Tag Archive for 'merchandise sales'

Do the sales of politically-themed merchandise predict the winner of a given election? CafePress seems to think so after the outcome of the 2004 election.

In January, sales of Obama merchandise exploded, leaving Hillary in the dust. Recently, Obama-related sales have dipped, while McCain-item sales have slowly increased, like the little train that could, leaving the two candidates essentially tied.

Additionally, it appears that for months there’s been just one new McCain design for every 3 for Obama.

It turns out that sales of Kittens for Clinton T-shirts are perhaps no less reliable than Gallup polls. For example, sales of Barack Obama merchandise first surpassed Hillary Clinton items in late January, just weeks before the Illinois senator took the lead in the polls. And merchandise for the Obama-Biden ticket was outselling McCain-Palin items until the Republican National Convention ended in September. Sales for both are now neck and neck, much as the candidates are in the polls.

And candidate preference is not the only insight gleaned from CafePress sales. “In 2004, you could really tell Bush was running against himself,” Ms. Maniatis said, because most of the political designs were either pro- or anti-Bush, rather than focusing on the Democratic contender John Kerry.(NYTimes)

So if you’re a political news junkie, you may want to check out sales stats at cafepress periodically, not just polling results at gallup, to stay in the know.