THE DECLINE OF “TRUMP” BRANDED PRODUCTS FOR SALE

….A Trump branded suit that is no more.

The “Wall” that Trump built was around his products, not the border with Mexico.

You are probably aware that Donald Trump has had his name on a number of commercially available products.

No, they weren’t products that Trump manufactured.  They were products that manufacturers paid Donald Trump, just to put his name on them.

Before Donald Trump ran for president he had 19 products with his name on them.

But it wasn’t always that way.

Back in the 1990’s, Trump was still emerging from his long, low years with huge debts, corporate bankruptcies and tabloid divorces.  What customer wanted that on their shirt collar?

But then, his TV show, “The Apprentice” took off and rebranded Trump as a sharply dressed boardroom CEO.

After that, you  had Emeril Lagasse and Rachael Ray selling pots and pans. Greg Norman was selling golf shirts, and Trump was selling. . . everything from suits to vodka.

Trumps products included: Deoderant, Steaks, Ties, Men’s Underwear, Furniture, Mattresses, Suits, Dress Shirts, Shoes, Crystal Chandeliers, Men’s Cologne, Cuff Links, Vitamins, Men’s and Women’s Leather Goods, Vodka, Wine, Coffee Pods, Pillows, Eye Glasses, Bedding, Throw Blankets, and even a Trump Urine Test to show what vitamins you were lacking.

But today, there are only two companies still selling Trump-branded goods. One is a Panamanian company selling Trump bed linens and home goods. The other is a Turkish company selling Trump furniture.  However, at the furniture show room, the $4000 Trump end table only has the Trump name on the inside of the table.  The small brass “TRUMP” name plate is not on the outside of the table.

So, what caused this business that was paying Trump well over $2 million a year to disappear?

First, Trump decided to run for president.  And he did that by riding down his gold escalator in Trump Towers and declaring his candidacy for president by claiming that the immigrants coming over the southern border were criminals, drug runners and rapists,

Within a few weeks, the number of Trump products was down to 14.

Macy’s Department Stores was one of the first to stop selling Trump products.

“We are disappointed and distressed by recent remarks about immigrants from Mexico,” said a corporate statement from Macy’s Department Store after Trump called Mexican immigrants criminals and rapists. . . "We have decided to discontinue our business relationship with Mr. Trump.”

Losing Macy’s meant losing all the Trump merchandise that Macy’s had sold. That included, Phillips-Van Heusen, his first big suit deal which made Trump suits. Parlux, which made his colognes. And another company, Randa, that made Trump’s leather goods. They were all gone.

Donald Trump and Miss Universe 2010 Ximena Navarrete had promoted the launch of the “Success by Trump” fragrance at a New York City Macy's in April 2012, that too disappeared.  “Success by Trump,” on the Macy’s website said “Clearance Sale.”  The cologne was marked down from $42 to $9.99 for an ounce.

Nordstrom’s Department Store then stopped selling Ivanka Trump’s clothing line claiming a "lack of sales".

Serta, which made Trump Home Mattresses, had been one of Trump’s most lucrative partners. All lost.

A few months later, Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”.

He then lost another partner, a Dubai-based company that had a license to sell Trump furniture in the Middle East, Africa and India.  (The majority of their customers are Muslim.)

Then the Washington Post and the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University contacted all of the remaining companies that Trump had listed as licensing partners on his 2015 financial disclosure forms.

In one case, a company was mystified to have been listed at all.

“We haven’t done business [with him] for a long time,” said Jim Ehren, an executive at a poster publishing company in a Los Angeles suburb. His facility had once made inspirational posters, which paired Trump quotes with scenes of Wall Street or of a golf course. But not years.

Two other partnerships, one to sell Trump-branded shoes in Mexico, the other to sell Trump home organizational products, had apparently ended before any Trump-branded merchandise was ever sold.

So that left 10 products.

Trump vodka was almost dead. It had survived in Israel, after the product had fizzled elsewhere, but Trump’s own financial disclosures didn’t list it after 2015.

Trump coffee pods, also vanished.  “It was just a lack of sales,” said Sam Blane.  Two Rivers Coffee, had stopped making its, Select by Trump coffee pods a year before. “Not every idea was a good idea.”

At Downlite, which had sold Trump-branded pillows, the company said it had let the license expire in 2015.  “Purely a business decision,” said Josh Werthaiser, the company’s chief executive. “It had nothing to do with the election.”

Trump-branded eyeglasses then just up and died.

That left seven.

Of them, five companies said that they stopped making Trump products, without giving any details for why.

The decline of the Trump merchandise empire is another sign of how politics has changed this president’s business to a negative.

“Once the political campaign started, the wall went up,” said Marshal Cohen who measures retail business trends. “The wall that he [built] was more around his merchandise than it was around Mexico.”

Is this the beginning of the end for using the Trump name for selling merchandise?

One can only hope.

Copyright G.Ater  2018