Printvenue.com, an online portal enabling orders for personalised and customised printing solutions, witnessed tremendous demand for political merchandise during election season.
During January-March 2014, the Web site sold over 8,000 mugs, iPhone covers and T-shirts printed with the faces of top politicians as well as party symbols.
The findings of an internal analysis conducted by Printvenue.com across cities state that the BJP-inspired merchandise was most popular with maximum takers in Chennai at 76 per cent of the total sales in the city.
Additionally, Congress found its maximum fans in Pune with 42 per cent customers opting to buy merchandise printed with the party’s campaign slogans.
Maximum patronage
The Aam Aadmi Party enjoyed maximum patronage in Bangalore with 37 per cent of the sales being made for T-shirts and mugs showing Arvind Kejriwal as a superhuman defender of the citizens’ rights.
Interestingly, in Chennai, AAP merchandise found no takers and in Kolkata only 7 per cent of the total sales were for Congress-inspired products.
The lowest percentage of sales for BJP goodies were witnessed in Hyderabad at 38 per cent. While this figure was still ahead of the sales for the other two parties, the city showed a more balanced political affinity with 33 per cent of the sales for Congress and 30 per cent for AAP.
Saurabh Kochhar, Founder, Printvenue.com, said: “On the robust sales of merchandise bearing images, logos and messages of big political parties during the election season. It is a fad among youngsters today to flaunt their political views. They are not only politically conscious and proud of their opinions but also frank about their choices.”
Survey findings
Merchandise, which expresses their support for their preferred political party mainly BJP, Congress or AAP, showed phenomenal sales in the run-up to the biggest political event in the country. An analysis of the buying trends gives us a sneak peek of what the election results may hold in store for the country, according to the survey.
A further analysis of the sales patterns reveals that T-shirts were the most favoured kind of merchandise across the top five cities with mugs and iPhone cases coming in at a close second.
Products with the stamps of BJP slogans and the face of their Prime Ministerial candidate were the most popular purchases across the eight cities covered in the analysis.
The analysis covered the purchasing patterns in Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Delhi-NCR, Pune, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Hyderabad. Top sales were made in Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Delhi-NCR, Pune and Mumbai, the survey added.