I don't blame them for dumping Universal for merch. They've not been great. I'm not sure about going on their own again though. It's a lot of work to do self-fulfillment, like they did in 2010 and earlier. Current management wasn't around to learn those lessons, so I guess we'll see how they do. IMO, the best merch company they've been with was when they were using Townsend.
Anyway, tomorrow is the first day of the pop-up store at Brixton. According to a reddit report on the setup today, there's some lighting and music, and a contest to guess the Brixton setlist.