I’ve been following the Wrexham story since the mooted Hollywood takeover with interest, wearing my ‘merchandisers’ hat.

 

 

How would the investment into the club be managed?

How would the club handle Premier League level exposure?

How would the fans react?

Would the merchandising & licensing opportunity be capitalised upon?

 

Here I’ll try to give a rundown on the challenges identified and the strategic opportunity from my own insight into the industry.

 

The Impact

 

Let’s start by reflecting on the incredible impact the takeover and investment has had on the Club.

As of June 2023;
Social media following growth post-takeover had increased by 1,720% with the club adding;

426,211 Twitter (now X) followers

189,585 Meta Facebook page likes

774,018 Instagram followers

1,200,000 TikTok followers

84,300 YouTube subscribers

At the end of the 2022/23 season, the average attendance for home matches had grown 145% from the 2019/20 season (last pre-takeover season not affected by COVID), with most matches selling out. This was a major driver for the investment into redevelopment of the Kop Stand which will add a further 5,500 seats to the overall capacity (+35%) from 2024/25.

As of 2022/23 season, the Club (5th tier of English football) were selling between 30-35,000 replica shirts.That’s the equivalent of some lower-end EPL teams and certainly more than the majority of EFL Championship teams This has continued to grow, with manufacturing now closer to 50,000 shirts per season.

Due to the FX / Disney Plus Network documentary “Welcome To Wrexham” the club has rapidly developed a mass global appeal – specifically within USA, but also across many territories far and wide.

The Club’s database of registered fan accounts has swollen to record levels. The Club were data rich beyond their limits. This was clean data from an engaged audience – a marketers dream!

The Challenges

 

With all of this new found exposure and global demand came challenges – significant challenges. Let’s have a look at some of those…

The Club had overnight global demand for their replica kits and other branded product

The online club store creaked, and at one stage was showing 75%+ product catalogs SOLD OUT

Social media was awash with fans complaining as to the stock availability, fulfillment timescales for orders placed and a lack of communication

The existing retail team were clearly in ‘fire fighting’ mode , doing all they could with the limited resource they had against the tsunami of interest and demand

This fire fighting led to four main issues.

New product wasn’t finding its way to the online store as this took significant time to photograph and upload

In-store demand was significant enough to achieve sell-through on small product buys – lessening the desire & urgency to get products online

Buying & Merchandising was taking a hit, with a lack of time and resource to plan and forecast, to implement a substantial enough buying strategy, to stay on top of demand

A ‘hand to mouth’ strategy was in play, often only triggered by existing lines completely selling out before new product was ordered, leading to long periods of assortment gaps

This drove frustration within the new global fanbase who were struggling to access products, and where they could being hit with substantial shipping fees for overseas orders.

Other significant challenges which arose, some due to the lack of availability of official product, were:

Secondary markets (eg. eBay) thriving – fans capitalising on selling shirts from their personal collections and also ‘scalpers’ reselling volume of new kit for profits

Counterfeit products hitting the market – vast amounts of brand IP infringement

The Current Picture

So what’s happened? How does it look today?

It seems that things may have improved, but very slowly and still far from satisfying the huge demand for products, better fulfillment/communications and overseas shipping rates.

The club owners recently made light of the situation in a marketing campaign for club sponsor Vistaprint – albeit with a good cause (Wrexham Food Bank) benefiting from sales of “Wrexham Merch Merch” – on demand printed ‘Wrexham AFC hat on a hat’ and ‘Wrexham AFC shirt on a t-shirt’ products – a tongue-in-cheek reference alluding to their struggles to keep a regular supply of official merchandise.

This was quickly followed up by the release of a new ‘Exclusive Premium’ range of Macron supplied outerwear and lifestyle sweats and pants with price points ranging from £60 – £180. This raised eyebrows within the local fan base and many comments referring to “real fans” being priced out of buying.

Largely though, the availability of product issues still persist and the revenue lost in sales opportunities goes on.

So, what could be done? How would I approach this unique challenge?

Here’s a few strategic approaches that I’d be taking, plus a number of suggested opportunities I’d be exploring.

Strategic Approach

Full review of all retail operations, identifying immediate efficiency drivers

Define a clear retail & brand licensing strategy for the Club brand

Analyse & understand better the demand for retail and licensed merchandise, forecasting more accurately and agreeing revenue, margin & profit targets

Agree annual merchandising buying budget in line with forecasted revenue targets

Review eCommerce site performance & analyse growth acceleration potential via web store development

Review & implement international expansion opportunities

Agree retail marketing budget and plan detailed annual marketing plan

Opportunities To Explore

Increase white-label (Club branded ‘fanwear’) fashion apparel ranges and category mix (increase margin potential)

Establish branded headwear partnership (dual-branded exposure)

Integrate local community inspiration into collections (resonates with fanbase)

Introduce personalised product collection (high conversion, strong margin)

Setup USA / International product distribution (global accessibility)

Negotiate more competitive global shipping rates (increase global orders)

Develop a prominent retro category with regular new retro shirt releases (top selling category – eases issues around replica kit availability)

Identify and target suitable licensing opportunities (brand growth)

Develop a robust Kitbuilder functionality for the online store offering shirt printing (not currently offered), showing live preview and allowing add-on’s (drives AOV up)

Improve product images and product descriptions on online store (increases conversion)

Setup brand protection with partner agency (protects brand IP/reputation and shuts down counterfeit selling)

Identify suitable product range collaborations (target market growth)

Introduce a dedicated Welsh language collection (unique opportunity)

Introduce a dedicated “Welcome To Wrexham” range (new fan appeal)

Introduce a dedicated “Rob & Ryan” collection (capture wider appeal)

Explore a new women’s fashion range, curated by Blake Lively (increase sales/exposure)

Just a few ideas…

It remains to be seen if the Club will continue to operate their own retail, or outsource to one of the giants of sports merchandising?

Additionally, whether they will stick with Macron until the end/beyond the end of the current term?

Whispers are circulating, but I don’t speculate on rumours in public!