Lundan Cabbie":38q5w3pa said:
You make it sound that the kit deal is all about the retailing of replica kits when that is just a byproduct unless you are a Barcelona or Man United. The kit deal is primarily to supply the club with the essential clothing it needs to operate and not how quickly club shop shelves can be replenished.
The owner of Plymouth Argyle is also the owner of a successful retail clothing company. I don't believe it is beyond the wit of man for him to source and supply a range of 'leisurewear' and training kit to accompany a 'stand alone' first team kit range' - THE PRIMARY REVENUE MAKER.
I don't subscribe to the 'we get a broad range of products' so it's best all round we stick with one supplier argument. The purpose of a business is to make as much money for itself and provide a product the customer wants and when they want it. Argyle need to do this for the fans, and not take the easy and lazy route of handing over everything to an unmotivated third party. How many potential sales has it lost out on having no availability of shirts for the last two months?, how much more opportunity will be lost during the second half of the season should Argyle stay in the promotion/championship race?
And my views on Puma, on all global sportswear manufacturers, is not JUST to do with an ambiguous and low priority delivery date for their customer's orders, it just beautifully emphasises the point.
To them we are an inconvenient and insignificant entity. In order to make it worth their while we will be subject to a big manufacturing and supply margin and go to the very back of the queue for everything. That manifests itself here with a vague and non committal 'they're in the post' attitude to delivering an order placed months ago. But it also presents itself with initial design inflexibility or imposition, a prohibitive minimum order policy (that could leave Argyle with masses of unsold shirts if they 'over reach' an order) and cheapo impositions like stick on badges.
We are treated with contempt by them, they are not commercially invested in us and it matters not a jot to them if we are left dissatisfied by anything they do to us.
It would matter a great deal to a smaller company, for whom the Argyle order is a BIG deal, if they lost our contract. We'd have virtually a blank canvass for design, proper embroidered badges if we wanted them, we could impose our own penalty clauses for late or vague delivery schedules and we wouldn't have to agree to minimum order restrictions (ordering in the dozens not the multiples of hundreds in each size).
It's so obvious what needs to be done here but I worry, yet again, that Argyle have just been bimbling along with thumb up bum and brain in neutral and not working behind the scenes to get a better all round deal for themselves elsewhere.