As someone who has actually had to make these sort of decisions, I can assure people it is far far from an exact science when you are dealing with what is each time a one-off product in a dynamic market. I wonder, too, whether some people realise that the minimum order quantities are in THOUSANDS, not tens or hundreds, and there are significant lead times. So if you get it wrong and order too many, you might be stuck with thousands too many. The sort of money, indeed, the club could spend on a transfer fee, or another member of the coaching staff, or some more marketing support to help better judge demand in future, or...well the list is almost endless.

And not only do you have to judge the toal quantity, but you also have to judge the mix of sizes. And the home/away mix. And at the time of placing the initial order, you may well not have known how successful the Pledge campaign would be.

I guess though that we have a goodly number of experienced procurement managers posting on here, judging by some of the comments?

I do love some Bulls fans who will never hear a bad word said about the club and have such a blinkered view. isaac1 makes a good point and not having any shirts at this stage of the season is amatuerish and if it is going to be several weeks before the shirts come into stock then that means that shirts will not be available for the first home game, which is simply not acceptable.

I do not know how many shirts we should have ordered and neither will any of the fans on this site, but that's really not the point. This is the clubs job, not ours and that is what the marketing team are paid for. The club will obviously have records of how many shirts they have sold in previous years in relation to season tickets sold, they can surely make a better estimate based on percentages. They will also have records of what sizes sold best in previous years, once again basic maths would help them work out how many of each shirt they need to order.

The problem with those otherwise fair points Chris is that the club doesn't really HAVE much in the way of a marketing team - because of cost constraints. They probably place considerable reliance on the kit supplier, who you would expect has the requisite experience, so you should maybe be blaming them not the club? Also, this year is something totally different to what we have seen in the past, because of the Pledge campaign. It would be a very very brave man who extrapolated the relationships from last year (and that info will be limited - for example I am a season ticket holder but forgot to mention it when I bought my home shirt) to the totally different circumstances of this year. In the middle of a period of austerity.

It may be unfortunate, and the club may have lost some potential sales, but it is NOT unacceptable to be short of stock at a peak demand time, when much/most of the demand has been satisfied. Its quite normal with seasonal toys etc and with new electronic gadget launches. A bloody pain in the if you want something that has sold out, for sure, but still not at all uncommon. And for the same reason - if in doubt you have to be prudent, especially when bringing in stock by the containerload from the far east with six week shipping times and production lead times on top. The club has to run as a business, not a benevolent society for the benefit of the fans, does it not? How I wish it was otherwise - then we'd not see the sort of debacles like we have just seen at Wakey and Crusaders, which went bust because they ran out of cash. At least our club has avoided the trap of tying up excessive cash in stock, albeit at the price of peeing off some fans.

hopefully teamcard will bring the benefit of tying up season ticket holders to what kit they buy.

that is providing it gets used when purchasing from the store.

Never hear a bad word said about the club? Don't talk such sh*t. I've criticised plenty in the past. It's simply that in this case, there seem to be a hell of a lot of people telling the club they're doing wrong, when in actual fact, they clearly have absolutely no clue of how it all works. Adey has highlighted it very well, there are a lot more factors to take into it rather than over-simplifying it like some on here are doing.

Do you seriously think the club won't have made their estimates based on that previous figures? Of course they will! And the fact that loads have sold out therefore suggests that there was more demand this year. But in the absence of psychic powers, the club couldn't have known how much that extra demand would be.

Basic maths? Utter b0llocks, there's nothing basic about it. Without a fully functioning Crystal Ball, it's impossible to know how many will sell. It's not just "we sold 2,000 last year, so we'll sell 2,000 this year" and if you think it is, then you really do have no clue about it.

Plenty of people ready to criticise and not one of them could predict any better than the club have. If they think they can, may I suggest you have a pop up to the shop and share your expertise with them?

You don't know what they based their figures on. You don't know how many they ordered. You don't know pretty much anything except they've now run out of certain sizes. And yet, despite that complete lack of knowledge, you and a few others seem to think that you know better than the people you're criticising. Again, if you know better, pop up and share your wisdom.

Indeed...that is one of the principal reasons why the club ties up with the likes of teamcard.

No bloody use at all though when muppet here forgets all about his teamcard AND his season ticket card when buying ahirt...

We're going round in circles with the arguments here, so I'll just ask one basic question. As a fan of the club, what would you honestly prefer they do, considering they have no exact figures of how many shirts will sell and what sizes?

1) Be low-risk and conservative with the orders, at the risk of upsetting some fans who go to buy them a month or two after they're released?

2) Be high-risk and please every fan that wants a shirt, but risk losing a load of money on surplus stock?

Note, the third option of "buy exactly how many they'll sell" isn't realistic so hasn't been included.

Interesting points Adey and I am no way saying it is easy but the fact remains that BEFORE the season has even started we have sold out of certain shirts. Rather than some fans (not you) just slating other peoples opinions and saying these things happen, maybe they could suggest a way of stopping the problem in future. Would a shirt reservation system work pre season if it was put into place?

It would be interesting to look at the stats of when the shirts are sold, from most peoples opinions on this site it seems that people think that 90% of shirts are sold before the season even starts, this I very much doubt. A lot of fans who do not live local and who have not been to the friendlies will be waiting until the start of the season before they buy their top(s), they will obviously be very disappointed if they can't get one in their size.

It would be interesting to know how many other superleague clubs have sold out of certain shirts already, I wonder if other clubs would find this acceptable? I can't remember if we have had the same problem the last few years? I know we ran out of away shirts (2 seasons ago I think), but that was part way through the season.

I am finding this thread a little weird.

I don't think the club is above criticism but you can look for a positive explanation instead. Lets assume they did up the print run in anticipation of more buyers (off the back of the season tickets) and we've sold way more shirts than even that. This would be good news, its not a given that the sell out is because the club messed up.

Noone can get shirts from the supplier except the club, is that correct? So anyone selling a shirt anywhere paid the club for it originally? So I'm not following where the "I'll shop elsewhere" protest is coming from.

That said if the club hasn't increased the number of shirts on the first order from sales made last year, then I'd class that as mistake. And no DILLIGAF, not being a marketing professional I don't have a formula for you let alone numbers! You'd expect that a coordinated marketing strategy with the season ticket discount and all the other publicity we've had would include reviewing the order for the shirts.

Funnily enough, that was exactly the thought I had too. Seems such an obvious one!

Then I realised why (there is always a bloody "but"...) it might not work: the relatively short lead time between the sghirt designs being released and them going on sale.

Unless the club could widen this out to allow for the manufacturing and shipping time, and the handling at this end, and with a margin for error. This year there was about two weeks between launch and on-sale. You'd need more like two months minimum if the stuff is made in the far east.

I think its a combination of minimum order quantities and lead times that does the damage. Next chance I get I'll ask the club about this, but maybe some with a current concern could do precisely that right now, and let us know what the response is and reasons are? Seriously, cos a sensible and reasonable question should almost certainly get a reply in like vein in my experience. And if nothing else, its the chance to show that maybe the likes of ME are no nearer the reason! Like...the ship the shirts were on was hijacked off Somalia or was abducted by aliens...

Indeed you would expect that. And if they didn't order more on the back of the successful pledge, you would be disappointed and chalk that up to a mistake. Agreed completely.

The point I'm trying to make is that nobody has a clue how many they ordered and yet they're very quick to criticise them over it. Yes you could argue I don't know how many either and therefore shouldn't defend them, but personally I prefer to give the benefit of the doubt, as you've mentioned in your post.

My problem is with people that have no facts about it at all, but will just immediately jump on criticising the club over it. You've come up with a perfectly logical scenario where they could have run out of shirts despite ordering loads, which shows that it's possible. It amazes me that others can't see that possiblity and would prefer to just call them amateurish instead.

Firstly is there any reason you feel the need to swear so much? I'm not sure if you feel this strengthens your argument but other than coming across as a chav you really achieve nothing.

As I've stated before it is not my job to predict the number of shirt sales, however if it was my job and I had failed then I would expect questions to be asked.

I am not saying it is an exact science but basing the figures on previous years season ticket sales should have given a guide + or - a certain percentage. Your example of 2,000 last year and 2,000 this year is fairly ridiculous, if you doubled your sales of season tickets how would you adjust your shirt order? As a very basic adjustment and a starting point before taking into account other factors, family tickets etc?

Anyway hopefully they will get it sorted soon and it won't impact profits too much.

I said the exact same in another topic, but every body just lauged

That's cos he is the respected "Big Chris", and you are... "Terrace Singer" (and whoever else). Go figure?