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grefstad

The commercial reach of NCFC (or lack of)

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Was in London this weekend, doing some Xmas shopping, and ended up in some sports shops.

I noticed very clearly stuff (shirt, cup, scarf, etc) from clubs I''d like to compare with Norwich, size-wise.

Clubs like Southampton, Everton, Fulham (!), even Forest, Birmingham, and small clubs like Ipshit, Reading, etc.

But no Norwich. Nowhere.

And at Gatwick airport, they got a sports shop, selling training gear, football shirts, etc. Same there as well. Virtually all other clubs, but Norwich.

Went to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. Shops selling footie stuff, lots of teams from England and Scotland, clubs of less size than us, but no Norwich there either.

I have noticed this over the years, but it may have been more understandable when we were year in, year out in the Championship. Now that we have been 4 of last 5 in the Premier, you would expect us to "promote our brand" a bit, by being visible in other places than the club shop at the Carra.

Now, I don''t necessarily think we''d sell huge volumes of our gear, in any shop outside Norwich, but at least it makes us more visible, may attract more fans, etc.

Thoughts?

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Norwich don''t even allow shops in Norwich to sell shirts jarrolds are only now getting Norwich shirts in

seems they only want people buying from club shops in the city

supply and demand also drives retail

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What norfolkngood said.

And it has been the case for some years.

Odd that you wouldn''t know that.....

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I''ve noticed the same thing. I live in London, and I''m always on the lookout for Norwich gear, but as yet haven''t seen anything. I''ve tried Sports Direct and other similar stores and there''s nothing, which is strange when they clearly stock shirts from quite a few random Championship teams.

My only thought is perhaps it has something to do with Errea, and we''d have more luck if we had a bigger shirt manufacturer like Adidas or Nike, but there''s no chance of that any time soon.

It''s frustrating, as we have a large fan base in London and it seems like we''re missing a lot of potential sales. I know a lot of people will argue that Norwich aren''t ''fashionable'' but the only way we can possibly rectify that is by promoting our club further afield.

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By selling only from club shops, or online from The Canary Store we are cutting out any middlemen, and maximising profit.

I doubt very much a casual shopper would be browsing a sport shop somewhere, and suddenly decide to buy a Norwich shirt anyway.

Apologies if this has removed a stick you wanted to beat the club with Grefstad.

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[quote user="TCCANARY"]Are there any stats on merchandise sales that you could get wrong?[/quote][:D]

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I don''t think Grefstad was trying to use this as a stick to beat the club with. Just pointing out an oddity.

It is a little strange to walk in to a big central London shop and see absolutely no Norwich related merchandise, when almost every other club in the Premier League and Championship are represented. I see your point regarding cutting out the middleman, but it would be nice to know that our club isn''t completely invisible to anyone outside Norfolk.

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It''s sad that someone can travel all the way from Norway to London but can''t make that little bit more of an effort to see a home game.

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TCCanary, you can save your childish snipes for another occasion. Got not time for your squabble.

As for cutting the middle men, it is a good point.

I dont think that is why we are doing it though.

As for recruiting new fans by just being visible, yes I think it is quite likely.

I started supporting Norwich back in 1986 from noticing the yellow and green colours. Not many teams had them.

I dont''t think kids in this day and age are any different either. yes, many support clubs with big names, their dad''s team, etc, but quite a few "random" fans could be picked up just by being visible in sport shops around the country, and I can not imagine it would be such a big cost for us, not compared to the possible gain (over time).

We will never grow to be a "big" team unless we brand ourselves better, and I don''t think Norwich ever have.

Seems to be a cultural thing.

And why would clubs like Birmingham, Ipswich, Reading, Forest, Wolves, etc push their gear in these shops, when we are not?

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I think he probably was along the lines of "small club mentality" but never mind.

Very few clubs are a truly global brand though, and I doubt we ever will be. Could you go to, say Sports Direct in Newcastle and buy a Stoke or West Brom shirt? I don''t know, but I doubt it. Unless you are a Man Utd or Liverpool, or club of that ilk, then as a sports shop owner you would be daft to stock Norwich, and the likes of, shirts, as you would be chucking most of them in the bin after two years when the new one is released.

We aren''t invisible at all, I watched the game the other day on South African telly. Have I seen anyone walking around in any African countries wearing a Norwich shirt? No.

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[quote user="morty"]Looks like I called it right on the "small club mentality" stick.....[/quote]

You think to much. Try writing something sensible instead.

As for small club mentality, yes, Norwich has got such a mentality, infact, in abundance, but there should be no reason for it. Having been branded on TV in the Premier for 4 of the last 5 seasons, you would expect us to be jumping at the chance of making more sales, expanding the band further, etc, but it is not happening for a reason.

That reason can not be any other than small club mentality (or some strange restrictions with Errea).

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I have noticed this as well, I wonder if its literally down to maximizing profit for the club shop?

If a local sports seller has the shirt on offer when the club shop doesn''t it loses revenue. They can also set the prices at their ridiculously high levels.

My Nephew lives in Sheffield, and as a youngster I needed to share my influence as I would hate for him to become a sheffield utd/wed fan or an Arsenal fan (his other uncle) - so he asks me for a new kit for Christmas - just short of £60 for Shirt, Shorts and Socks. Oh how i pray that other sports shops sell to drive the costs down.

But being said everywhere I''ve been abroad they Know Norwich :) in thailand the locals were telling me the scores and in Turkey they guy said to me "NORWICH, WE HATE THE IPSWICH SCUM" - he got all my business

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The lack of commercial nous on here is slightly worrying, but I''ll do my best to explain.The club deliberately chooses not to make its products available to the wider sports retail market. It is one of the reasons we use a kit supplier like Errea and not Nike, Adidas or any of the Sports Direct/JD Sports owned brands. By restricting the availability to the club controlled channels the club not only keep a larger proportion of the revenue, but they are also able to control the price that the shirts are sold at.As an assumption, given the quantities ordered the Norwich shirt probably costs the club around £10-£15 each, although this doesnt take into account any gift of kit that Errea give the club for being kit supplier. On the basis of £15 price, the club then sells through its own channels for £45 making £30 per shirt profit.If Errea sold the shirts to retailers, at £22.50 each (£15 cost + £7.50 royalty to the club) and the retailer sold the shirts at £45 the club would make £7.50 per shirt and the retailer would pocket £22.50. If the retailer decided that it could live with only making £10 per shirt and decided to sell them at £32.50 each the club would still make £7.50 per shirt, but would also see sales through its own channels completely disappear - after all why would you buy from the club when Sports Direct (as an example) had it significantly cheaper.As has been said before, the greatest demand for Norwich shirts comes from Norwich fans, and whilst the club maybe missing out on the odd sale through a retailer they are sales that a) don''t make the club much money anyway, and b) aren''t from the club''s traditional supporter base.With Adidas, Nike, Puma through Genesis in the UK, or the likes of Cabrini, Mitre, Prostar or Sondico (and the other Pentland/JD Sports/Sports Direct owned brands) I would bet that their contracts are significantly geared towards the company making money by wider distribution - after all they sell the shirt at £15 whoever they sell it to.

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I love our "small club"!! I don''t associate myself with it for any kind of reflected glory or expectations of success. Whers the fun, loyalty and local pride in supporting a global brand?

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I was on holiday on the south coast and we went in to a sport shop on the local high St. called ''Ted McDougall Sports''. My Mum asked if they had any Norwich stuff and the bloke said ''Never heard of them''. It was all very strange as Ted played for us at the time.

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The wonderful thing about the Internet is that if you want to buy club merchandise you can just go online. Does seem a strange thing to complain about.

The best presence we can have to attract new fans is playing year in year out in the premier league where people can see us all over the world on television. This will create more fans than having to set up a distribution network that may deliver 10 or 20 football shirts to shops all over the country on sale or return basis and reducing the amount of profit a club makes from each one. I seem to remember the club talking of record sales at the start of this season too so it doesn''t seem the current set up has had an adverse effect on people''s ability to buy this merchandise if they want to.

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[quote user="Essex_Canary"]The lack of commercial nous on here is slightly worrying, but I''ll do my best to explain.

The club deliberately chooses not to make its products available to the wider sports retail market. It is one of the reasons we use a kit supplier like Errea and not Nike, Adidas or any of the Sports Direct/JD Sports owned brands.

By restricting the availability to the club controlled channels the club not only keep a larger proportion of the revenue, but they are also able to control the price that the shirts are sold at.

As an assumption, given the quantities ordered the Norwich shirt probably costs the club around £10-£15 each, although this doesnt take into account any gift of kit that Errea give the club for being kit supplier.

On the basis of £15 price, the club then sells through its own channels for £45 making £30 per shirt profit.

If Errea sold the shirts to retailers, at £22.50 each (£15 cost + £7.50 royalty to the club) and the retailer sold the shirts at £45 the club would make £7.50 per shirt and the retailer would pocket £22.50. If the retailer decided that it could live with only making £10 per shirt and decided to sell them at £32.50 each the club would still make £7.50 per shirt, but would also see sales through its own channels completely disappear - after all why would you buy from the club when Sports Direct (as an example) had it significantly cheaper.

As has been said before, the greatest demand for Norwich shirts comes from Norwich fans, and whilst the club maybe missing out on the odd sale through a retailer they are sales that a) don''t make the club much money anyway, and b) aren''t from the club''s traditional supporter base.

With Adidas, Nike, Puma through Genesis in the UK, or the likes of Cabrini, Mitre, Prostar or Sondico (and the other Pentland/JD Sports/Sports Direct owned brands) I would bet that their contracts are significantly geared towards the company making money by wider distribution - after all they sell the shirt at £15 whoever they sell it to.

[/quote]

 

Good post, shows that if you stats properly they can enlighten the reader.

 

 

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Fact is we are a desperately, desperately unfashionable club.

I couldn''t really care less how fashionable we are but it''s a fact.

"No-one likes us. We don''t care"

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I can understand the OP to a certain extent, and I can also understand the other view of Essex. What I don''t understand is why can''t there be some sort of middle ground? Are the commercial department so incompetent that they are unable to negotiate a deal with retailers based outside of Norfolk? Would it not be possible to arrange  something with say inter-sport where only retailers outside of a certain distance from the club shop (44 miles for example) can stock limited numbers of replica shirts and other official club merchandise to help raise the clubs profile? Or is it simply a fact of the control freaks at the club once again saying, it''s our ball, we will tell you where, when and how much it will cost you to play with it, and if you don''t like it we don''t care? I can''t see people from Norwich forking out £20 to £50 pounds on petrol or train fare just to buy a shirt from Lakeside because the inter-sport shop there sell it a fiver cheaper than in the Castle Mall. But maybe a teenager from Rochdale wandering around the Trafford center whose neighbour is a City fan would part with £25 if they fancy the look of the current away shirt. 

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[quote user="grefstad"]I started supporting Norwich back in 1986 from noticing the yellow and green colours..........quite a few "random" fans could be picked up just by being visible in sport shops around the country[/quote]Probably explains why they don''t do it then. [;)]

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1.I was in an independent Sports retailer in Cork a few years back, City were in the Premier League, i asked the manager (of the shop) if they had any Norwich Shirts, his reply.....''''Qualify for Europe and beat Bayern again, it might be worth my while then''''.

2.My in laws sent my son the Lotus away strip, he wanted his name on the back so i took it into a chain sportstore that advertised letters/numbers, when presented with the shirt at the counter the guy behind said in all seriousness..''''sorry mate, we can only print on to Premier League jerseys''''

3. In Morocco a fake footy shirt seller asked me which club i was looking for, i told him Norwich, his reply....'' no Norway, i have Italy, Germany and Spain, no Norway''''

We are really not very well known worldwide.

On a lighter note can anyone dig up and post that picture of guys in the Gambia , wearing City shirts, mocking the lone fella in an 1p5wich shirt. i would love a copy of that.

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Well done Iwan, you''ve managed to turn a reasonable point into one being negative about the board ;)

I suppose the argument would be that if that kid in Rochdale has a City supporting neighbour then they would also be able to buy the kit for £25 so the club would have £15 profit from selling two shirts as opposed to the £35 profit from selling one shirt. Just because someone owns one shirt because they like it doesn''t mean that they will then buy other shirts, whereas the established fan most likely would further diluting future revenue.

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