A seller on Teespring, an online retailer of personalized apparel and gifts, is hoping a typo by President Trump turns into e-commerce gold.
Trump, at 12:06 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday, posted a truncated message on Twitter: “Despite the constant negative press covfefe”—a tweet that has since been deleted, according to the Washington Post. Covfefe appears to be a typo of “coverage,” though Trump hasn’t confirmed that. A few hours later, he followed up with a related tweet.
Who can figure out the true meaning of “covfefe” ??? Enjoy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 31, 2017
Responses to Trump’s tweet exploded on Twitter, as users joked and wondered just what “covfefe” could stand for or mean. The word was trending on the social media platform on Wednesday morning.
what makes me saddest is that I know I’ll never write anything funnier than #covfefe
— Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) May 31, 2017
Wakes up.
Checks Twitter.
.
.
.
Uh…
.
.
.
📈 Lookups fo…
.
.
.
Regrets checking Twitter.
Goes back to bed.— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) May 31, 2017
A Teespring user who lives in Nashville, Tenn., who identified himself only as Sam, registered the domain name covfefe.com early Wednesday morning through domain registrar GoDaddy. He then set the URL to redirect to an online store on Teespring that sells T-shirts, coffee mugs, handbags and hooded sweatshirts.
Teespring is a social commerce platform that allows shoppers to design and customize products, and set up their own shop without having to establish ties to suppliers. It operates using an on-demand model where products are made once orders come in, so designers incur no costs when selling via Teespring until a shopper buys their products. Online retailers can set up a virtual storefront in a matter of minutes, unlike a traditional retailer, allowing them to quickly tap into trends.
Whether the “covfefe” hype translates into a profit remains to be seen.
A “covfefe” T-shirt for sale on Teespring.
“We’ve only made two sales so far,” Sam told Internet Retailer on Wednesday afternoon. “It’s promising though. I’m just enjoying the adventure.” Teespring could not be reached for comment.
If some other enterprising retailer wants to take covfefe.com off Sam’s hands, the domain is available—for a price. Sam has the domain name listed on GoDaddy.com for a minimum bid of $5,000. He says he has received an offer for $4,000, but he’s hanging onto the name for now.
Sam isn’t alone in trying to capitalize on the buzz about Trump’s typo.
Sellers on sites operated by online-only T-shirt retailers Spreadshirt, No. 500 in the Internet Retailer 2017 Top 500, and CafePress Inc. (No. 277) are also offering products featuring the typo. Representatives for CafePress and Spreadshirt could not be reached for comment.