Ivanka Trump's clothing line has benefited from an incredible sales boost over the past month, and President Donald Trump's daughter might have White House senior counselor Kellyanne Conway to thank for the increase.
One month ago Thursday, Conway went on Fox News' "Fox and Friends" to give Ivanka Trump's merchandise a "free commercial" after Nordstrom decided to drop the first daughter's clothing line, citing a decline in sales.
Donald Trump immediately took to Twitter to voice his frustration, saying his eldest daughter was "treated unfairly" by the retailer. Other outlets — like Belk, ShopStyle and Jet — dropped Ivanka Trump's brand, too.
In response, Conway took to national television to instruct viewers to "go buy Ivanka's stuff."
"This is just a wonderful line," she said. "I own some of it. … I’m going to give a free commercial here. Go buy it today, everybody. You can find it online."
And even though the White House adviser was, according to press secretary Sean Spicer, "counseled" for her decision to promote Ivanka Trump's brand from the White House, it appears viewers heeded the instruction. The 35-year-old entrepreneur's products received an "unheard of" spike last month, according one e-commerce specialist.
On Tuesday, fashion website Refinery29 reached out to Lyst, an e-commerce aggregator that tracks purchasing data from thousands of retailers, which found that sales on Ivanka Trump's products increased 346 percent from January to February.
That means that in January, Ivanka Trump's brand was ranked at No. 550, but by the end of February, it catapulted all the way to No. 11.
"Ivanka Trump's brand has never ranked in as a top seller on our site," Sarah Tanner, Lyst's director of public relations, told Refinery29. "To see such an extreme spike in one month is completely unheard of and came as a huge surprise to us."
Despite being dropped by Nordstrom — and several other outlets — and facing boycotts because of her last name, Ivanka Trump's brand appears to be thriving.
"Since the beginning of February, they were some of the best performing weeks in the history of the brand," Ivanka Trump's brand president, Abigail Klem, said. "For several different retailers, Ivanka Trump was a top performer online, and in some of the categories, it was the [brand’s] best performance ever."
And it appears at least some of the sales are directly linked to the boycotts against the Trump family. According to a February report from Refinery29, Ivanka Trump's perfume was the No. 1-selling fragrance on Amazon and commenters suggested they were buying the product as a form of counter-protest.
One purchaser wrote: "I bought this perfume in support of Ivanka Trump. I had no idea how it smelled. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised and I LOVE it!"
All of this has led Klem to feel "super optimistic" about the future of the Ivanka Trump brand. "I think, one, a lot of people support Ivanka, even across both political parties," she said.
