Super Bowl is a retailer’s dream match up

From a licensed product sales standpoint it doesn’t get much better than having the Pittsburgh Steelers and Greenbay Packers squaring off this Sunday in Super Bowl XLV. Both teams are storied franchises, and although they are from relatively small markets, enjoy a national following, which means plenty of shoppers have been out looking to acquire fresh gear for the big game and will be looking to do so in the weeks following the game.

That is especially true for Steelers fans. Although Las Vegas oddsmakers have the team as two-and-a-half point underdogs, they are heavy favorites in terms of online search behavior. The shopping site PriceGrabber this week indicated that the search term “Steelers” was five times more popular than “Packers” on its website. The past few years the prevalence of search activity was an indicator of the game’s eventual winner. Last year, Pricegrabber data show that “Saints” was searched for four times more than “Colts” and the “Saints” won and the prior year “Steelers” was searched twice as much as “Cardinals” and the Steelers won.