Our update to Amazon political-themed election products for the first week of September does not bode well for Biden. Previously, after analyzing August’s data, we concluded that though sales figures looked weak Biden-themed products could pick up during September as pent-up demand was realized post Democratic convention. This does not appear to be the case and it is increasingly looking like enthusiasm for Biden might simply remain at low levels going into election-day. Though not always the case, normally the candidate with more enthusiastic supporters wins the election.
August vs. First Week of September
August sales data only partially included the impact of the respective national conventions. The first week of September should more fully incorporate convention-inspired purchases.
Table 1: Estimate of Relative Sales of Political-Themed Products using Amazon Best Sellers Top 100 Lists and Number of Customer Reviews, Biden-Themed Product Reviews as a Percent of Trump and Biden-themed 2020 Products by Category
|
August |
Week 1 of September |
|
| Yard Signs |
31% |
34% |
| Bumper Stickers, Decals & Magnets |
30% |
28% |
| Men’s Novelty T-shirts |
1% |
0% |
| Women’s Novelty T-shirts |
2% |
3% |
| Men’s Hats and Caps |
3% |
5% |
| Women’s Accessories |
0% |
0% |
| Outdoor Flags & Banners |
1% |
0% |
Source: Amazon, ZettaCap, for further information regarding this data please refer to our August update
Note that a 50% mark would imply roughly equal enthusiasm for each of the candidates. The fact that Biden’s best category only reaches 34% is an extremely precarious reading for the prospects of his campaign. The 0% rating in Table 1 for Women’s Accessories shows that Biden-themed products either do not show up in that category’s Top 100 list or that such products received no customer reviews. Put another way, 100% of the customer reviews for 2020 election themed products in that specific category go to Trump-themed products.
Of the seven categories shown in Table 1, Biden gained marginally in three while losing in three during the first week of September.
For Biden, the best news came from Yard Signs where he improved three percentage points. Yard signs as well are seen as an important category for elections. However, the size of the increase is relatively small considering the rather low starting point and considering we are within two months of election-day.
Somewhat more worrisome for Biden is that he had zero products in three of the seven categories. Two of these categories, he had at least appeared in August’s data – in other words, his position went from extremely weak in Men’s Novelty T-shirts and Outdoor Flags & Banners to non-existent. Trump-themed products fully dominate these categories now.
These are not numbers we would expect to see this close to the election.
We had left open the possibility that September could see a surge in Biden-themed products as pent-up demand was realized post-convention. This could have been the case especially after the Democratic ticket was officially recognized – meaning people could have waited to buy Biden / Harris products instead of just Biden products.
This has not been the case. This scenario does not look likely at this point, unless of course the delay between convention and Amazon review is much longer than we expect.
We will continue to monitor these data, but it clearly looks to heavily favor Trump at this stage and we find it difficult to foresee a surge for Biden-themed products capable of making up such lost ground in the weeks going up to the election.
Amazon sales tend to show that voter enthusiasm is lopsided in favor of Trump for 2020. We continue to see similar indications in other on-line data which stand in stark contrast to most polls. The scenario going forward looks increasingly like yet another ‘shock’ for the mainstream, consensus, and traditional (poll-based) forecasters in 2020 along similar lines to what occurred in 2016.
A Quick Note from DC
Washington DC is the most political city in the US and is the most Democratic as well. Its Democrat / Republican split was the most lopsided of any location during the 2016 election. And, being based in DC, we can confirm that in 2016 there were plenty of Hillary Clinton signs, t-shirts, and bumper stickers.
In 2020, any Biden paraphernalia is a rare sighting.
We assume looking at our data that the same can be said for other major Democratic strongholds — few obvious signs of the Biden landslide that polls are predicting.
Seemingly, most polls imply and forecasters predict a Biden victory larger in terms of Electoral College margin than what occurred in 2016. In other words, they predict Biden will beat Trump to a greater extent than Trump defeated Clinton in 2016. But, sales data stands in stark contrast to these forecasts. Only time will tell.