Trump’s August merch sales drop 30% as Harris enters the race – Kamala sells 2.5 times more merch than before

The latest findings from research by ecommerce marketing platform Omnisend show that Donald Trump August merchandise sales on Amazon plummeted 30% compared to July. Upon entering the race, Kamala Harris’ merch sales doubled from July to August.

Omnisend has looked into the estimates of monthly sales and revenues made from the sales of presidential campaign merchandise on Amazon (April 1, 2024, to August 31, 2024). 

Kamala Harris’ August merch sales were 3 times higher than Joe Biden’s June merch sales, which proves her popularity over the previous Democratic candidate. 

Greg Zakowicz, senior ecommerce expert at Omnisend, says: 

“Even though Trump merch sales are still two times higher than those of Harris, it is pretty clear that the supporters of the Democratic candidate became much more active as soon as she entered the race.

“Kamala Harris gave new life to a previously stale and, frankly, old campaign, resulting in a decrease in sales for Trump. The sales figures of Trump merch doubled almost every month since we started conducting our research in April, and skyrocketed in July. 

“In fact, the ‘Donald Trump 2024 Survived Shot At Election Rally T-Shirt’ was the most sold item on Amazon in the “Men’s Novelty T-Shirts” category. August was the first month when we saw a decrease in sales.”

Trump has more haters buying his merch than Harris

Around of fifth of Trump’s presidential merch sold on Amazon consist of keywords such as “anti”, “fuck” and “suck”. At the same time, only 9% of Kamala Harris’ merch includes these keywords. 

Around 5% of total Trump merch sales come from the abovementioned items. For Harris, this number is as low as only 2%. 

“This shows that Americans tend to buy merch to support their candidate rather than to show their hatred toward the opposing side,” says Zakowicz. 

What are Americans’ election shopping habits?

According to the survey, 65% of Americans regularly purchase election merch. 81% of them do so during the presidential election cycle. 

Around two-thirds of Americans buy election merchandise to show their support for the candidate, a third buy merch as a collectible, and a fourth buy merch to influence others. Most Americans feel proud of their political beliefs when buying merch (60%), 32% said that they feel excited to show their support publicly, and 27% said they are confident in their political stance when buying merch. 

Typically, Americans spend $10 to $30 on their election merch per election cycle. The most popular items to buy are t-shirts, flags, and hats or caps. 

How can ecommerce brands prepare for the presidential elections?

“Not every business can, or should, create something specifically for the presidential election, but it makes sense to stop and think if you have any products you can easily tie into the event in a neutral way,” says Greg Zakowicz, Senior Ecommerce Expert at Omnisend. 

If stores don’t have such products, Zakowicz recommends thinking of brand awareness campaigns incorporating more general voting or election themes to keep customers connected to the company. Unless that is your brand ethos, it’s better to steer clear of politically charged content that could alienate part of your audience. Zakowicz recommends focusing on universal values and messages that resonate across different demographics.