[Archived] Nepotism With Brfc

[stuwilky]

Haven't written, though that is a good idea.

I realize that Sports World runs the club shop now. I'm more concerned with the lack of official merchandise I can purchase. I have to get my scarves through eBay or third party sites. I can't get keeper kit. Presuming Rovers had made other items, they'd be available through the club shop. The club shop is bad for a variety of reasons. The customer service issues are indeed not Rovers' fault. The lack of merchandise is.

We havnt got a club shop though.

[Driftpeasant]

We havnt got a club shop though.

The online one and/or the one at Ewood?

[Lee]

...are both managed by Sports World

[stuwilky]

The online one and/or the one at Ewood?

Are branches of Sports World International.

[roversmum]

We havnt got a club shop though.

Consider the words in my post to have quotes - thus 'club shop' - it was just a figure of speech referring to the sports shop at the club - oh what's the use.............

[stuwilky]

Consider the words in my post to have quotes - thus 'club shop' - it was just a figure of speech referring to the sports shop at the club - oh what's the use.............

Did you quote the wrong person mum?

[roversmum]

No.

[Exiled in Toronto]

...are both managed by Sports World

...on Blackburn Rovers premises and linked on Blackburn Rovers website, targeting Blackburn Rovers fans.

Fair do's for Rovers to contract stuff out, but that does not absolve them of overall responsibility for the impression and quality served up. 'Nothin' to do with us guv' is an insult to fans and just another small reason for fans to think that turning up at Ewood is nothin' to do with them.

[thenodrog]

...on Blackburn Rovers premises and linked on Blackburn Rovers website, targeting Blackburn Rovers fans.

Fair do's for Rovers to contract stuff out, but that does not absolve them of overall responsibility for the impression and quality served up. 'Nothin' to do with us guv' is an insult to fans and just another small reason for fans to think that turning up at Ewood is nothin' to do with them.

Hear hear. The fact that so many people think that it is the club shop connect the abysmal tatt on sale with the club. Without doubt it gives a real downmarket slant on the club. The club should def have kept some degree of control.

btw the shop is contracted out, the catering is contracted out too and there are probably many more instances of tasks being contracted out that were once done in-house. There is so much contracted out that Messrs Williams and Finn must be picking fluff out of their navals whilst blowing on their tea most days.

So does anybody know how much the wage bill of admin and background staff has been reduced in recent years given the obvious reduction in work commitment?

[Sparky Marky]

My view is that if the marketing isn't working, and you can argue whether it is or not, Mr John Williams will be less inclined to fire the man responsible if this man is his son.

I couldn't care less about supposed years of service in home shopping working for daddy....This is our club and I want people running it that can bloody well do the job....

In my opinion everything to do with the shop looks cheap....(this surely comes under the sales and marketing banner) I wonder just how much Rovers gear Sports World sells out of this area....I believe we need to get away from this cheap Lonsdale type rubbish.

We're a Premiership club, with a lower league mentality and this is down to the people that drive the name forward commercially.

It's a scandal!!!!

[Jan]

Someone somewhere will have done a cost/benefit analysis between keeping the shop (and catering) and hiving it off. The assumption must be that we're making more money by hiving it off than we were by running it ourselves. (This was true years ago for my student union's catering- the company we hived it off to ran it so badly it ran into the ground, but we still made money)

Unfortunately for our club, with no great benefactor, the objective is to be profitable. Hence customer service will suffer. I would say - what's the point of having the best club shop in the world if it's losing money hand over fist?

[Sparky Marky]

The main bulk of Rovers funds comes from the TV rights....not the shop.

They would sell the same amount of merchandise whether you, me or anyone sold the stuff.....The point is that we're cheapening our brand by letting companies like Sports World be associated with us....Jesus, you go into one of them shops and it like a jumble sale....crap everywhere and the staff are particularly useless.

This reflects badly on BRFC. Frankly I find it embarassing that we're in partnership with this type of company.

[stuwilky]

The main bulk of Rovers funds comes from the TV rights....not the shop.

They would sell the same amount of merchandise whether you, me or anyone sold the stuff.....The point is that we're cheapening our brand by letting companies like Sports World be associated with us....Jesus, you go into one of them shops and it like a jumble sale....crap everywhere and the staff are particularly useless.

This reflects badly on BRFC. Frankly I find it embarassing that we're in partnership with this type of company.

Whilst I quite agree, I must stress that the staff were useless prior to it being SW, its the same people.

Still disinterested, unhelpful etc etc etc

[AggyBlue]

what's the point of having the best club shop in the world if it's losing money hand over fist?

That isn't the point.

It's just about having a shop that sells Rovers merchandise. This time of year the club should be making a killing on all manner of goods.

The only thing I can get in there for the kids that they haven't already got is a calender, they'll be well chuffed with that

[Jan]

Providing this is the same type of outsourcing arrangement as most are, we only get a fee from Sports World for allowing them to run the shop. They take the risk of it making a profit or loss. Therefore if they sell NO merchandise we still make money, and they make a loss on the staff and stock.

It takes the risk out of ordering the wrong merchandise or too much.

So actually although we sell the same merchandise regardless, if it's awful it doesn't matter under the present arrangement.

[Wolverine]

But we aren't selling the same merchandise, are we?

If we were selling the merchandise the fans actually want, we wouldn't have so much space in this site devoted to it, consitently over the last couple of years.

The bottom line is that the products with a Blackburn Rovers brand on sale in the shop is dismal, and nowhere near what it has been in the past. The fact that fans would rather purchase from Chorley market than the club shop is a disgrace. No disrespect to the market at all, but it shouldn't offer a wider range of stock than our club shop.

[Jan]

At the end of the day it actually doesn't matter to the club if supporters buy their merchandise off Chorley market. The club makes the same money whatever. That's the whole point.

As I said before, I suspect the club shop, before it was franchised out, was either not making much money or making none at all, and the club was taking all the risks on buying merchandise and hiring staff. Now they're not. It's a win win for the club.

Edited December 4, 2006 by Jan

[Wolverine]

OK, fair point on the profit/loss thing for the shopitself, but thinking outside of the box - what if the fact the club shop is so poor as regards actual rovers merchandise (as is being reported here), that some fans who would have normally included a visit to the shop within a normal matchday experience, now don't.

That is another aspect to the football experience as a fan lost, and coupled with other arguable shortcomings (the expense and disorder of the pie and beer kiosks, the visible lack of programs for sale in several stands, the drums, the lack of pre match entertainment to name but a few).

Is it not possible that this could be a factor - merely a factor - in the declining attendance?

If so, the club are just losing money in another way.

I don't really care much about who is related to who in the management structure, but as the rovers store is part of marketing and the majority of opinions i have seen think the shop is below the standard we expect, something should be done.

Edited December 4, 2006 by Wolverine

[tcj_jones]

I don't understand how the club shop could have become unprofitable. Surely there has always been a demand, and always will be?

That demand might vary, but then so can the number of merchandise each season?

Pretty simplistic view, but surely there is always money to be made?

[Exiled in Toronto]

At the end of the day it actually doesn't matter to the club if supporters buy their merchandise off Chorley market. The club makes the same money whatever. That's the whole point.

As I said before, I suspect the club shop, before it was franchised out, was either not making much money or making none at all, and the club was taking all the risks on buying merchandise and hiring staff. Now they're not. It's a win win for the club.

Ticking off your most loyal customers is a win-win?

Any business can make money in the short run by lowering its standards - in this case by contracting out and not caring a jot about the subsequent offering to the fans - but that doesn't mean it's going to pay in the long run.

If local entrepreneurs are stepping into the breach then I hope all fans stop patronising the "Branch of Sportsworld That's Not a Club Shop But Situated Right Next to the Ticket Office" and reward the street merchants who are listening to what the customer wants.

Meanwhile, our There Purely on Merit Sales and Marketing Manager can continue devoting his attentions to the strength of glue being used on the Darwen St Railway Bridge poster site, where at least he can do no harm.

[blue phil]

At the end of the day it actually doesn't matter to the club if supporters buy their merchandise off Chorley market. The club makes the same money whatever. That's the whole point.

As I said before, I suspect the club shop, before it was franchised out, was either not making much money or making none at all, and the club was taking all the risks on buying merchandise and hiring staff. Now they're not. It's a win win for the club.

This is a bit like your argument on "maximising" revenue by upping the prices for match tickets . It's an easy opt out decision with potentially disastrous long term implications of alienating the very supporters it depends on.

Surely if the club was not making much money or none at all they would have been better addressing the issue head on - not simply pass the buck .

[FourLaneBlue]

Someone somewhere will have done a cost/benefit analysis between keeping the shop (and catering) and hiving it off. The assumption must be that we're making more money by hiving it off than we were by running it ourselves. (This was true years ago for my student union's catering- the company we hived it off to ran it so badly it ran into the ground, but we still made money)

Unfortunately it seems that Rovers have been caught out by just how poorly Sports World have been at running it. This seems to be the suggestion as they appeared shocked by the sheer number of complaints. The Rovers merchandise is generally of low-quality and it is puzzling why there isn't some more quality gear available. It might not be in their interests to produce key rings or cuff links or whatever lines don't sell much but they don't seem to have basic items such as scarves or hats on occasion. If they actually had better Rovers merchandise it would bring more customers in who might be tempted to buy other things. The management seems non-existent at the store.

The question is whether the amount of money gained by Rovers is enough to compensate for having fans put up with poor customer service and lack of quality merchandise.

Edited December 5, 2006 by FourLaneBlue

[thenodrog]

Williams and his expert marketing team need to ponder what Jack Walker would have made of the situation at the club shop. I cannot imagine that he would have been at all happy with it.

Edited December 5, 2006 by thenodrog

[Tris]

I am in total agreement with the negative comments about our "club shop" - as a "club shop" it is rubbish. Over the last dozen years I can think of at least 4 occasions when I have travelled up from the sunny south, got to Ewood, realised it's bloody freezing and gone to the shop to get a scarf or a hat.

On Saturday we had a quick look round the "shop" as usual - it was full of people looking for hats. Den wasn't the only one. You can overhear comments when you're in there slagging the place off.

As it happens though - Rovers did exactly the right thing to outsource to SportsWorld. The deal included shirt sponsorship at a time when there were literally no other options. As Jan has said, substantial cash gets paid to the club no matter what gets sold in the shop.

With such a small fanbase, Rovers were throwing money away by running their own operation - and whatever anyone says, that was crap too. They never had enough of the decent (and therefore popular) lines, and they ended up flogging the unwanted crap at the end of every season for nowt. It was a pointless drain on resource which is now spent on what matters - the team - whilst SWI take the risk on cheap tat in the shop and pay for the privilege.

What could and should have been done better was a minimum performance standard from SWI, and a minimum requirement to supply popular Rovers branded items, with a properly defined area to display them and sell them from. That is a massive failure and as every post on this thread proves, it must be put right by Rovers to retain the good will of fans who want to throw money at the club.

[philipl]

When the deal was signed, the Rovers management were reported at being elated by the amount they were getting for the club from SWI.

I wonder if SWI paid for a "non-interference" clause from Rovers?

If that is the case, Rovers won't breathe a word of complaint/suggestion as I would imagine SWI are not exactly quids in on the deal and could be looking for any opportunity to break the contract legitimately.