With Selection Sunday on March 16, the buzz around the NCAA college basketball tournament, or March Madness, is nearing a climax. Some brands are expecting the tournament to bring some cheer—not just for sports fans, but also lead to a spike in sales of sports merchandise.

Consumers haven’t exactly been beating a path to retailers’ doors, with retail sales reporting their steepest decline in nearly two years in January. However, March Madness could potentially be a bright spot for some, because the tournament spans weeks, creating sustained consumer engagement and spending opportunities throughout March and early April.

Two Shopify sellers told Retail Brew that sales of items in their sports lineup—T-shirts and other related gear—are already trending up compared to the same time last year. Top brand executives said Shopify tools like Shopify Flow and Shopify Collective help deliver inventory at scale to both wholesale clients and regular shoppers across platforms. Shopify ensures sellers’ websites remain operational during these high-traffic sales periods while also managing affiliate payouts.

“It’s a fun time of the year, because I would say unlike any other sport, March Madness draws people in that aren’t traditional basketball fans,” Megan Smalley, founder of apparel and accessories brand Scarlet & Gold, told Retail Brew. “As a manufacturer and a retailer in this space, this is a prime time every single year for us to capitalize on sales.”

Based in Auburn, Alabama—yes, where Auburn University is—Smalley said that sales at her Shopify store are running 74.2% higher than March 2024. This year, Smalley has signed not one but two deals with players from the Auburn Tigers: Johni Broome and Dylan Cardwell.

For Steven Farag, CEO of The NIL Store, March Madness is “like Christmas.”

Keep reading here.—VC

Retailers have traditionally turned to various platforms for marketing—social media, billboards, magazines, commercials. Allbirds turned to…Stanley Tucci.

Cards on The Table, a four-part series created in collaboration with Tucci and currently streaming on YouTube and Allbirds’s website, explores “new connections” forged through a “dream dinner party” featuring guests delving into their dreams, beliefs, and personal stories, according to a company release.

While Tucci leading the lively chats should be enough of a motivator (at least for us!), Allbirds also had help from Dr. Orna Guralnik, a clinical psychologist known for her role in Showtime’s Couple’s Therapy who “curated decks of discussion cards that are tailored to each episode’s guests,” including actor Sophie Turner, Formula 1 driver Carlos Sainz Jr., and television host Tan France, the company said.

The retailer positions the series as a unique way to market its sustainability efforts and its Allbirds By Nature platform.

“We knew it was really going to be a critical year for Allbirds, and we had to find a way to reignite the brand,” Kelly Olmstead, CMO of Allbirds, told Retail Brew.

Keep reading here.—JS

Amazon, long established as the preferred platform for bargain-hungry shoppers, hasn’t generated a similar response for its low-cost Haul offering.

Amazon’s discounted store hasn’t seen much interest from US shoppers so far, the latest survey data from Omnisend shows. Despite the slow start, Amazon’s dollar store may be planning to expand into Europe later this year, according to CNBC.

Among the 1,000 consumers surveyed in February, 76% reported they had not shopped from Amazon Haul within the past year. (Technically, only about two months of last year, since Haul rolled out in November 2024.)

According to Greg Zakowicz, senior e-commerce expert at Omnisend, Amazon is playing catch-up with rival platform Temu, which launched in the US in September 2022.

Keep reading here.—VC