In celebration of the North Carolina men’s basketball team’s monumental NCAA Tournament run, fans flocked to Franklin Street to buy UNC gear to remember the March Madness victories.
Businesses like the Shrunken Head Boutique, Underground Printing and Chapel Hill Sportswear experienced an increase in merchandise sales as UNC progressed in the NCAA Tournament.
Although Shrunken Head, a UNC merchandise store that’s been on Franklin Street since 1969, has been closed since December 2021 due to flooding damage, it has also experienced a high volume of online and pick-up orders thanks to UNC's tournament run. It also held pop-up tables around Chapel Hill to remind people that they are still in operation even though they do not have a storefront.
“It’s great to see a lot of people order for local pick-up from outside the store, which helped make up for some of the business we lost from being closed as well as a ton of people who ordered from us online,” Alana Loken, brand manager at...