The Trump brand takes another hit: Sears and Kmart

Nordstrom. Neiman Marcus. T. J. Maxx. And now, Sears and Kmart.

Sears Holdings, the company that owns Sears and Kmart retail stores, said this weekend it would remove 31 Trump-branded items from its website.

The company withdrew the products as part of a plan to focus on its “most profitable items,” Sears spokesman Brian Hanover told Reuters.

Hanover told the news organization that items from the Trump Home furniture line have been removed from the company’s website, though they can still be purchased through third-party vendors online. Neither store had the items in their physical stores, she said.

Searches of the Sears and KMart websites returned no Trump Home products, except those sold by third-party vendors.

In a statement Monday, spokesman Chris Brathwaite distanced Sears from any political controversy and reiterated that many Trump-branded products are still available through third-party sellers.

“In this case, certain products were removed from our websites that included a very small number of Trump products,” he said. “The headlines do not do justice to our business or to this specific brand of products that we offer through our marketplace vendors.”

Brathwaite added that the company prefers to focus on its business and “leave the politics to others.”

Related: Is Ivanka Trump’s Brand Losing Its Luster?

The move makes Sears the latest to get rid of products bearing the Trump name.

Earlier this month, nordstrom (JWN) she cited brand “performance,” not politics, as the reason she decided to stop carrying the Ivanka Trump clothing and accessories label.

President Trump hit out at the department store on Twitter in retaliation. Nordstrom shares rose 7% in the first two days after the tweet.

Other stores have also sought to distance themselves from the Ivanka Trump brand.

Neiman Marcus has removed the brand’s home page from its website and declined to tell CNNMoney if it intended to keep Ivanka Trump products in stores or resume online sales in the future.

TJX Enterprises (TJX)the company that owns TJ Maxx and Marshalls, also said it had recently told workers not to feature the First Daughter brand in stores.

And retailer Belk said last week that it planned to remove Ivanka Trump products from its website, but would continue to offer the line at its flagship stores.

Ivanka Trump’s clothing and accessories line has taken a hit in recent months.

His brand’s online sales fell 26% in January compared to a year earlier, according to Slice Intelligence, a retail analytics firm. Slice studied the brand’s sales at five online stores: Nordstrom, Amazon, Zappos, Macy’s, and Bloomingdale’s.

Online sales of Ivanka’s brand increased at the end of 2015, and last month’s numbers appear to be more of a “reality check,” according to Taylor Stanton, Slice’s manager of marketing and communications. The drop in brand performance was abnormal in light of a rebound in 2016 online sales in the apparel and accessories category, said Jack Beckwythe, an analyst at Slice.

Related: Kellyanne Conway Unrepentant Over Ivanka Trump Stopper

The Ivanka Trump brand has defended her performance.

Rosemary Young, Ivanka Trump’s senior director of marketing, told CNNMoney last week that the brand was growing and experienced “significant year-over-year revenue growth in 2016.”

“We believe that the strength of a brand is measured not only by the revenue it generates, but also by the integrity it maintains,” Young said.

Retailers like Bloomingdale’s, Amazon (AMZN)mr And Taylor, macy’s (METER) and Zappos still sell Ivanka Trump merchandise.

Ivanka Trump has been absent from the company that bears her name since her father won the presidency. She doesn’t have a formal management position, but she is expected to have a say on issues like women’s empowerment and childcare.

–CNNMoney’s Jackie Wattles contributed to this story.

CNN Money (New York) First published on February 12, 2017: 3:35 pm ET