When Do Consumer Boycotts Work?

[Joshua Farrell]

Uber, Starbucks, Budweiser. These are just a few of the brands that have faced consumer boycotts for taking political stances over the last couple of years. Do you think that these boycotts will affect sales or change company policy?

When does “voting with your wallet” work?

 

[Ajay]

Honestly, most of these companies are large enough to just write off the losses. Nike is also a huge one that took a stance siding with Kaepernick. I've always thought that these are publicity stunts, and it worked out for Nike with their stock reaching a record high late Summer.

 

[Deleted member 1609]

never

 

[Xyphien]

It works mostly for smaller companies. If you and a large group of people boycott a small company it could cause them to either adhear to your demands, or shut down all together. I see it a lot, especially on online games. However, larger companies such as uber, nike, etc. even 10,000 people refusing to buy their products don't touch them enough to want to do anything about it to be honest.

For example, my largest site had a boycott because I removed a specific moderator from my forums. She brought over 1,000 members with her. At the time I had 10,000 members, which was a 10th of the people, most of the ones active were among the ones to leave. This was devastating at first until I cleared everything up, and explained why the mod was removed, and after about a year everything settled down.