Jump to content
IGNORED

Club shop

Redandy

By Redandy
in Football Chat

Recommended Posts

Redandy

Redandy

Posted
Posted

Not of massive significance in light of the result but I had a look around the Reading shop before the game. The range and quality of the stuff on sale made our Supporters shop look very poor in comparison. Surely we are missing opportunities for a lot more revenue in this area.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
sticks 1969

sticks 1969

Posted
Posted

if i walked in there and they said you can have any one item for free i still think there is nothing in the shop i would like. having been away with england i have seen plenty of people with nice smart polo shirts with the club name/crest on them and thought why dont we do somethimg like this. the shpo is very very poor

Link to comment
Share on other sites
EnclosureSurge

EnclosureSurge

Posted
Posted
18 hours ago, Redandy said:

Not of massive significance in light of the result but I had a look around the Reading shop before the game. The range and quality of the stuff on sale made our Supporters shop look very poor in comparison. Surely we are missing opportunities for a lot more revenue in this area.

 

I'm interested: what did Reading have we didn't?

 

(I agree our shop isn't good. It never has been, back to Beryl's time. Not that it was her fault. Love her.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
nickolas

nickolas

Posted
Posted
19 hours ago, Redandy said:

Not of massive significance in light of the result but I had a look around the Reading shop before the game. The range and quality of the stuff on sale made our Supporters shop look very poor in comparison. Surely we are missing opportunities for a lot more revenue in this area.

 

Agree. This BS merchandise is terrible. Poor quality replica shirts, feel more like rugby top material. 

Bought a jumper, stitching is terrible. I get the whole keeping it in house saga but i feel they need to find someone who can design and deliver more quality. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Robbored

Robbored

Posted
Posted

The shop is too small and claustrophobic and consequently not much room for stock.

There must be bigger areas within the new build to relocate the shop. Alternatively remove the cafe and the shop area becomes much larger and customer friendly.

it would be much easier to find a space to relocate the cafe.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Redandy

Redandy

Posted
  • Author
Posted
5 hours ago, EnclosureSurge said:

I'm interested: what did Reading have we didn't?

 

(I agree our shop isn't good. It never has been, back to Beryl's time. Not that it was her fault. Love her.)

Have a look on their website. It would be a lot quicker than me trying to list it all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Up The City!

Up The City!

Posted
Posted

The old shop was shit but at least the lay out made sense, the whole lay out flowed towards the exit. In the new shop on a match day you can't move around at all and you end up going around in circles to find what you want. Want to buy a Bristol City branded pen etc? Then you have to queue in the queue for the till as they are opposite the tills.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
RedM

RedM

Posted
Posted
14 hours ago, EnclosureSurge said:

I'm interested: what did Reading have we didn't?

 

(I agree our shop isn't good. It never has been, back to Beryl's time. Not that it was her fault. Love her.)

To be honest they had EVERYTHING! Obviously they had the home and away kits for football and rugby, but I didn't really look at them. They had racks of reduced stuff, don't think we had anything reduced even at the end of last season did we. And by reduced I don't mean 'tat', they had really nice hoodies and jackets etc, £15, lovely and thick for the weather now, really nice designs, can't remember what exactly but they were of a type I would wear if we had our version  of it.

what they also had was a stand with everything £1 and under, stickers, pens, etc (all Reading branded, not just a blue pen,) and it was popular with kids and parents. What they also had was a rack of photographs of all their players, 6x4 size, so not small, 75p each. Parents were saying to their kids 'which one are you getting this week' and lots were buying. Often the parent would be buying a shirt, hat, scarf, etc too once they had gone in the shop. They also had the players photos in magnets and key rings for much the same price. 

It was much larger than our shop, busy but light, our shop is so dark! There was so much stuff to suit every pocket. It was displayed well and a much nicer experience than ours.

I have absolutely no retail experience, but how I wish I could get my hands on our shop. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
EnclosureSurge

EnclosureSurge

Posted
Posted
50 minutes ago, RedM said:

To be honest they had EVERYTHING! Obviously they had the home and away kits for football and rugby, but I didn't really look at them. They had racks of reduced stuff, don't think we had anything reduced even at the end of last season did we. And by reduced I don't mean 'tat', they had really nice hoodies and jackets etc, £15, lovely and thick for the weather now, really nice designs, can't remember what exactly but they were of a type I would wear if we had our version  of it.

what they also had was a stand with everything £1 and under, stickers, pens, etc (all Reading branded, not just a blue pen,) and it was popular with kids and parents. What they also had was a rack of photographs of all their players, 6x4 size, so not small, 75p each. Parents were saying to their kids 'which one are you getting this week' and lots were buying. Often the parent would be buying a shirt, hat, scarf, etc too once they had gone in the shop. They also had the players photos in magnets and key rings for much the same price. 

It was much larger than our shop, busy but light, our shop is so dark! There was so much stuff to suit every pocket. It was displayed well and a much nicer experience than ours.

I have absolutely no retail experience, but how I wish I could get my hands on our shop. 

 

You could start off by emailing this excellent analysis to the club. Ask them are they aware so many people think the shop is naff and don't want to buy anything in there? I just can't, for the life of me, understand how a man of Steve Lansdown's obvious business acumen can allow such an important arm of the 'business' of BCFC to be run so poorly. Can we do a freedom of info request to find out how much we make in the shop to compare against other clubs of similar size? To me, the brightness/darkness of a shop doesn't matter, but if you notice it RedM, others will, and it must have a negative impact on some potential customers. I've always felt the stock in the shop is expensive, and rarely reduced, which is the only time  would look to buy something. In this day and age of ffp, it's not as if the revenue doesn't really matter. Great post RedM.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
BBlockExile

BBlockExile

Posted
Posted

What you describe at Reading we had at Ashton Gate. The shop of Old was packed on a Match day selling everything from Shirts, Polo's, Badges, Scarves and Programmes.

Unfortunately the club has only got eyes for replica shirts, partly due to greed, partly to short sighted approach to its fans and mainly down to a complete lack of imagination.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
RedM

RedM

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, EnclosureSurge said:

You could start off by emailing this excellent analysis to the club. Ask them are they aware so many people think the shop is naff and don't want to buy anything in there? I just can't, for the life of me, understand how a man of Steve Lansdown's obvious business acumen can allow such an important arm of the 'business' of BCFC to be run so poorly. Can we do a freedom of info request to find out how much we make in the shop to compare against other clubs of similar size? To me, the brightness/darkness of a shop doesn't matter, but if you notice it RedM, others will, and it must have a negative impact on some potential customers. I've always felt the stock in the shop is expensive, and rarely reduced, which is the only time  would look to buy something. In this day and age of ffp, it's not as if the revenue doesn't really matter. Great post RedM.

Thank you. I always try to visit other clubs shops when I go away and compare them to ours. Even if you take out the fact the some clubs have been ex Premiership so might have bigger buying power etc once it doesn't really balance out as many items are just not left over from their times in the higher league, it all seems new stock.

It seems as if we know we have to have a shop, the fans expect there to be one, but we will just have the minimum range possible. Like you say we sell shirts and a few more items of high priced clothing and very little else really, or at least not as much as we could. I guess they don't want kids in there buying photos for the players to sign, little presents to give their mates etc.

Personally if they £40 hoodies were half the price I would probably get two (if different designs), so the club would get their £40 from me where I would never pay £80, or even £40 for one so they get nothing from me. I have a little insight how much clubs get on the mark up of replica shirts, I would imagine other clothing is much the same. If Reading can sell similar for £15, and they aren't making a loss, why can't we..or more to the point why don't we.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • Admin
phantom

phantom

Posted
  • Admin
Posted
1 hour ago, brizzlelou said:

Am I the only one that doesn't think the shop is that bad!? I think they do a pretty good job considering they cater for all of Bristol sport.

Looking at this thread @brizzlelou I would confidently say yes.

Simple things like @RedM mentioned, the lighting - basics in retailing is drawing you in with bright visible displays.

The place just feels so cramped - it's like going in a shop in Leicester Square in December - just impossible to move and there is no natural flow to the store.

Sadly looks like it was an after thought of the design of the rebuild and it was the only space left

Out of interest does the shop sell old programmes etc anymore?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
SARJ

SARJ

Posted
Posted

Whilst comparing things to other clubs, our Dutch cousins over at Willem II in Tilburg have a tiny shop half the size of ours. But guess what? It's cheap, cheerful, and full of cool stuff you actually want that isn't ridiculously overpriced.

The replica kit is the most expensive thing and that's only 45euro, roughly £37. Fans were piling in there afterwards picking up a cheeky bit of merchandise from nice hats (5 euro), phone cases (3 euro) and casual wear (10 euro) to scarves and flags (5-8 euro). Even the keyrings were only 1-2 euro. All of it looked decent and all priced well. I bought a nice cap which I wear a lot because it genuinely looks good.

 

Puts our club to shame.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Taz

Taz

Posted
Posted

Going back to something that was said earlier in the thread about named brands  - Adidas, Puma etc (sorry can't be arsed to go back through now). I thought that when it was announced we were making the kits "in house", we would have more control over quality, designs, and that it would also be cheaper for the club. The savings could then be passed onto the the customers - me and you. 

Since then, the prices haven't got any cheaper, in fact they may have gone up (can't remember what the last Adidas kits were new)? Other than the Black Friday deal, when was the last time a Bristol Sport shirt was reduced? I don't get to the shop very often, so I may have missed it to be honest, but I'm pretty sure nothing had been mentioned on here about it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
BBlockExile

BBlockExile

Posted
Posted


 

53 minutes ago, phantom said:

Out of interest does the shop sell old programmes etc anymore?

Unfortunately not and as they only have 50 of the current match day programme you will be lucky to get one of them.

The days when programmes and any other general merchandise were of any importance to the club have long since gone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Cov 77

Cov 77

Posted
Posted
17 hours ago, Robbored said:

The shop is too small and claustrophobic and consequently not much room for stock.

There must be bigger areas within the new build to relocate the shop. Alternatively remove the cafe and the shop area becomes much larger and customer friendly.

it would be much easier to find a space to relocate the cafe.

 

 

Pretty much took the words out of my mouth , spot on , cafe's hardly ever open , move it and make a shop worthy of the name 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...