..surely that cant be the right way to capitalise on our new found revenue streams?? the club shop has sold out of pretty much everything and people cant buy a football shirt in December/January as there are none left!! How can a frugal club move from small time to big time ? Is there too much small mindedness going on at the Liberty these days? a great point was made on another forum as to whats the point of being a globel brand if you dont have the capacity to capitalise on it. All the talk of us cashing in is pointless if people cant buy stuff as and when they want it from the club shop IMO. I understand that we have moved very fast these last few years but should there not be people within the club that look closely at other clubs and look at what they need to do to maximise potential? As i said in another thread, i couldnt buy anything of worth in the club shop the other day unless i was a big fat bastard.. but to make matters worse if i could then i couldnt pay for it therefore not have it !! i couldnt even buy a copy of Ash williams book as the card readers wernt working! the excuse was that it was a problem with my bank.. so i give them a card from another bank account and the same problem was there, other people next to me had the same problem also, the result of this was that people left the shop with nothing !! I understand glitches happen but the fact is our off field operation is so amatuer it beggers beleif. I went down to purchase tickets for Reading away at the ticket office a few weeks back and ask the girl are there any left for "reading away" instead of looking at the computer she turned to her mate and asked "is the tickets for reading away sold out? they are sold out arnt they? " the reply was "yes,i think they are sold out..yeah they are sold out" now i think its great that these girls have the brain capacity to remember all 3000 tickets going out and what returns there have been but i did think that maybe checking on the computer might have been a worthwhile exercise as well!! They is a small time attitude that seems to be far away from where we are supposed to be and it is extremly important to catch every single fan/supporter/walk in/ plastic /newbie that strolls by with money/plastic in his pocket. I understand the reasons given for being cautious with shirts but it is our centenery year and it was obvious from the first day that the jerseys were flying off the shelves like fook !! being slow to react in this situation leaves alot of potential fans/sales hanging in the breeze and that kind of defeats the whole object of being "a globel brand" Russell brand is more accurate at the moment.. What is the answer to us transforming how we do things, im not the first person to fall fowl of inept buisness practice at the Liberty and i wont be the last, its a shame that we seem to be losing out on money because we were trying to save money. The whole idea of being globel is to maximise the potential, we dont seem to have grasped that at all. How can we improve this? or is it unreasonable to ask for a shirt in Medium,Large or extra Large in December? should all our buying be done in July ? or is it completly fair to assume that buying a top in January for somebodies birthday shouldnt be a problem when your dealing with a buisness that turns over 60-70m a year and has its games shown all over the world! What do my fellow Jacks think? are we slow on the up take or have we just been totally over whelmed with demand ? PS As pointed out by Norfolk Swan i have made a few spelling mistakes,especially the word "globel" sorry for that guys,but you get the drift i guess
If I put my optimist hat on ... perhaps all the shirts are being sent out across the World to satisfy the ever increasing demand. My realist head says the club are missing out big style. Either way, it results with the local fan's getting screwed,
I am not trying to make excuses for them, but we have just come through Christmas, perhaps the reason they are out of items is because they have had a busier than expected festive period? I should imagine they would be getting stock in pretty sharpish. You should be making your complaints to the club though as well as here
I went there in october and they did not have a shirt in Medium( i was later told by a mate that im far too fat for a medium anyway and large would be a better fit) i know there is big demand abroad and heard there was around a 1000 items a week going out the door, there are also plans for something up in cwm du ind.est to cater for overseas demand but the bottom line is there is no product for sale half way through the season! the girl in the job told one bloke that there will not be any more shirts until the summer when the new kit is out!! seems a bit mad to me! didnt anyone think to point out to people at the club that the merc. is flying off the shelves like fook and we will out of stock by xmas at this rate? i think the club do a good job overall but they have been lagging behind badly in this sort of stuff from the day they moved to the liberty, its very difficult to gauge things i know but they have enough money in the club to employ experts in this kind of thing! Apparently a reason giving out by one club member,who posts on twitter ,i forget his name but he said that the club was unsure of how the centenary badge would be received and that influenced how many shirts they ordered, well im sorry but all they need to do on that one is get the trust members in show them the freckin' badge and let them vote on it!! if 200 hundred people think its the dogs bollocks and 40 dont then you know your onto a winner.. What globel brand doesnt test its market ?? i rest my case .
I was chatting to Leigh Dineen on twitter some time ago about the new jerseys , he told me it takes 6 months for an order to go in, them to make all the jerseys and for it to be shipped ,it clear customs and for us to take delivery. Do they take a gamble on this ? Again I'm not making excuses for them but unless you make complaints to the club this kind of thing will continue. Out of interest did you go debenhams or a few other retailers that stock swans stuff ?
The club have never cared regarding matters like these, nothing will change, it's not rocket science, you simply contract to a supplier who can produce to meet demand, but I doubt they have thought of something as simple as that! Never mind your not on your own, I've tried twice last year for my youngest who is thirteen, and one for myself, I'm medium too, but no luck on both, I'll get one soon though on the counterfeit market!.................
You forgetting its not any supplier it's got to be Adidas they are our official suppliers, but if you don't order in time they can't supply in time. As I said previously it takes months for the order to go through, they supply hundreds or thousands of clubs so it will take time.
The club will have had to pre-order from Adidas at the start of the season, so there's some guess work involved from the club. Buying Ki probably had an effect as he wasn't here before the shirts were ordered. They know to order more next year! 101 years old and still beautiful!
I have a question for Norway,; Why would we want to increase the Globel brand anyway, surely that's a job for their tourist board? I'm all in favour of increasing our Global brand though
You can't even get a 2013 Swansea Calendar. Always bought one for my sone and my office and nothing on line. I must say the commercial activities like the club shop is very poor, we are missing out on a lot of revenue because they can't get the right products in stock.
Jager-went to debenhams and their stock was removed apart from kids sizes, apparently the other sizes were taken back by the club due to the demand. your points are fair but it still doesnt answer the question as to why the club did not test their market!! if there is such a long lead up time for kit then the club needed to do massive research !! saying stuff like "we were unsure how the badge was going to be received" is quite frankly completely amature. If they knew it was going to take so long to get the stuff they needed to do alot more market research as to how popular the shirt might be. the other problem here is that the stuff came out in July and was flying off the shelves!! home and away kit so as far back as then htey knew they might need another order. Small time operation is the bottom line for me and there are no excuses when we are trying to use the "globel brand" to build our fan base. my point is how we will be perceived by potential customers and new fans!! what is the point of being globel if you cant buy merch. in the club shop ?? that point is yet to be debated or answered. If i write a complaint to the club, will it change things? i guess not because the club under order stuff on purpose and are cautious by nature, they wont suddenly turn round and ask for a **** load more stuff because i asked them to. Besides,do you think they are totally unaware of the problems we are having? i think not though i agree the louder we shout the more they will listen, the strange thing about it is that we have a very strong voice from the fans !! its not like the club dont know what is going on with tickets,stock and other stuff . From what i can make out there is a problem with getting supplies quick enough and that lies with addidas, the simple thing for me is rope in the likes Hummell the danish sports company who have had a strong connection with the Swans in previous years and who would probably kill to have us as their number 1 client,especially with Laudrup at the club!! addidas are serving the big teams first and us last, with a company like hummell im sure we could be a priority customer and im surethey will see huge commercial potential themselves ..also their kits always looked the dogs bollocks years ago.
I dont think the Welsh tourist board will be too concerned about promoting Swansea city fc. They will leave that one for when Cardiff enter the prem league, and that really is part of the answer, the other factor is that we are a buisness and while the tourist board can piggy back off our success they wont really use our team as the focal point to spread the word about swansea and wales, again ,they will keep this fresh for cardiff dragons if they ever go down that road. The swans being a buisness its up to them to maximise their potential, revenue can be picked up from all over the world these days and we are slow to pick up on that IMO, im not sure if the club has a large enough commercial department or how professional these people are. Commercial intrest in the swans a few years back was getting somebody like Swansea sound to offer out a chance of meeting ceril the swan! now we have moved onto big buisness and i feel that maybe we dont have the right brains involved in the operation of expanding a major globel market. It is down to the club and nobody else to market themselves correctly and to seek out investment as the buisness grows, the tourist board are never going to have the clubs intrests at heart as they ultimatly serve a different master .
They can't go to other suppliers Norway, they have been paid a fair bit of money to have Adidas as the new kit makers, this deal is for 3 seasons I think. Leigh went into some detail about it and its not as simple as just ordering it there is a lot more involved. Though it is short sighted to sell out of stuff, I can sort of understand the kit selling, but no excuses for the other stuff like this year's calendar wtf ? Don't know if you are on twitter if you are ask Leigh about it directly
The problem wirh creating demand that cannot be filled is that the void will be filled by counterfeit products from China and other places. They need to ensure they negotiate shorter ordering cycles and more flexible fulfillment. They don't have to have everything shipped to Swansea for export when it can be made and shipped regionally.
Jager, i meant to say when the Addidas deal expired !! my bad there!! yes we have a 3yr deal and are half way through it so if i was involved with the Swans id already be fishing around for the best deals, plenty of other clubs do it and even announce it months before their deal starts! If we remain in the prem league then i think we should explore every avenue, it could be that some companies promise you fresh stock in 2 months and others like addidas promise you stock in 6 months, being the type of club we are we need to look at the small print alot more often and explore what else is on offer and will it benifit the club!! Its clear to see that Addidas is not benifitting swansea city !! we had problems last year with getting tops made too so its been an on going thing, umbro shot themselves in the foot with that terrible grey stripy thing so i would give them a wide birth too!! We need to be more flexible with our kit numbers and if addidas cant do it then after the deal ends we go to somebody that will. Again this is not rocket science and somebody at the club should have asked all about the lead up times when in negotiation, to me that would have been key to deciding who has our buisness ..small time thinking yet again maybe ??
Dont think so but i wonder if these top top brands just dont give a toss about being flexible for little old swansea! as much as it would be awesome to have Nike i guess we would end up in the same boat..unless there are things sorted out in the small print !! It all a bit daft anyway really, surely they just need to employ 50 extra indian children and we will have our tops in a few weeks.. See Orlandi is taking Newcastle apart in their game today!! Orlandi scored a sublime goal to put them in the lead, they are winning 1-0
Erm...my point (and I thought) clever joke was you keep spelling GLOBAL wrong Globel - is a village in Slovenia!!
norway i thought the same with cardiff just before the lead up 2 xmas>>>>>>>no home kits for kids for love nor money.......how can such a cock up be made during the what should be the busy period for replica kits .....<incredible>......and like you say it does seem like a small time business the way its missed out............im shocked our new owners cant see the cock up made,it really does make u wonder how they have made so much money from being shrewd in the past. <good post norway>
