Quins Merchandising Forum 2010 Report

Bill Ford-Smith held a merchandising forum with Quinssa members and users of the CAW site to discuss the future of Quins' merchandising and to answer some questions, here is his report.

Webpage:
some issues were raised regarding the webpage and its operation, specifically many people found it slow to load. Some discussion indicated that it might be due to various companies’ security systems as most people seemed to report minimal trouble from home (and that included using some relatively elderly hardware). Much of this (and one or two other points) related to the main webpage, not just as the Online Store. This has been reported internally and we shall make further enquiries to see what can be done.

Replica Socks:
it was established that the current version of the Replica Sock is more or less an exact clone of the KooGa Playing Sock, but without the KooGa logo; there had been some modest confusion on this point. It was requested that we do larger sizes (currently, we top out at a UK11); this will be investigated.

Replicas:
there was a certain amount of discussion on the subject of Replicas. There were several areas under discussion:

• Next Season: It was asked what is happening with the shirts next season. There will be a new (and rather exciting) Away shirt and the Home shirt is staying the same; for the first part of the season, the Home Replica is identical to this year’s (later production will feature one or two detail changes but nothing of significance). There will be a new Charity Replica for TBG3, but there will be fewer of them than in previous seasons. The new Away shirt will be previewed to fans at one of the pre-season friendlies, as we did with the Home shirt at the beginning of the current season.
• Late Delivery: the late delivery of the Replica stock for the 09-10 season was commented on (it arrived in November in the end). As most people probably know, KooGa had a difficult time (largely due to factors beyond their control) over last summer and one knock-on effect was that the Replicas were very late; KooGa are in rather more robust shape now, so we don’t foresee similar problems for 10-11.
• HopeHIV/CRUK Replica sales: it was noted that this year’s HopeHIV Replica has obviously not sold as fast as the CRUK shirt from the previous season (hence why the remaining stock is now half price!). There appear to be a number of reasons behind this; the main one appears to be direct competition with the Home Replicas, which came into stock about the same time – if people are only going to buy one shirt (as a Christmas present for example), a new Home shirt tends to be preferred over any other design.
• Liquid Pro Replicas: these are a more high-tech Replica, utilising the same fabric as the current Playing Shirts and are compression garments as are the Playing equivalents. These Replicas lack the underarm reinforcement of the Playing version. It was asked why we didn’t stock them; the simple answer is money: they were expensive and the return on investment in stock is weaker than many other products.
• Collars: we commonly get asked why we don’t have traditional collars on the shirts any more (Retro excepted); traditional collars are a menace to play rugby in (too hot, for a start), but crew necks are hard to attach a logo to (commercial necessity). The most effective compromise is the mandarin collar, which is what we use on the Playing Shirts and therefore also on the Replicas.
• Future Direction: Replicas in a slightly lighter fabric were requested (perhaps similar to the Quartered Evaporex shirts currently in the shop), as well as less stiff sponsor logos. Increased use of sublimation in future years should help with regard to the latter and research is underway with regard to the former. Cotton Replicas were also asked for; at the moment, this is a definitive ‘no’ (and is likely to remain so): amongst other reasons, modern team shirts tend to include some sort of intricate design (often sublimated) and accurate cotton versions are very hard to do; the current synthetic Replicas are generally very well-liked and we have the Retro shirts for those who prefer cotton (the latter also having the merit of not going out of date).

Retro:
a version of the Retro was requested with a more old-school sleeve design, rather than the Raglan pattern used for the last few seasons. The main Retro will remain with a Raglan sleeve, as they are more commercial (=sell better); this is probably due to them fitting a wider range of body types – a Raglan sleeve looks good on any body shape, whilst the more traditional sleeve looks relatively poor on anyone whose shoulders are smaller than their waist.

That said, we have been looking into doing an ‘Uber Retro’ which ticks all the boxes beloved of traditionalists; the project currently is less likely to happen for the new season than it was previously: this type of design works out horribly expensive and in times of recession such products tend not to sell well; to make matters worse, cotton prices appear to be strongly on the increase at the moment. The Uber Retro is still in the pipeline though and we’ll do one when it’s judged sensible to do so.

Program Binder:
something to keep old programs in was requested (hard cover); this will be looked into.

Sizing:
this was raised as a perennial problem. The issue here is consistency; two different products of notionally the same size can be significantly different in terms of actual dimensions. To a degree, we’re always going to struggle (until we get a lot bigger and have significantly more buying power): different suppliers tend to have different ideas regarding how big a given size should be (it can also vary hugely depending on intended end use/target consumer e.g. Retro sizes versus Replica). We’re continuing to try and improve things though and this season’s range is better than last year’s and next season’s will be further improved (barring catastrophe).

Navy Jumpers:
we get occasional, but persistent requests for a navy jumper with a whopping full-colour Harlequin on the left chest, as worn. We have a merino (very warm and soft wool) one in stock this season, although it has a crew-neck and a relatively understated, whilst still full-colour, Harlequin on the chest. This specific product area does illustrate reasonably well one of the permanent challenges we face with merchandise:

There is finite space in the shops and store-rooms (even with the new Shop 3); this means that we can only fit a limited number of products in the range each season; if we ranged everything we ever got asked for, something about the size of a moderate shopping mall would be needed to fit it all in! So, we have to make ranging decisions: what goes in the range and what doesn’t (I’m currently buying-in AW2010, i.e. next season, and currently have about three times as many options as I can possible buy!). The objective of the merchandise range is simple: to make as much money to help fund Harlequins rugby as possible, so we have to pick the things that are judged most likely to achieve that aim. It’s desperately unromantic, but we have to be pragmatic.

At the moment, in the sector of warmwear, hoodies are massively more popular than jumpers and, within jumpers, crew-necks tend to be more commercial. As a result, the range contains several hoodies of various designs and only one jumper (of the design judged most likely to sell). Incidentally, we judge popularity and suchlike on the basis of hard numbers (I spend a worrying amount of time in front of databases and spreadsheets), rather than who makes the most noise

To offer some hope to the v-neck jumper fiends (and anyone else whose desired minority product is not currently ranged): the popularity of clothing types varies hugely as time passes and we react to these changes. It is likely that jumpers will come more into vogue again in the future at some point and, at that time, I fully expect to be fielding enquiries along the lines of “what happened to all the hoodies? We liked those…” from the people who miss them!

Training Wear:
it was asked why we don’t range this sort of thing i.e. training tops and suchlike that are issued to the players. Normally we do (north of 1,500 pieces last season)! We didn’t this year because the lead-times are shorter: it was obvious KooGa would struggle to provide us with stock by the time we would place orders, so we spent the money on other products. There will probably be some training wear in the range for AW2010, although it won’t be absolutely everything the players are issued with (it’s almost impossible to put a decent Harlequin on a waterproof jacket without making it leak, for example, unless you do it at source).

Quartered Jacket:
this will probably happen this year. We’re about to go to the sample stage and, if all goes well, it should go ahead. Selling price will be £60 and it will be a properly waterproof shell jacket in the full six colours (layout of panels essentially the same as the long-sleeved Retro; you will be delighted to read that the sleeves will emphatically be Raglan – definitely the best design on a waterproof). You lot better like them – we have to order 2,000!

Boring Polos:
we get regular requests for boring polos i.e. plain block colours with just a Harlequin embroidered on the chest. These will be back for AW2010, although the exact form is tbc.

Putting the word ‘Harlequins’ under the Harlequin logo on more product.
The reason we don’t is the three brand schemes:

• Harlequin figure and ‘Harlequins’ text beneath = RU-specific.
• The oval(ish) Harlequins Rugby League logo = RL-specific.
• Harlequin figure on its own = Universal (although the timings and relative sizes of fanbases tend to mean more is bought by RU supporters).

Having stuff that both sets of fans might buy allows us to produce a larger range than we could otherwise.