General New kit 2022/23

OUSP Secretary said:
I can assure you we have been, and continue to be, in very regular contact with Niall regarding marketing and it's lack of fan (customer?) focus.
In respect of kits, stock was in fact ordered several months ahead, but it has been complicated by the change of supplier and sponsor. Realistically it won't make much difference to sales - a supporter will buy a shirt on 1st July or 31st July, and won't buy more just because they are available earlier. It's really frustrating for us fans but not the commercial disaster being presented.
We aren't the only ones not to have launched kits yet - discussion with other league 1 teams show several have not yet released their kits and a couple only released the kit this week because photos were leaked.
( E.g Cheltenham reveal is due on 15h July, Plymouth and Charlton only revealed this week, Pompey not yet released and no date given but apparently due in on 21st July).

I had hoped to see the new kit this evening v. Oxford City, but it's not the end of the world to have to wait.
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It’s posts like this that don’t help the view from some fans that the supporters panel is just a mouth piece for the club to use.

I’d actually say that given the current state of peoples finances, planning a shirt release a good month before the season starts would be better than once the season has began.

No matter how you dress it up, this summers marketing from the club has been nothing but amateur. The fact you have fans like @Scotchegg saying this who is usually nothing but positive, should ring alarm bells.

You also mention about stock being ordered but complicated due to change of supplier/sponsor? Surely the club wouldn’t order a load of puma kit before finalising a deal with puma to make the shirts?
 
Steve Gilbert said:
It’s posts like this that don’t help the view from some fans that the supporters panel is just a mouth piece for the club to use.

I’d actually say that given the current state of peoples finances, planning a shirt release a good month before the season starts would be better than once the season has began.

No matter how you dress it up, this summers marketing from the club has been nothing but amateur. The fact you have fans like @Scotchegg saying this who is usually nothing but positive, should ring alarm bells.

You also mention about stock being ordered but complicated due to change of supplier/sponsor? Surely the club wouldn’t order a load of puma kit before finalising a deal with puma to make the shirts?
Click to expand...

1656765894864.png
 
OUSP Secretary said:
Realistically it won't make much difference to sales - a supporter will buy a shirt on 1st July or 31st July, and won't buy more just because they are available earlier. It's really frustrating for us fans but not the commercial disaster being presented.
Click to expand...

An ESTABLISHED supporter will buy a shirt regardless, they will also repeat their season ticket and turn up to each game following their usual routine.

They are the lifeblood of the club and I'd never knock them. BUT marketing and promotional work shouldn't just be focused on those who already attend, but the thousands who do not.

I don't want this to sound like I'm the expert, I'm far from it. But a post that started on NYD was made to get fans to take responsibility for improved attendance and atmosphere. Off the back of that, and thanks in no small part to our incredible dot counters, we saw an increase in attendance like we've not seem in a very long time. Of course, many of those fixtures were the big names, but there was a buzz with fans talking to friends, families and colleagues to get people up to games.

We averaged pretty much 10,000 per home game in 2022, thousands of these fans were not season ticket holders, many were attending games for the first time, bringing their kids and becoming part of the Oxford United family.

It is these fans that may not buy a shirt, may not buy a season ticket and may not come to games as regularly without the club reaching out to them and making them feel special. And that IS a commercial disaster.

We are two weeks away from our first home preseason game. IF the shirts were available for retail then we could have promoted this game as a real family game. Players in the club shop before the game. Bring back some of the legends who played with Joey as we continue to support his family. Look at family based activities before the game with Olly to Ox etc. It might be a watered down version of a family day, but it would have been something and it may have just made a difference to building and developing our future fan base AND our commercial profile.

The club very clearly see my posts as ideas and initiatives that I talk about (by me and others) are often taken on after they've been posted. But no one has ever looked to reach out to me, or the forum in general to look at collaborative ways that we can succeed together.

Sadly if the club and our Supporters Panel are unable to see that this is a problem (and I of all people can!) then are we ever really going to see any improvements?
 
As others have said, there’s limited options open to the club in terms of revenue generation and frankly, we’re not very good at many of them, our kit launch always seems to be late and people have complained for years about the poor choice in the club shop. iFollow content is generally really really poor, and the content they do have looks to filmed by a 6 year old with the audio quality to match.

I for one would like to see a big shake up, there’s people like Chris Williams that have been around for years but maybe it needs someone with some fresh ideas about what can be done to drive interest.

Ultimately we need the club to generate as much money as possible, especially in years where we don’t have a million + player to sell to offset our losses
 
Scotchegg said:
An ESTABLISHED supporter will buy a shirt regardless, they will also repeat their season ticket and turn up to each game following their usual routine.

They are the lifeblood of the club and I'd never knock them. BUT marketing and promotional work shouldn't just be focused on those who already attend, but the thousands who do not.

I don't want this to sound like I'm the expert, I'm far from it. But a post that started on NYD was made to get fans to take responsibility for improved attendance and atmosphere. Off the back of that, and thanks in no small part to our incredible dot counters, we saw an increase in attendance like we've not seem in a very long time. Of course, many of those fixtures were the big names, but there was a buzz with fans talking to friends, families and colleagues to get people up to games.

We averaged pretty much 10,000 per home game in 2022, thousands of these fans were not season ticket holders, many were attending games for the first time, bringing their kids and becoming part of the Oxford United family.

It is these fans that may not buy a shirt, may not buy a season ticket and may not come to games as regularly without the club reaching out to them and making them feel special. And that IS a commercial disaster.

We are two weeks away from our first home preseason game. IF the shirts were available for retail then we could have promoted this game as a real family game. Players in the club shop before the game. Bring back some of the legends who played with Joey as we continue to support his family. Look at family based activities before the game with Olly to Ox etc. It might be a watered down version of a family day, but it would have been something and it may have just made a difference to building and developing our future fan base AND our commercial profile.

The club very clearly see my posts as ideas and initiatives that I talk about (by me and others) are often taken on after they've been posted. But no one has ever looked to reach out to me, or the forum in general to look at collaborative ways that we can succeed together.

Sadly if the club and our Supporters Panel are unable to see that this is a problem (and I of all people can!) then are we ever really going to see any improvements?
Click to expand...

1656775518923.png

This could run.................. :)
 
ttg17 said:
Out of interest, could anyone with a marketing background give a rough idea of how much revenue delaying release of the kit to, say, mid July and a couple of preseason games in would lose us?

I appreciate it’s probably a bit of a ‘how long is a piece of string’ question, but, from a personal perspective, if I like a new kit when it’s released, I’ll get it; if I don’t, I won’t. It being released on 1 July or 14 July doesn't make any difference. Surely quality and look of kit is more important than the release date?
Click to expand...

I don’t know how much an early release would hamper sales against a later release. I am convinced that a good shirt alongside a well coordinated release would definitely be helpful. In the past it has been on an open day which likely helps. No idea what sort of difference that would translate as.

As a guideline, when the club had the League Two promotion shirt (no manufacturer) these were sourced by a ‘middle man’ and the cost was really competitive (if I recall it was about £8 per kit from memory) and retailed at £40, ish? I would gather that shirt was much more profitable than what the club would find elsewhere.
 
Joey's Left Boot said:
I'd like to see something interesting like this:
View attachment 8773

The last few years kits since the pinstripe kit have been extremely boring and plain. The kits ove posted are custom kits which I'm sure would cost a lot so to keep costs low I'm sure we'll get a catalogue kit and the only yellow and navy kit Macron have in their catalogue is this one which is bland:

View attachment 8775
Click to expand...

I sort of called the preseason kit!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1543295617652367363
 
KR said he’s not very happy about not having a new kit in his post Oxford City interview.

Jerome and PRB said the new kit won’t be anything like the one used tonight & that it’ll be similar to one of J’Beauchump’s great kits.
 
Eaststanding said:
Talk away and keep the gossip going by all means but the answers to the questions posed in the numerous posts about new kits were known and could have been posted here much earlier to dampen the hysteria.
If people are happy to constantly keep stoking an imaginary fire with wild guesses and supposition without doing anything about it then this is the place, I’d rather someone did something about it.
Click to expand...

Well if you don’t like the wild guesses and supposition, why don’t you do something about it and stop reading it?

Moron.
 
OUSP Secretary said:
I can assure you we have been, and continue to be, in very regular contact with Niall regarding marketing and it's lack of fan (customer?) focus.
In respect of kits, stock was in fact ordered several months ahead, but it has been complicated by the change of supplier and sponsor. Realistically it won't make much difference to sales - a supporter will buy a shirt on 1st July or 31st July, and won't buy more just because they are available earlier. It's really frustrating for us fans but not the commercial disaster being presented.
We aren't the only ones not to have launched kits yet - discussion with other league 1 teams show several have not yet released their kits and a couple only released the kit this week because photos were leaked.
( E.g Cheltenham reveal is due on 15h July, Plymouth and Charlton only revealed this week, Pompey not yet released and no date given but apparently due in on 21st July).

I had hoped to see the new kit this evening v. Oxford City, but it's not the end of the world to have to wait.
Click to expand...

I sincerely hope the ineptitude and complacency shown by our OUSP sec isn’t shared by the club.
 
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