‘He can’t run again’: MAGA merch sellers are closing shop and cutting prices. One sold $63 million but now she’s closed three stores

Richard Kligman didn’t set out to sell President Donald Trump and “Make America Great Again” merch.

But Kligman spotted a business opportunity in 2016, when customers began asking for MAGA hats and flags at the Myrtle Beach, South Carolina kite shop he ran with his brother.

The duo opened their Trump Super Store in the empty storefront next door in 2018 to keep up with the demand.

“You’d have thought I was selling crack,” Kligman jokingly told Fortune .

But now he wants out.

“You have to read the writing on the wall that as we go into ‘27, it’s definitely going to fall off, and I’d like to be out of it as much as I could be by the end of ‘27,” he said.

Sales were “going gangbusters,” Kligman said, between the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, and the brothers were putting in seven days a week just to keep up with demand from both locals and visitors from around the country.

But now, Kligman said sales of Trump-branded merch have since fallen 39% from their 2024 levels.

“A lot of the Trump merchandise stores across the country are closing because they see that things are going to change a bit, and the demand is not what it once was,” Kligman said.

“It’s absolutely gone down, but it had to because he can’t run again.” Kligman isn’t alone in thinking this.

The “Make America Great Again” slogan helped Trump win the White House in 2016 and has been plastered over hats, shirts, flags and other collectibles for more than a decade.

But MAGA merch sellers and suppliers across the country told Fortune their sales have fallen from the heights of the 2024 election.

That’s when Amazon sellers reported an estimated $140 million in Trump-themed merch from April through September, according to e-commerce marketing platform Omnisend.

Sellers have cut prices, closed stores, branched into other patriotic merchandise or turned to Trump’s rallies for sales.