How to Merchandise Like Juventus Fc

Introduction

I'm now in Switzerland the last couple of days we've left south of France and have also been touring through Italy. I just wanted to give you a couple of comments really, around my experiences in Italy today and in Switzerland just now.

First and foremost in Italy we were called off in Turin and Jamie, my lad, wanted to go to the Juventus Football Club stadium. He collects football shirts from European clubs as well as the UK clubs. So we went into the megastore, superstore, call it what you want and the way that the place was laid out was just phenomenal.

Meeting The Needs Of Your Customers

I really want to talk about what I call meeting the needs of your customers. Think about it this way, obviously like any top football team they need merchandise commercialization to top up the ticket prices, pay the inflated wages and all that stuff. But this superstore, I just want to give a massive shout out to them.

They catered for everything and the reason why I'm talking about this is because I want you to give some thoughts in your business about how you are catering for more than just your prime customers. So we talk heavily about, who is your ideal avatar, your persona, who is your customer but think about Juventus.

Naturally their core business is football, and either winning the Serie A title or Champions League or whatever it would be. But the merchandising side, Jamie's obviously bought a shirt, that's fine, things like shorts and socks and things like that, that's pretty standard stuff.

When we went in here, they've got a 36 panel flat screen deck TV and they were promoting new things all the time. Obviously, they were showing players and endorsements and things like that. But to one side we've got all the baby stuff so literally baby grows with Juventus stuff on it. You move forward then into sports and casual gear.

• They've got a dedicated ladies section.
• They've got accessories where there is keyrings, badges, demountable wall art, car stickers, car flags, plastic sponge hands, you get it.

But the main thing I wanted to cover is what I said earlier, they've got a baby section, they've got a dedicated ladies section, even the shirts fit, ladies fit and things like that.

Product Diversification

What I'm trying to explain is the diversification. Is it not enough to sell your football shirt? But they understand the power of extracting more out of your wallet basically so ultimately, if you're a football fan your wife or your girlfriend can have a shirt.

If you've got a family you can dress your little boy or girl in Juventus baby grows and baby hats and mittens and all other things, baby stuff from that side. So I think it was just an excellent example how a club can be commercially aware. Not only to target the main avatar.

But also say hey, now we've satisfied the needs of our main avatar with a replica shirt or whatever it would be and of course they've got all the usual upsells in there. Jamie ended up with a Serie A badge on the sleeve. He ended up with a guy called Dybala on the back of his shirt with a name and a number print and the upsells were there from the shirt to the badges.

• Do you want a Juventus scarf?
• Do you want a Juventus demountable wall art?

You name it, they've got it covered. So have a think about yourself, look at your main core products and if you're supplying that, even if it's industrious product. You are saying right, I'm contracting, I'm supplying this industrious product then my challenge to you is well okay. What else does that company buy what you could sell as a supply?

It doesn't matter if it's industrious machines, is there a service contract or a maintenance contract or is there a delivery service or is there some type of express product that you can supply from there? So I think that's just one thing and obviously if you're doing retail it's pretty straightforward, whether you're selling;

• Cards
• Gift cards
• Birthday cards

All the way through to apparel and retail stuff, just look at that wider audience. I'm not saying don't specialise, I'm not saying don't have a niche, that's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is just look like you've understood how they can take many out of the main fan's pocket. How they can take more money out of his pocket for the wife or the girlfriend's shirt and the baby and all the other stuff that goes with that as well.