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Club statement on stock
Posted by Doctor Ince on 14/12/2023, 14:20:50
Laughable how much of it is bollocks.
Commercial department have dropped a bollock, no other way round it
Like I said earlier - damned if they do, damned if they don't. People wanted communication, so the club have communicated (and apologised). Not sure what else they were expected to say, really?
I think someone at the club reads Outlaws! This isn't the first time someone has suggested something on here then a few days later we hear about it on the OS.
It's definitely too little too late in many ways, but which bits are 'bollocks'?
It's unsatisfactory but not untrue, surely?
Surely you're not going to claim that they should have ordered Premier League stock levels this time year? Because that really would be talking bollocks.
As an aside, I think the Commercial Department leadership is piss poor on many, many fronts.
I don't think you've really got a clue about supply chains re this stuff - and of course they can't order kit from another manufacturer, how on earth could that fit in with whatever contracts they have?
I absolutely understand frustrations and share them, but ignoring the (lately) stated facts is plain daft.
I can't speak for all suppliers but kits are often made in generic factories with the Umbro, Adidas, Nike, or whoever's logo then emblazoned on. In other words the suppliers or brands rarely produce the items in house. As such I'm surprised we haven't been able to get more stock in. But as I say not every manufacturer works that way. Adidas certainly have in the past.
That wasn't quite the point I was making but never mind. It was about factories, or sweatshops, producing items for different brands but made in the same place by the same people.
I haven't suggested they order kit from another manufacturer??
I'm obviously not saying I know the ins and outs of umbros ordering - but I do have some knowledge of supply chains and business processes etc and I would be very surprised if the fault lies with Umbros lead times
I'm happy enough to point the finger at commercial dept leadership faults but they're hardly likely to look a gift horse in the mouth re shirt sales, surely? Won't their job be performance based?
I'm not asserting this stridently by the way as I'm aware of other failings too.
The whole bit about demand has caught them by surprise should result in whoever was surprised getting fired tbh.
We've known since May we would be in the Prem. Very few things have an 8 month lead time.
It should've be surprising getting promoted to the most marketable and watched league in the world would lead to a greater demand for merchandise.
I agree with what you say about the quick rise through the leagues and said as much to crumpsall the other day, but some of what we're seeing this season isn't that.
We had kit supply issues last season, if I was the club I'd order based on being in the Prem, what we don't sell we can put on an offer but I suspect we'd sell it.
Still plenty of time to say 'oh, Umbro, now we've been promoted I reckon we'll need extra stock. Please can you do another 5k and we'll go from there......what do you mean it will take you 6 months?? Are those poor children being given time off now?'
Poor form to be agitating for someone to lose their job when you don't know the full details, and would still be poor form anyway even if you did know them.
Of course they knew promotion would create higher demand - but how much higher? 2x, 3x, 4x, 10x? That's probably where the issue arises, because it's still an estimate. To suggest that they didn't anticipate higher demand at all seems unfair to me.
I'll be honest, I'm a tad surprised a company like Umbro has such huge lead times. But then I find everything these days seems to have surprisingly ridiculous long lead times....!
I can see it for initial orders because they'll have x amount of clubs wanting large quantities at the same time.
Re-orders surely have a shorter lead time.
I work for a large company and we have many suppliers - no one in our procurement team (which includes a luton st holder) thinks umbro need 8 months to make more
Maybe Umbro did make more? But the level of increased orders has been even higher than we expected, so they are having to make more again, which wouldn't have been ordered until more recently. It's a rubbish situation for everyone involved, but without knowing exactly what has happened/is happening (which the club obviously can't tell us in that level of detail) I don't see how you can be so certain that you'd have done a better job.
Like I said earlier, they will have known that promotion meant greater demand, but how much greater? We're not exactly a yo-yo club who have recent experience of how much the demand changes between Champ and Prem, are we? If they got their estimate wrong then that's unfortunate, but probably not worth calling for them to lose their job over.
Surely it shouldn't have been beyond the bounds of reasonable expectations that two simultaneous orders or a clause could placed. The original one about a year ago on the assumption that we'd be still in the Championship, then when it was apparent we'd be in the PL a new batch immediately produced. Also what about other clubs experiences with Umbro who have gained promotion to the PL such as Huddersfield. How much %age extra did they produce? And whilst all clubs are different, it surely would have given an indication as to the likely numbers of additional jerseys expected to be sold. If all that was done, why is it that we seem to constantly have kit supply issues regardless of brand.
I work for a large company and we have many suppliers - no one in our procurement team (which includes a luton st holder) thinks umbro need 8 months to make more
I was talking to the fellow st holder* earlier about the statement, and he was sitting with the rest of his team.
There are a few Luton st holders where I work. Naturally we all talk. Today we have a big team meeting, so pretty much everyone is in the office. I was talking to this person the other day about struggles to get a kit for my boy for Christmas.
The statement came out today, so we were speaking about it, at his desk. Naturally he sits with his team, so it became a wider conversation.
I didn't go up to them and ask specifically. It started as a conversation between two Luton fans.
Which bit of 'have to order around now for next season' - which has been repeatedly said on here from good sources - fits in with your comment about lead times?
You can't just distort supply timing to fit in with your wishes, much as we'd all like to!
I get that for initial orders. I don't believe there's any way the club can't then order more. I also don't believe that couldn't have been done to have stock for Christmas.
There is a Chinese site selling reasonable quality kits for this season, and I wouldn't normally deprive the club of money in favour of knock off merchant, but it's getting to the point there's not much other option
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What you read on here is 100% conjecture, fiction, lies, bullshit and complete bollocks. If you want to be taken seriously, you are in the wrong place.
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