That, as you know is not what I said, @eric_plant.
however if other Lg1 and lg2 clubs have all reached the conclusion that a shop in town is not of value to them, there is a reasonable chance that us opening one in our town will not be the answer to all of our problems, regardless of what a fans football forum may quickly agree on.
Always best first to copy others successes rather than being the first to try something IMHO..
Surely the point is...even if it is a similar story across the nation of L1/L2 towns and cities, that does not mean the club cannot or should not getting the WW name out there in the town. And surely if Doctor Who gets himself a regular slot there is room in the pages of the BFP to have a regular column about the Blues?
@mooneyman said: @Wendoverman - We could ask him whether Mr Couhig can borrow the Tardis so we can get the message across the Universe!
Don't think he's allowed the keys nowadays @mooneyman and I'm not sure a few extra Daleks and Cybermen (however handy in a ruck) are going to push up crisp/booze profits.
I'm sure there will be a marketing plan unveiled once the acquisition has gone through that will promote the club towards the sort of incomes needed for sustainability
A presence back in the town centre would be a big help, but I can understand why the club have not had one these past few years.
However, I ran a story on 3CR about a pop up cafe in the Chilterns Centre that 'popped up' in the run up to Christmas. It kept going after Christmas and branded itself the Air Raid Shelter Cafe and took a World War II theme and has been doing well in an otherwise pretty dead part of town.
I spoke to the proprietor a few times and he's not being charged rent, just business rates of approx £80 per month. There are loads of empty units along there and the long term plan is to convert the Chilterns into apartments but as far as I'm aware, the planning application has not been submitted yet so there should be chance a unit could run until Christmas at least.
As an example of what I think some people - and me- mean, in Doncaster you go into local barbers, pubs, cafes, takeaway, dentists, doctors, etc there is more often than not a signed Doncaster Rovers shirt or fixture list or some link to the local team and it does seem to be a more visible presence in the town centre than my limited recent experience of Wycombe.
Last time I visited Wycombe town centre, on a Saturday night, it was basically a ghost town. There were about 6 people in The Antelope, about 10 or so in what used to be (and might still be) The Three Tuns, and nobody in the streets. Is it any better during the day?
If a cheap unit could be found (and it sounds like it could, for now at least) then I think a shop (perhaps a shop/visitor centre if space allowed, with things like, say, a table football game, a tv and PS4 rigged up to FIFA and other interactive bits and pieces) would be great for boosting the club's presence, particularly with kids.
Club shops may be boring to us old farts, but as a teenager I remember the old 'Wanderers in Town' shop being a place of absolute majesty, despite it's fairly shit location. I'd often go there just to look around, even if I didn't have any money.
I also remember there used to be a couple of sizeable banners in the town centre, possibly during the 2001 cup run - one outside the Beeks Construction building by Morrisons and one strung across Crendon Street. Surely it wouldn't be too costly to knock up a few of them? Perhaps a small army of volunteers could hand deliver a fixture poster to every business in the town centre? Maybe the club could give framed signed shirts (including a bespoke thank you message to the business) to establishments that not only displayed the poster but also added something extra like a scarf or blue balloons or something?
There's probably loads of low to medium cost things that could be done to boost awareness of the club in the town and surrounding areas. It may or may not make a big/any difference to our attendances, but I don't agree with any suggestion that we therefore shouldn't try, or shouldn't try just because other clubs aren't. We should always be looking to do better.
We need to be ruthless in seeking out and stealing other local fans and increasing our gates so that fans now can at least moan about the times when it was just 4000 of us no beer terrible burgers and you knew your neighbours and all this was just empty seats .
Excellent post by Johnny King, the very ideas I have suggested. And no need to restrict ourselves to Wycombe town centre, the surrounding areas could be targeted as well. Incidentally, I don’t often go into Wycombe at night, but it always seems pretty busy during the day.
Sorry just don’t see how you can get the finances for your shop to work.
Ok if you get your shop rent free in a secondary location, you still have to pay rates, staff salaries, power, fit out etc. Minimum £10k for a four month period.probably more like £15k.
You are in a secondary location and therefore with limited passing trade selling an expensive product (shirts are what £40) with limited appeal (try giving a Man Utd supporting kid a Wycombe shirt). Very little impulse trade. Yet assuming a margin of £25, just to break even you need to sell 400 shirts to people prepared to buy your specialist shirt from your out of the way location who wouldn’t have bought the same shirt from AP or online.
I just can’t see how it could work.
I agree that costs v. potential profits is a key issue, but it wouldn’t be just a vehicle for selling shirts. There are plenty of cheaper items of club merchandise and it could be a selling point for match tickets as well as giving the club a presence in the town centre.
I very much hope that with the current mood of optimism surrounding the club people would make the effort to help. It’s one way we can all play a part without it costing any money.
Alan , of course you are going to sell more than just shirts but the principle still applies - you have to sell shedloads of an expensive niche product to break even from a location with little passing trade (which is why you can get it rent free) ,
a product which is readily available online.
Yes you could sell match tickets but who are the people that are going to make a special trip to an out of the way shop to buy tickets but wouldn’t have bought online or simply have paid on the gate.
Yes you in theory have a town centre presence but hidden away in a shopping area few visit. What does that achieve?
Fixture posters up in the town sounds like an excellent idea for both the Lincoln game and the Portsmouth game. "3 home games 3 wins - including two last minute winning goals - Watch what happens next" - Is it possible to make a pdf of the posters available for print at home. I will put one up at work - however it is in Cambridge.
What about tweet your pictures of your flag displayed to good effect (in town or in another town) - means flags for sale in the shop.
Flags up at the firms which allow parking in their car parks?
I wouldn't mind helping leafleting local householders on match day to publicise park in your drive app or apps - looking on "Just Park" and "Your parking space" for 7th Sept 14:00 to 17:30 there is nothing closer than 26 mins walk from Adams Park. Presumably those organisations might be interested in supplying some publicity.
Dev, I’m sure the Couhigs will have a view on whether or not a shop in town is financially viable so let’s leave it to them to decide. I am much keener on the idea of getting fixture posters etc into as many public places as we can.
The position of the old club shop right in the centre of the Octagon meant that almost everyone going through the shopping centre would have seen it
Anything in the Chilterns Centre, as has been suggested, is going to be seen by a very small percentage of people in the shopping centre.
For any shop to make an impact - either in sale of merchandse or advertising it needs to be in the Eden Centre.
People would go to the Chiltern Centre if they knew a shop was there but that isn't the point.
Any shop would need to be seen by people who didn't know it was going to be there to be of any effect.
But moving on to posters etc, you said earlier that when involved in managing the club, you identified the lack of posters up in town then as a problem. You may well have been right. Having identified the problem, may I ask what happened next?
How about a print at home, eye catching, light and dark blue, poster for the Lincoln game, to go up in windows, office and business noticeboards. Club to tweet out a link, anyone can tweet back a picture of the poster. Perhaps should check if that game is under threat from international week first.
For the Portsmouth game would it be possible to organise a squad of volunteers to visit shops? The squad could tweet in a picture of the poster in the window or on the door - 71.2k followers is not a bad reach, if the club re-tweeted the best pictures.
We'll be pleased with ourselves if we reach anything around 7000 for those two games.
@DevC said:
Alan, that does feel a bit of a cop out.
But moving on to posters etc, you said earlier that when involved in managing the club, you identified the lack of posters up in town then as a problem. You may well have been right. Having identified the problem, may I ask what happened next?
Not sure what you mean by a cop out as the decision is not mine to make. In an ideal world, it would be great to have a club shop in the town centre, but if we can’t afford it, so be it. Re posters etc, I made my views known to the board of directors, but if memory serves me correctly, their plea for volunteers to help distribute posters was met with a distinctly apathetic response from fans.
Comments
That, as you know is not what I said, @eric_plant.
however if other Lg1 and lg2 clubs have all reached the conclusion that a shop in town is not of value to them, there is a reasonable chance that us opening one in our town will not be the answer to all of our problems, regardless of what a fans football forum may quickly agree on.
Always best first to copy others successes rather than being the first to try something IMHO..
No-one said this either.
It's not "your" town strictly Dev!
Surely the point is...even if it is a similar story across the nation of L1/L2 towns and cities, that does not mean the club cannot or should not getting the WW name out there in the town. And surely if Doctor Who gets himself a regular slot there is room in the pages of the BFP to have a regular column about the Blues?
@Wendoverman - We could ask him whether Mr Couhig can borrow the Tardis so we can get the message across the Universe!
Don't think he's allowed the keys nowadays @mooneyman and I'm not sure a few extra Daleks and Cybermen (however handy in a ruck) are going to push up crisp/booze profits.
@DevC How about we set up a giant straw man in the centre of town wearing a Wycombe scarf, and then just argue with it?
I'm sure there will be a marketing plan unveiled once the acquisition has gone through that will promote the club towards the sort of incomes needed for sustainability
I’d be interested to see how many season ticket holders still live in Wycombe
A presence back in the town centre would be a big help, but I can understand why the club have not had one these past few years.
However, I ran a story on 3CR about a pop up cafe in the Chilterns Centre that 'popped up' in the run up to Christmas. It kept going after Christmas and branded itself the Air Raid Shelter Cafe and took a World War II theme and has been doing well in an otherwise pretty dead part of town.
I spoke to the proprietor a few times and he's not being charged rent, just business rates of approx £80 per month. There are loads of empty units along there and the long term plan is to convert the Chilterns into apartments but as far as I'm aware, the planning application has not been submitted yet so there should be chance a unit could run until Christmas at least.
Does Marlow count? :-)
? no
As an example of what I think some people - and me- mean, in Doncaster you go into local barbers, pubs, cafes, takeaway, dentists, doctors, etc there is more often than not a signed Doncaster Rovers shirt or fixture list or some link to the local team and it does seem to be a more visible presence in the town centre than my limited recent experience of Wycombe.
Last time I visited Wycombe town centre, on a Saturday night, it was basically a ghost town. There were about 6 people in The Antelope, about 10 or so in what used to be (and might still be) The Three Tuns, and nobody in the streets. Is it any better during the day?
If a cheap unit could be found (and it sounds like it could, for now at least) then I think a shop (perhaps a shop/visitor centre if space allowed, with things like, say, a table football game, a tv and PS4 rigged up to FIFA and other interactive bits and pieces) would be great for boosting the club's presence, particularly with kids.
Club shops may be boring to us old farts, but as a teenager I remember the old 'Wanderers in Town' shop being a place of absolute majesty, despite it's fairly shit location. I'd often go there just to look around, even if I didn't have any money.
I also remember there used to be a couple of sizeable banners in the town centre, possibly during the 2001 cup run - one outside the Beeks Construction building by Morrisons and one strung across Crendon Street. Surely it wouldn't be too costly to knock up a few of them? Perhaps a small army of volunteers could hand deliver a fixture poster to every business in the town centre? Maybe the club could give framed signed shirts (including a bespoke thank you message to the business) to establishments that not only displayed the poster but also added something extra like a scarf or blue balloons or something?
There's probably loads of low to medium cost things that could be done to boost awareness of the club in the town and surrounding areas. It may or may not make a big/any difference to our attendances, but I don't agree with any suggestion that we therefore shouldn't try, or shouldn't try just because other clubs aren't. We should always be looking to do better.
We need to be ruthless in seeking out and stealing other local fans and increasing our gates so that fans now can at least moan about the times when it was just 4000 of us no beer terrible burgers and you knew your neighbours and all this was just empty seats .
Excellent post by Johnny King, the very ideas I have suggested. And no need to restrict ourselves to Wycombe town centre, the surrounding areas could be targeted as well. Incidentally, I don’t often go into Wycombe at night, but it always seems pretty busy during the day.
Sorry just don’t see how you can get the finances for your shop to work.
Ok if you get your shop rent free in a secondary location, you still have to pay rates, staff salaries, power, fit out etc. Minimum £10k for a four month period.probably more like £15k.
You are in a secondary location and therefore with limited passing trade selling an expensive product (shirts are what £40) with limited appeal (try giving a Man Utd supporting kid a Wycombe shirt). Very little impulse trade. Yet assuming a margin of £25, just to break even you need to sell 400 shirts to people prepared to buy your specialist shirt from your out of the way location who wouldn’t have bought the same shirt from AP or online.
I just can’t see how it could work.
@devc thanks for your input but why are all my chips wet?
I agree that costs v. potential profits is a key issue, but it wouldn’t be just a vehicle for selling shirts. There are plenty of cheaper items of club merchandise and it could be a selling point for match tickets as well as giving the club a presence in the town centre.
@Jonny_King not to be a misery guts but the stuff you're talking about has been mentioned on here for years.
No one ever quite takes the plunge and goes and approaches their nearest barbers, takeaway or pub to stick something up do they?
I very much hope that with the current mood of optimism surrounding the club people would make the effort to help. It’s one way we can all play a part without it costing any money.
Alan , of course you are going to sell more than just shirts but the principle still applies - you have to sell shedloads of an expensive niche product to break even from a location with little passing trade (which is why you can get it rent free) ,
a product which is readily available online.
Yes you could sell match tickets but who are the people that are going to make a special trip to an out of the way shop to buy tickets but wouldn’t have bought online or simply have paid on the gate.
Yes you in theory have a town centre presence but hidden away in a shopping area few visit. What does that achieve?
Fixture posters up in the town sounds like an excellent idea for both the Lincoln game and the Portsmouth game. "3 home games 3 wins - including two last minute winning goals - Watch what happens next" - Is it possible to make a pdf of the posters available for print at home. I will put one up at work - however it is in Cambridge.
What about tweet your pictures of your flag displayed to good effect (in town or in another town) - means flags for sale in the shop.
Flags up at the firms which allow parking in their car parks?
I wouldn't mind helping leafleting local householders on match day to publicise park in your drive app or apps - looking on "Just Park" and "Your parking space" for 7th Sept 14:00 to 17:30 there is nothing closer than 26 mins walk from Adams Park. Presumably those organisations might be interested in supplying some publicity.
Dev, I’m sure the Couhigs will have a view on whether or not a shop in town is financially viable so let’s leave it to them to decide. I am much keener on the idea of getting fixture posters etc into as many public places as we can.
The position of the old club shop right in the centre of the Octagon meant that almost everyone going through the shopping centre would have seen it
Anything in the Chilterns Centre, as has been suggested, is going to be seen by a very small percentage of people in the shopping centre.
For any shop to make an impact - either in sale of merchandse or advertising it needs to be in the Eden Centre.
People would go to the Chiltern Centre if they knew a shop was there but that isn't the point.
Any shop would need to be seen by people who didn't know it was going to be there to be of any effect.
Alan, that does feel a bit of a cop out.
But moving on to posters etc, you said earlier that when involved in managing the club, you identified the lack of posters up in town then as a problem. You may well have been right. Having identified the problem, may I ask what happened next?
How about a print at home, eye catching, light and dark blue, poster for the Lincoln game, to go up in windows, office and business noticeboards. Club to tweet out a link, anyone can tweet back a picture of the poster. Perhaps should check if that game is under threat from international week first.
For the Portsmouth game would it be possible to organise a squad of volunteers to visit shops? The squad could tweet in a picture of the poster in the window or on the door - 71.2k followers is not a bad reach, if the club re-tweeted the best pictures.
We'll be pleased with ourselves if we reach anything around 7000 for those two games.
Can you imagine what @DevC must be like in real life?
Not sure what you mean by a cop out as the decision is not mine to make. In an ideal world, it would be great to have a club shop in the town centre, but if we can’t afford it, so be it. Re posters etc, I made my views known to the board of directors, but if memory serves me correctly, their plea for volunteers to help distribute posters was met with a distinctly apathetic response from fans.