I didn’t much like Target, even before the bathroom scandal; but now I am sure that I am very unlikely to ever shop there.
I am gradually learning to remember to keep the grocery bags in the back of the pickup, and a quarter in the cup holder, so that I have bags when i shop at Aldi, and money to get the shopping cart out of the rack.
Aldi has good food, good prices, and they stand behind their products; so it is well worth the extra effort to shop there each week.
Offhand, I can’t think of any place that we have boycotted, at least lately, and unless I actually think that it might make a difference, I don’t even consider doing that.