Strange decisions

[Tamesaint]

The efforts to make SMS more attractive for food and drink should be applauded. More beer choices, better food options, fanzones ,the Dell etc etc enhance the match day experience and bring in revenue for the club. However the commercial department do make some strange decisions.

On Saturday I wss struck by the large number of fans wearing yellow shirts - either last year's second strip or just plain yellow shirts. The turnout of yellow at Wembley demonstrated it's popularity. So why have we moved away from second strip yellow to the simply awful blue outfit?? A plain yellow shirt with a blue sash would be, as a previous poster has pointed out, a great seller.

Similarly the pricing of tickets for tonight's game against West Ham misses many opportunities. "Kids for a quid" would have lost ticket revenue  (which presumably is shared with West Ham) but would have seen an increase in food and drink sales . It would also  encourage a future generation of Saints supporters. 

Our commercial department gets a lot right .... but sometimes it fails abysmally.

 

[AlexLaw76]

5 minutes ago, Tamesaint said:

The efforts to make SMS more attractive for food and drink should be applauded. More beer choices, better food options, fanzones ,the Dell etc etc enhance the match day experience and bring in revenue for the club. However the commercial department do make some strange decisions.

On Saturday I wss struck by the large number of fans wearing yellow shirts - either last year's second strip or just plain yellow shirts. The turnout of yellow at Wembley demonstrated it's popularity. So why have we moved away from second strip yellow to the simply awful blue outfit?? A plain yellow shirt with a blue sash would be, as a previous poster has pointed out, a great seller.

Similarly the pricing of tickets for tonight's game against West Ham misses many opportunities. "Kids for a quid" would have lost ticket revenue  (which presumably is shared with West Ham) but would have seen an increase in food and drink sales . It would also  encourage a future generation of Saints supporters. 

Our commercial department gets a lot right .... but sometimes it fails abysmally.

 

There will always be a variation with the kits. We have had plenty of blue 2nd/3rd kits, so no surprise it has been revisited this year. I think it is alright to be fair.

Isn't ticket pricing a thing to be agreed with both clubs and the compeition sponsor?

Edited 9 hours ago by AlexLaw76

[EssEffCee]

4 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

There will always be a variation with the kits. We have had plenty of blue 2nd/3rd kits, so no surprise it has been revisited this year. I think it is alright to be fair.

Isn't ticket pricing a thing to be agreed with both clubs and the compeition sponsor?

Pretty sure clubs don't have to agree and home clubs simply set the price.

Clubs used to have to agree pricing in the FA Cup but they binned that rule off a few years back.

[CSA96]

Clubs don't do continuous repeats of a popular away kit composition (ie. yellow and blue) every single year because the fans get fatigue and then stop buying them. 'Oh I've got tonnes of yellow and blue already / oh I've got last year's I'll just wear that' like people do with their home shirts, whereas alternating it so there's a new one every two years leads to more demand and helps it sell better in that year, ultimately. Gives clubs a chance to mix it up and throw in some wildcard away kits in the between years. Yellow and blue will be back next year

Edited 7 hours ago by CSA96

[West Dean FC Legend]

[West Dean FC Legend]

Also change the club name and badge, if we do this things will get easier and better....

[Saint Fan CaM]

I’ll give you a proper strange one. When trying to buy two matchday tickets on the website you can’t buy two of three seats in a row leaving the one seat spare. I understand that single seats are less likely to sell, but when choice is limited for general admission sales surely it’s better to allow two supporters to sit together? Just seems a bit daft.

[Saint Garrett]

9 minutes ago, Saint Fan CaM said:

I’ll give you a proper strange one. When trying to buy two matchday tickets on the website you can’t buy two of three seats in a row leaving the one seat spare. I understand that single seats are less likely to sell, but when choice is limited for general admission sales surely it’s better to allow two supporters to sit together? Just seems a bit daft.

Yeah that is stupid, I understand the logic in it, but if you call them they'll let you have them, it's very much a computer says no situation.  I always think there should be some logic which says if there are less than say10 pairs together then you should be able to buy 2 leaving 1 spare, but clearly system isn't clever enough for that.

Blue kit, agree is an absolute honker, but they're never just going to make a yellow kit every year as variation is a sales driver.

West Ham ticket price thing is a farce, but there must be logic in it.  They obviously knew it wasn't going to get near selling out as they announced straight away they wouldn't be opening the Kingsland.

Coming off a season like last season, I'd have thought they'd want to be overly positive, rather than being unnecessarily negative. I had assumed that's why all the chat published on social media etc in preseason saying we're gunna win the league related to...!

But been quite a bit of negatives around so far in the last few weeks, which would have been getting noisier if we hadn't won on Saturday...

[Breeny]

Stage decisions by the club . I’ve been a supporter for 60 years . 76 cup final , recent playoff final + probably 1000s of games over the years . Despite now living in Australia I still get to about 4 games a year and I’m a member.So I qualify to purchase a Pompey ticket . 
I was trying online for about 2 hours to also add my partner a ticket . She’s never been to the UK in her life and I wanted soo much to take her to a Saints game . 
Anyway in desperation I called the ticket office explaining I can’t add my Australian partner and buy her a ticket . 
Hoping I was going to be helped and assisted in the process . The ticket lady explained that my partner didn’t meet the purchase requirements therefore is not allowed a ticket for that game ! 
What a nice way to treat a customer if over sixty years . Ive advised her she’s far better off anyway sticking with her favourite AFL team the Fremantle Dockers ffs ! All very disappointing and a bit embarrassing . 

Edited 5 hours ago by Breeny

[Willo of Whiteley]

Lots are generally planned maybe anywhere from 6-12 months in advance.

The manufacturers probably already have an inkling of what it’ll look like next season.

The bit where we screw up with kits is the delay in releasing them.

[trousers]

21 minutes ago, Saint Fan CaM said:

I’ll give you a proper strange one. When trying to buy two matchday tickets on the website you can’t buy two of three seats in a row leaving the one seat spare. I understand that single seats are less likely to sell, but when choice is limited for general admission sales surely it’s better to allow two supporters to sit together? Just seems a bit daft.

The 'trick' I use for this on most seat booking sites is to reserve a single seat on one browser, but hold fire on the payment screen, and then book the two remaining seats on another browser session...

[Ted Bates Statue]

2 minutes ago, trousers said:

The 'trick' I use for this on most seat booking sites is to reserve a single seat on one browser, but hold fire on the payment screen, and then book the two remaining seats on another browser session...

You're an absolute genius if this works on the Saints website. I understand why they do it, but it has put me off in the past

[ecuk268]

4 hours ago, EssEffCee said:

Pretty sure clubs don't have to agree and home clubs simply set the price.

Clubs used to have to agree pricing in the FA Cup but they binned that rule off a few years back.

I was watching The Saints Network on Youtube on Sunday and one of the guys said that the EFL set a price range for Carabao Cup tickets. 

This can vary and depends on things like the size of the clubs, the division that they're in and the ease of travel.  They didn't give any figures and would be interesting to know more.

[Willo of Whiteley]

17 minutes ago, ecuk268 said:

I was watching The Saints Network on Youtube on Sunday and one of the guys said that the EFL set a price range for Carabao Cup tickets. 

This can vary and depends on things like the size of the clubs, the division that they're in and the ease of travel.  They didn't give any figures and would be interesting to know more.

The Saints Network also do their show directly after the Total Saints Podcast and then talk about the same thing, just with less humour and more unnecessary bad language.

Good to have a double fix of Saints related content that sets me up for the week.

Not sure that’s right about the ticket pricing, I think that’s still decided between clubs.

Edited 5 hours ago by Willo of Whiteley

[EssEffCee]

It's definitely not decided between both clubs. Don't think the EFL thing is accurate either.

Newcastle released their home cup prices for this season a month ago before any idea about who they're playing - https://support.newcastleunited.com/hc/en-gb/articles/20588358442780-How-much-are-Cup-tickets