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CEO, Lewis Holland and the team at DiscountIF team have been studying various merchandise stores of football clubs in the UK. This article was originally posted here.

 

We’ve compiled a short list of tips for your online football merchandise store. To help showcase our tips, we’ve included examples from some of the best online football stores in the UK. Enjoy!

 

1. Good share of visibility on your club website

 

As your club’s website gets most of your online traffic, we think it’s extremely important to get as much visibility as possible for your commercial channels, namely your merchandise store.

 

Everton

 

Everton’s club website is VERY different. The layout is composed of ‘widget’ columns each with their own theme, with the ability to scroll left<> right, and up <> down. We really like that one of the widgets is displaying merchandise from their store. This is permanently there, and gives the ability to the commercial team to have better cross sell from their clubs website to their store. Nice!

 

D_IF6 (Everton Club Page 1.jpg)

 

Note: The visibility of the merchandise widget does vary significantly based on screen size

 

 

2. Clearly marked SHOP button on your club website

 

This tip sounds obvious, but when you look at a lot of club websites the SHOP button is quite a task to spot. Reminds me of the Where’s Wally game!

 

Southampton

 

Southampton have invested a lot in their digital assets, and have in turn been rewarded with a few awards this season. Their shiny new website has got much less clutter than the industry average. This really gives the club the ability to focus it’s message.

 

The STORE button is clear, and they are also utilising the main banner to direct traffic to their merchandise store.

 

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Southampton FC website

 

Watford

 

The club website speaks for itself, very clear & clean!

 

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Watford FC website

 

 

3. Constant Communication with your fans

 

Nearly all clubs have heavily invested in communicating with their fans on social media. We recommend that this ‘investment in digital’ should be extended to their merchandise store with a proper CRM strategy, online chat and more.

 

Leeds

 

If you remain idle for a minute or so on the Leeds merchandise store, you are prompted by a side pop-up offering help and some suggested merchandise. We like this as it’s just the right balance between being informative and also delivering a sales message. Communication as it should be!

 

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Leeds United Online Merchandise Store

 

4. Selection of Fashion clothing

 

It seems like most clubs are adding a fashion range to their collection of merchandise being sold. It helps decrease the challenge of constantly selling the ‘Home Kit’, as well as giving more options on the table for the marketing team to reduce seasonality in sales.

 

West Ham

 

West Ham seem to do this the best, with a wider range than the industry average. We really think they are pushing the boundaries, and this looks more like a ‘genuine’ retail selection. I’m not a West Ham fan, but I have to admit I’m tempted to buy a few of those tops!

 

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West Ham United Online Merchandise Store          

       

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West Ham United Fashion Range

 

 

 

5. Integrated User Journey

 

When fans head to a football club website, they find that for nearly every tab they click on the website, they are in turn directed to a new website. This is a somewhat ‘unique’ digital experience, found only on football club websites.

 

Leeds

 

When fans clicks across the different tabs on the Leeds United (Club) website, they remain on the same ‘site’. The URL links for Leeds United (Club) and their merchandise store are different. However to the user when clicking on the different tabs the experience would look seamless. Awesome! We like this as it could help deliver better conversion between reading content on Home/News & shopping for merchandise.

 

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Leeds United Integrated club website

 

 

6. Banners that grab your attention NOW!

 

As a marketeer when a customer lands on your merchandise store there are many messages you’d like to deliver.

 

BUY THIS because…

(I’ve got a new range of awesome fashion clothing)

(I’ve made the price cheaper)

(I get a better margin)

(because I’ve got a lot of stock)

etc…

Therefore, having a banner that POPS is important.

 

Manchester City

 

Manchester City have a smart way of grabbing your attention to their current deals. Their ‘sticky’ banner at the footer of the page follows you wherever you click on the merchandise store.

 

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Manchester City Online Merchandise Store

 

Note: This is something utilised by all KitBag stores

 

 

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Everton FC Landing Page

 

 

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Tottenham Hotspur Landing Page

 

If you’ve seen other great examples on how to send traffic to football merchandise stores and/or convert it better, please feel free to share.

 

Written by Lewis Holland, CEO of DiscountIF