Or the trick is to get supporters back in the shop... Potentially spending additional money. It's a ploy not unheard of in retail.

Me and my family are Bolton Wanderers fans and a few years ago my brother got his shirt and got Jääskeläinen printed on the back in honour of his favourite player, goalkeeper Jussi Jääskeläinen.

Was walking into the Reebok Stadium with him one day and we heard a little lad loudly ask his dad "Why can that man have Jääskeläinen on the back of his shirt and I can only have Jussi?"

His dad, equally loudly, responded, "Because he's a fat b*****d, we could only fit Jussi on yours!!"

I still wind him up about that

For me that's the missed trick. Squad presentation night is usually well attended, fills the middle part of the coral stand, should have done it and set up mobile shop like they did at season ticket collection day and would have taken further monies. #buybulls

Perhaps it's my lazy nature, but no way would I go back to the shop just for that. If I was planning on having it printed and numbers weren't announced when I bought my shirt, I just wouldn't bother.

That being said, I've not had a shirt printed since Jimmy Lowes was playing.

I'm not convinced the strategy of the shop would be that clever anyway, they don't seem to understand how important an online shop is these days and think it's ok, people will phone or pop in instead. Not quite understanding some people don't live nearby, and you can't phone to order something when you don't know what there is to buy because most of it isn't shown on the website.

In fairness i think the online shop is being updated due to all the new gear (Which IMO is top draw this year)
Should have been sorted in the off-season but oh well.

It's been offline for a while now, and before that it was massively out of date. IMO they really should devote some time to it to get it up and running properly and quickly. Doesn't matter how good the gear is if people don't know it's there.

Number 31 is James Mendeika

The online store has been rubbish for ages. Fixing that would definitely bring in a decent amount of money to the club. Wouldn't help my bank account mind.

Am I being miserable or is this squad announcement thing a tad tedious? I'm all for building suspense but this is going to drag on and on and on and on and on and on...

Can't see the point unless they're building towards a surprise at the end? Having said that, the club's perception of a good announcement appears to be poles apart from what the fans would like at the moment.

I agree. I quite like the drip feeding announcements like how Widnes did theirs (every 15 minutes for a day). But every 2 hours for however many days they're doing it is just dragging it out.

Didn't think there was anything wrong with the online store last season. Needs sorting out soon though.

Is the squad number thing still going on?

Jeez!

6 yesterday, 6 today. From 10am to 8pm. If it carries on at that rate, I would say it's Sunday midday when the last one comes out. As I said, massively drawn out.

Mitch Clark Number 20

As a fan who doesn’t live in Bradford and can only really get to Odsal on matchdays I find the current online shop incredibly hit and miss – emphasis on miss. If you are wanting your standard home/away kits no problem but any sort of new stock or special offers then it’s an incredibly frustrating experience. Often the club will advertise a sale or new product as “on sale at the club shop and online from tomorrow” – only for it never to appear online. When the first 50% sale was on around may last year, I was told on twitter that the hoodie I was looking for would go online but it never did.

Likewise when we had the limited edition army shirt, I placed an order online at 9.30am that was accepted and money taken out of my account to make sure I got one. The Bulls twitter account were announcing the shirts were still available (including in the size I had ordered) a couple of hours later before a sell out in the afternoon. After a couple of weeks there was no sign of the shirt so when I enquired as to where it was they gave the excuse that they must have sold the last XL one before I placed my order. I pointed out that they were still advertising availability of XL two hours after I placed my order and whatever the truth, it isn’t the best way of doing business with people who actively want to give money to the club. Although I did get my money back, I don’t think this point was satisfactorily resolved and it’s something the club need to look at (whoever it was looking at my order, it wasn’t one of the two usual ladies I see in the shop on a matchday).

I do know you can ring up for this stuff, but that isn’t really the point. Don’t really like having a go at the backroom staff of the club publicly, but it is something that is just so standard these days and it’s just an easy way of getting money in the club from people who aren’t currently local.

Well I think it has always been shoite. If you walk in the shop, it is packed with loads of stuff. But on the few occasions I looked at the online shop, either the overwhelming majority of items weren't there, or else they were well-hidden where I couldn't find them.

It's not hard to do an online shop. I sadly spend far too much online so I should know. I just don't see why you can't put each item you stock in one or more categories, and have a nice subdivided online shop with everything searchable and easily findable and all available. Getting somebody to build a proper online shop would surely pay for itself in a breath. Buying online is a breeze. Finding time to trail to Odsal is not.

An online shop should obviously (and very easily) be linked to the computer record of stock, so once sold out (in store or online) it shows as out of stock online.

I hear the club are working on getting the online store up and running soon.

About time.

Indeed. Surprised it's taken so long though. When they moved the shop to combine with the ticket office and i first went up, I thought, what a masterstroke, now, every single person who came for a ticket had to walk through the array of goods and so sales must have zoomed just through such a simple plan.

Danny Williams keeps the Number 5.

Anything was an improvement on that small portacabin. How previous regimes hoped to sell merchandise in such a small shop was beyond me. It was impossible to gain entry on matchday due to the crowds of people and the queues were ridiculous.

The amount of times I was considering a browse and purchase and took one look at the queues and thought “no way”.

A proper online shop with all products included is a total no brainer. The shop’s opening hours are no good for people with normal working hours or who live more than a few mins from Odsal so the club is missing out on a lot of potential custom by not having it.

I know the club are starting to make progress. The new bloke up there Haroon Rashid is making a lot of positive changes in a lot of departments.

And merchandising is one of the key income streams that we are allowed to spend on the salary cap. I would have thought that would have been more of a priority rather than the utility switching bullpower thing.

Think until recently there wasn't much coordination of action in the back office. Communication wasn't the best.

From what I've heard recently that ought to change for the better soon.

Jay Pitts stays as number 14.

Little surprised at that. I half expected Addy to have the 7 shirt and Pitts to take 13.

Maybe Kavanagh is 13. Or perhaps Mellor may have been rewarded for his clear improvement with that 13 shirt. Or they've put someone else in 7. We'll see..... eventually.

Ok sack that theory. Ben Kavanagh Number 25.

Last one for today. Kris Welham is Number 4.