Black Samsung shirts: £50 for non "club red" members!

[pauld]

If they've only made 200, opportunity cost is a moot point.  If they only mange to sell 198, you'd have a point, but it's the same argument as reducing ticket prices - does the extra volume at a lower price give a higher profit ?

I suspect the logic is rather the other way around - that the shirts are being used to drive Club Red membership

[Batch]

If they've only made 200, opportunity cost is a moot point. 

I see your point that a sell out of 200 (or 400 or whatever) is still a sellout regardless of who actually buys it. The point is there are people who would normally spend that money in the club shop in any other season who now won't because of the fleecing on the price.  That is undeniably an opportunity cost. The money will be spent elsewhere.

Does extra quantity at lower price = more profit. Impossible to say without knowing the margins. I reckon these would have sold well at the start of the season. As time goes on the demand will go down as perceived value for money goes down (given they only last a year).

Anyway, this is all detracting the main point of stiffing non club-red members. If the previous regime had pulled this stunt there would have been a 20 page thread about it by now.

[deltaincline]

What Batch said.

This is the sort of stunt I'd rather hoped Fitton and Co wouldn't want to be accused of pulling.

I thought they had more class than to stiff their season ticket holders who pay up front and contribute a massive amount of cash flow during the lean summer months.

I think the Samsung shirt looks fucking ace, but I won't be buying it at that rip off price.

And while I'm in the mood; the Club Red scheme is the kind of shit marketing tool that's putting genuine fans off football up and down the country. It's devisive, it costs hard cash in hard times and is exactly the sort of crass, unprofessional attempt at small-time marketing that Diamandis favoured.

The smart move would have been to come up with a marketing plan that was inclusive for all fans and that offered decent incentives that turn into increased sales for the club, which is the whole reason to incentivise / market to fans in the first place, surely?

Instead, we now have over priced shirts being worn by those stupid enough to throw more money for an exclusive 'elite' membership scheme, and a section of our supporters feeling pissed off and left out. Well fucking done!

[pauld]

I still think the idea was more to promote Club Red by providing an extra differentiation in price as well as availability. Unfortunately they've chosen to do that by bumping the price for ordinary fans from the already expensive normal price to the extortionate 50 quid. Might have sat better if they'd discounted for Club Red rather than this which looks like scalping ordinary fans. I don't think that's the intention but it's how it looks.

And that's aside from the fact that in looking to promote Club Red in this way, these kinds of things make season ticket holders, the backbone of the loyal fanbase, look like second-class citizens. Not great PR at all.

As Batch rightly says, if Diamandis had pulled this kind of stunt, we'd have screamed blue murder. Although there is a difference in this case, at least we can be sure the money's going to the club

[Batch]

As Batch rightly says, if Diamandis had pulled this kind of stunt, we'd have screamed blue murder. Although there is a difference in this case, at least we can be sure the money's going to the club

Yes that is an important distinction. I hope I didn't imply otherwise.

I guess this has kind of brought the most disappointing aspect of the new regime to a head. And lets be honest they have been brilliant for the club. But a lot of the marketing promotions/decisions seem a bit last minute and ad hock. Case in point the black shirt, where it was unveiled at the kit launch then suddenly a few month later turns into a limited edition club red only shirt. In some ways if this was made clear up front it would have been better. Though I'd still be annoyed

And the ticket promotions seem a bit last minute too. Thankfully Baz has put the banner on the front page.

Meh I should email Watkins rather than wobble on here. Its not like they aren't approachable is it.

[pauld]

Nah fuck it, everyone behind the Arkells after the Brentford game

[Batch]

Only if Steward T2 is invited.

[Simon Pieman]

Why do we need a membership club? It's not like we're big enough to sell ticket allocations etc. Seems to me a solution has been created for a problem which doesn't exist. I cant imagine it makes the club that much extra money either

[jonny72]

And that's aside from the fact that in looking to promote Club Red in this way, these kinds of things make season ticket holders, the backbone of the loyal fanbase, look like second-class citizens. Not great PR at all.

This is the real problem for me. I don't have a problem with membership schemes but they shouldn't give any benefits that aren't available to season ticket holders. It's a bad step in the wrong direction and I expect better of Fitton.

The stupid thing about all of this is that the extra income being generated is minimal. An extra £10 on even 400 shirts is fuck all money. The extra Club Red memberships sold as a result will be minimal and I suspect the total sold anyway is pretty low. So to make an extra fuck all they've risked pissing off the 6,000 season ticket holders.

[pauld]

I suspect the idea is not so much that it will be of much use/profit now, as Si Pie says, it's hardly necessary with where we are now, but more to get it established as a concept. My guess is that this is one of the ideas they picked up from those brainstorming sessions they had with Norwich. And you could see where a membership scheme would be useful to Norwich, and how it might seem to fit with where the aspirations are for us to be (i.e. I don't necessarily buy it even when we do take the next step up, but I can kind of see the logic). But they've perhaps gone a bit early on it and maybe adopted an idea wholesale without really thinking about whether it's appropriate/necessary for where we are now or even at all. I'm speculating obviously, but you can see the train of thought - "Norwich are an example of where our next step is, what ideas have they got that we can adopt, right let's adopt them". And from there, it's maybe taken on a bit of a life of it's own without anyone taking the necessary step back of going "Oooh, maybe that's not such a good idea for us right now". Or maybe I've made three or four "if, maybe" steps too far

As jonny says, it's the relegation of the core season ticket holder base, or at least the perception of it, that really smacks you in the chops. I couldn't give a flying one about being nudged out of buying a shirt I probably wouldn't have bought anyway.

[deltaincline]

The stupid thing about all of this is that the extra income being generated is minimal. An extra £10 on even 400 shirts is fuck all money. The extra Club Red memberships sold as a result will be minimal and I suspect the total sold anyway is pretty low. So to make an extra fuck all they've risked pissing off the 6,000 season ticket holders.

And to their credit, they worked fucking hard to push season ticket numbers to 6000+ from the low figures left behind by the old board.

It seems like the board forget themselves now and then and dont think things through properly. Does anyone know if they still take soundings from the SC or the Trust (if they still exist) on matters like this?

Maybe, instead of blowing smoke up each others arseholes, they should ask around or put ideas up on the club website before launching them. At least they'd get a fair amount of feedback and could make adjustments if required, rather than thinking they hold all the aces and then fucking things up and pissing fans off.

Sometimes its a smarter move to let people think they've been consulted and listened to, rather than marketed to. If the end result is the same in terms of financial and goodwill gains, why risk looking like complete cunts by not being smart about it in the first place??

[stfc1969]

it's clever timing though - christmas is coming up and the STFC supporting kids will most likely want one

[joteddyred]

My son has just had his 7th birthday and everything he asked for was Swindon Town related - goalkeeper kit, tracksuit (items which are ridiculously overpriced).  I went and purchased everything in one hit on behalf of various other family members and in total it was a fair old whack of money to which I received no discount, because I'm 'only' a season ticket holder and not a club red member!  I have a real issue with this and pointed out to the girl in the shop that somebody who has a club red membership might only actually watch 1 game a season and therefore isn't actually putting much money into the club whereas my family who hold 3 adult and 1 child season ticket between us do.  She agreed and said there's been numeroud complaints when people have been in the shop.  I don't know if the board are aware of these?  Some of you might say that if I think the items are overpriced, I shouldn't have bought them.  However, anyone with young boys will know how difficult it is to do that when he goes football training twice a week and all his mates are wearing the latest kits.  Anyway, better than spending it on a load of toys that he'll play with once!

[THE FLASH]

Only if Steward T2 is invited.

"IQ is on yer shirt!"

[Spencer_White]

Im going to email Lacoste and express my outrage that they charge £90 for a polo shirt.

Actually, no I wont, I'll just chose not to buy one.