Going woke and going broke is an all-too-common phenomenon in the retail space. Disney, Netflix, Bed Bath & Beyond, Hollywood awards shows, and countless other organizations have discovered first hand that people vote with their wallets.
And yet, more and more companies refuse to learn a lesson and prefer cramming woke ideology down consumers throats, only to find out they aren’t immune from swift and justified backlash.
The latest company to test the woke waters is Wayfair. The e-commerce giant took a stance in January of 2021 against Mike Lindell’s MyPillow products. Lindell has been an outspoken critic of the way many aspects of the 2020 presidential election were handled and drew the ire of leftists everywhere for daring to dispute Joe Biden was not the most popular president of all time.
CONFIRMED: @Wayfair will no longer sell MyPillow in light of their CEO Mike Lindell’s role in last week’s insurrection. https://t.co/GPyBwmXbzY
— Sleeping Giants (@slpng_giants) January 19, 2021
Though correlation is not necessarily proof of causation, it is hard to see how an e-commerce platform would fail during the height of Covid hysteria when competitor Amazon became valued at over $1 trillion. Wayfair lost a ton of conservative customers who simply visited MyPillow.com and used promo code BSC, bypassing the woke retailer altogether and slashing their bottom line
As reported at ProTrumpNews, which includes the graphic below, Wayfair’s stock has tumbled over 80% since declaring war against election skepticism.
In order to stay afloat, Wayfair is now seeking new debt, according to InvestorPlace, which wrote:
Now, Wayfair’s downtrodden investors have been hit with another development that’s not going over well. Reportedly, Wayfair intends to offer a whopping $600 million worth of convertible senior notes, due 2027.
The response to this big-money debt issuance proposal was immediate. By 11:00 a.m. Eastern, W stock was down between 5% and 6%. Bear in mind, the shares had already fallen from $195 to around $50 in 2022 before Wayfair dropped this bombshell on its investors.
Just to clarify, convertible senior notes are basically a type of short- to medium-term debt that a company can issue, which will convert into equity (stock shares) at some point. It’s fine that Wayfair will receive a major capital infusion by issuing these senior notes. However, the company will have to pay it all back with interest.
Amazingly, canceling conservatives wasn’t the first time the online retailer found itself in the middle of cancel culture. In 2019, the same company faced calls from the political left for its alleged business with the federal government selling bed equipment for the influx of immigrants along the southern border.
CNBC wrote at the time:
Wayfair drew political criticism and calls from some customers for a boycott after employees protested the company’s apparent sale of $200,000 of mattresses and bunk beds destined for a Texas detention camp for migrant children.
Under the hashtag #BoycottWayfair, customers and businesses took to Twitter to announce they were canceling orders from the online home goods retailer, returning purchases and boycotting the retailer until the company apologizes. One employee estimated that 500 workers walked out of the company’s Boston headquarters in protest at 1:30 p.m. ET Wednesday, holding signs that read “solidarity with migrant families” and “people not prisons.”
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