Swans Comercial Dept.

Chief operating officer, Chris Pearlman, raised the issue while addressing a business audience at the Liberty Stadium this week. The American spoke about the global reach of the club, whose matches are broadcast to some 900 million viewers in 190 countries, and said: “Neither the football club, the city council or the local businesses have leveraged this exposure as well as we can.

With the high profile of Llorente and Sigurdsson, where are the shirt sales? what has Chris Pearlman done to develop our commercial retail sales? When are we going to get serious about this issue, and with the advent of retailing online, surely we should be getting stuck into this revenue stream, for the life of me I have to ask what the hell are we doing?

A club with global reach of some 900 million viewers in 190 countries, that is a huge potential to tap into, and surely we should have a high profile e-business plan targeting this market, so when are we going to start to tap in to all this potential profit?

I have to ask is Chris Pearlman the man for the Job? seems to me, that all we ever do is talk about it, I would love us to be professional about this, we need someone in who has the experience of building an 'Online retail brand', clearly Chris Pearlman doesn't have a clue where to start, perhaps he should bring in the personnel that can do it.

 

No matter the name on the back of the shirt, if it's an ugly shirt people won't part with around £60 for it in huge numbers.

I'd love to see how this seasons shirt sales compare with other seasons in the PL, as this is the first time in the PL that I haven't bought a shirt because I find them unattractive. The Joma brand is a huge turn off for many. I have family in the Philippines who often ask me to buy the Swans shirts for them when they are on sale - none of them want them this season, they wish we were still with Adidas. Same for me. Ugly shirt with a nonsensical backwards 'J' on one of the sleeves. Lower league standard kit. Probably a lot cheaper than the Adidas kit, but ultimately lower sales I guess.

 

With the 7th season up here coming soon you`d think they`ed have sussed it by now ?
Always were very amateurish on that front ! i think the biggest thing they did well was the LT10 shirts ?

 

I wore our away purple/yellow kit from Bony's time with us when I was in Magalluf watching the game. Always liked that one.

Pearlman's speech was impressive at the dinner last night, and those around me on the table agreed. He can talk the talk and we know that he can walk the walk from his work at DC United where the commercial side of things, including the redevelopment of the stadium, was very successful. Whether he can do so here remains to be seen.

He made the right noises, talking about the 'Swansea Way', the 'Swansea Family' etc and how the owners understand what we're about. I remember him saying something along the lines of the Club being easier to promote if we have success on the pitch and he has a point. A Prem club is less attractive if it's constantly struggling for survival, but if we play 'our way' (ie attractive football that's entertaining to watch), get some decent results and possibly a good cup run it makes his job a lot easier. Sounds an obvious point to make but it's a valid one. The implication was that marketing has been difficult this season for obvious reasons.

As I've said, it remains to be seen whether they can replicate their success here. Let's hope so.

On a side issue, I spoke to the councillor in charge of Swansea's redevelopment last night (he was a magistrate back in the day so I knew him from that) and he was telling me some very interesting things about the proposals. If it all goes ahead I think the City will be much improved. I think it's something like almost £2Bn being spent.

 

That is how I feel, this is the first season I have spent nothing in the club shop and the same for my son and his mates, the Joma brand is just a massive turn off to many.

 

I was there today. Big discounts on almost everything.

 

Selecting Joma, was short sighted and typical of Jinx, anyway to save a bob or two mentality, that's why he needs to be given a big elbow away from our comercial dept, there needs to be a higher profile given to the 'Brand image' and the casual retail line needs to be thought out much more for the younger generation, with greater emphasing on promoting online.

 

Hope you bought up the stock, because no one else will!!........

 

Its going to take an awful lot of effort to drag more money out of shirt sales. Since we have been in the Premier league we have averaged 25000 shirt sales per year worldwide. If you take that as £20 profit for the club per shirt for arguments sake then that is only £500,000 total. Now when you look at a long established club like Everton 80,000 shirts in the same period we have a lot of work to do to catch up. If you look at the top of the tree Manchester United at 1,750,000 shirts they would only make £35 million per year. All of these figures dont include the huge cost of logistics, returns etc.So with that in mind we would make more money by expanding the stadium and trying to uncover talent that we could cash in on.

 

United were confident that a large portion of the £89m spent on Pogba would be repaid through shirt sales around the world, and that appears to be the case...

 

Bring Zlatan Ibrahimovic on board for free, pay him a ridiculous amount of money for the pleasure of his company, watch it all return in shirts sales 25 times over.

So Manchester United not only have one of the world's finest strikers on their cards, they have a money-making PR dream and they have solid justification for breaking the world record transfer fee on a player they already had on their books only four years ago.


£76m of real money. In one week..............

 

We are not Manchester United the only team who come close are Real Madrid.

 

Man United would have to make £48 clear profit per shirt for that to happen.Even if we made £100 clear profit on each shirt that is only £2,500.000 at our sales level that wont even pay for one agents fees. These are the numbers check them out.

 

Premier League clubs average shirt sales (2011-12 to 2015-16)
Club Av. sales Best finish
Manchester United 1,750,000 Champions (2012-13)
Chelsea 899,000 Champions (2014-15)
Liverpool 852,000 2nd (2013-14)
Arsenal 835,000 2nd (2015-16)
Manchester City 342,000 Champions (x2)
Tottenham 268,000 3rd (2015-16)
Everton 80,000 5th (2013-14)
Leicester City 50,000 Champions (2015-16)
West Ham United 45,000 7th (2015-16)
Stoke City 40,000 9th (x3)
Southampton 30,000 6th (2015-16)
West Bromwich Albion 30,000 8th (2012-13)
Crystal Palace 25,000 10th (2014-15)
Middlesbrough 25,000 (Championship) 2nd
Sunderland 25,000 13th (2011-12)
Swansea City 25,000 8th (2014-15)
Burnley 15,000 18th (2014-15)
Bournemouth 10,000 16th (2015-16)
Hull City 10,000 16th (2013-14)
Watford 10,000 13th (2015-16)

 

But haven't we over the last few seasons run out of shirts by November and we couldn't get anymore, for people to buy at Xmas times. I actually believe we have missed lots of opportunities to increase sales, firstly with Ki and now with the yanks on board in the USA, (mind after us sacking Bradley I doubt that now). The other issue is you have to have a product with a logo/make that people want to buy. I always bought something adidas whether it be shorts, t shirts. I will not wear Joma it just has no appeal and I believe that is the same for most people. My sons college kit is Joma and that is where Joma should be targeting. we could have done much better, maybe we wouldn't have sold more, but at least people would have been happy with the brand.

Will be interesting to see what our shirt sales have been this year, maybe it has been more than ever but I doubt it and Jenkins wouldn't let it be seen that his decision to move there was yet another disaster in a long line of disaster accredited to him over the last few seasons.

 

My dad always bought me Bobbys Jeans from Wollies.I hated them but they did the job

 

I think the biggest chunk of sales comes from international sales and international fans follow the big players on big teams , it's the nature of the beast .

 

Depends what the job is really.
A football kit isn't just something players wear to distinguish themselves from the opposition anymore. It's a source of revenue for the club, a fashion item for supporters, part of the global image of PL clubs in particular.

I just don't understand why clubs go for second rate brands. Joma, Macron etc Watford have a manufacturer called Dry World ??
You would never see Man United, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich etc wearing these brands.

There is a reason why.

"Dress for the job you want" is a bit of an old saying. What ****ty job do the Swans want ?????

They'll be signing a deal with Gola daps next !!!

 

New Balance may fit the bill next season ,an American Company so that 'll satisfy the yanks and we have previous history with it during the nineties .

 

The numbers above are the worldwide sales I just do not see us having a player who is going to be able to increase the numbers of shirt sales wordwide to warrant the effort. When you look at Everton at only 80,000 world wide sales where do we go from 25000 sales on average over a 5 year period. We are not suddenly going to jump up another 55,000 shirt sales to catch even them. Unless we sign a £60 million player and how likely is that.