Agreed, pretty much what I put earlier. But the said person should also be responsible for putting systems in place to prevent those issues happening again and maybe carry out an audit of the whole shabang to see what can be improved. You'll find an awful lot can be changed for little cost with just a few tweaks here and there. Its just having the time and dedication to go through it with a fine tooth comb.

There does seem to be a Plan A of trying to sell as much alcohol at matches as possible and no plan b with retail.

The shop in town is a great step forward but it needs to have a better mix of gifts and clothes. The online side obviously needs sorting. If we can’t get a ecommerce shop up and running this season, for whatever reason, sell via Amazon (or similar) and link from the website. Yes the cost will be higher but for fans who don’t live in the area it is a must.

We need to get a better range of merchandise and in winter have coats etc, in summer have t-shirts etc. It seems simple but not currently used.

The closure of the portacabin seems strange, yes it wasn't amazing but it did the job and was easy to call into.

Why not put the trailer used to sell stuff in trinity walk into the ground of match days, selling hats and scarves etc at the moment, then caps, sunglasses etc in summer. Have it over near the north/west stand- the furthest away from the new shop.

As a family club, playing a family friendly sport the idea of selling as much alcohol as possible seems a slight conflict to me with some of the language at the match not what I would want any children to hear.

Why not have a part of the ground for families, daddy cool could hang out there during games and have a stall with kids merchandise, drinks etc etc

Also the quality of the merchandise needs to be looked at, the first wash of my new polo shirt and the badge fell off- not good especially at around £40.

I went past the ground on Sunday and the board at the main entrance still had Bradford as the next game. I know Mr Elston said the trailers around town was the company who manage them's fault but that must surely be done in house and should be done during/ straight after the game.

The Ridings shop is probably our greatest marketing tool with thousands of locals walking past each day. I know that there is a fixture list on it but why not have a large screen/sign stating the next game is... buy tickets here.

There are loads more small things, many of which the club will know and it will take time. There have been huge steps in the last year and long may it continue.

Further to this post, I would like to thank Davide Longo for taking the time to phone me this afternoon to explain the situation and address my points. He informed me that the club are going to make a statement on this on the website and explained many good reasons, which I will give him and the club the courtesy of explaining for themselves in their statement. He said that he understood why I felt the way I did and I was more than satisfied with the explanations and feel pretty confident that our commercial prowess will improve in view of what I was told. If my feelings were a little strongly expressed then I apologise, though, if some of the things said to me had been on the website somewhere prominent already, I wouldn't have batted an eyelid. I think we can all accept the difficulties of dealing with other businesses and overcoming administration but a little clear communication helps keep confidence amongst a group of fans used to being let down. But thanks for that call and it showed the exact opposite of what I was accusing the club of.

Good to know; Mr Elston did a very similar thing recently with a guy who'd had a bit of a do with away travel - we might not be getting everything right first time, but there is very definitely a willingness to listen and learn from mistakes. Can't really argue with that approach.

Thanks for posting the update - that was decent of you.

It was by the main entrance to the ground on Saturday.

I agree. Davide Longo expalined a lot to me today and it all made sense but could be communicated in a much better way so we all know where we are

Yes Davide helped me out a couple of times so far this season, top bloke and very good at his job.

The online shop is VITAL in this day and age. They have really missed a trick, and it's a shame that the club have missed out on so much revenue, I know we don't have a SL stadium but we should have a SL standard commercial and merchandising part of the club. As for buying food and drink at matches this is restricted to our stadium, but there is no reason why we can't have an efficient online and offline shop.

I will be writing to them soon.

True customer service is not over committing and under delivering, it's how things are dealt with when highlighted and brought to attention of management, the current regime at WTW is far better at this than the old one and the board and other high ranking employees have no hesitation in communicating with those asking the questions, much better than the previous cloak and daggers that went on, I say thank you to the OP for bringing attention to this current issue and bigger thanks to WTW for responding in a clear concise and quick manner

Just to mention - you can always pass your comments to the ST; we can pass them on to the club collectively so to speak, so they get a sense of what's bothering the most people the most (if you get my drift) - that's a useful way to help them prioritise which issues to resolve first.

You could even join...

To be honest I'd like to get more involved with this side of things, problem is I live in Filey so it doesn't really work out that well, for example the away day trips on the coaches, or having a drink in the bar before and after the match, aren't really possible due to laws on drink driving



I'm currently studying a module on Digital and Interactive marketing as part of my final year business degree and it has really hammered home how out of date our procedures are. Not having an online shop at all is criminal though. A good example of B2C marketing and distribution is Sheffield Wednesday from last week, they have around 40k people subscribed on facebook, they posted a bulletin about a new set of retro shirts they have just made available, there was a link straight to the shirts on their club shop and customers could purchase these shirts straight away. Brilliant.

I'm not saying we have the resources to be able to compete with this level of service, but it just puts things into perspective.

I live and work in Germany. I'm a member of the supporters's trust, as are the rest of my family (although they don't know it). I also moderate this board. You don't have to be within a 5 mile radius of Belle Vue to contribute something. Not criticising you... we all do what we can do... just saying there are possibilities.

I take that on board, but as RR points out, membership of the ST doesn't require proximity; you could join up and put your views to the Trust board, so we can pass feedback (good and bad) to the club in a collective way; they do welcome the information we give them from fans and have acted on just about all of it thus far.

As for the online shopping - I agree, if it's not working properly, it should be; a basic e-commerce module is a straightforward addition to any website.

I must say I never saw it but if it was inside the ground and as the temo got colder and colder I'm sure quite a few would have gone for hats, scarfs etc at half time

OK, How do I join?

wakefield.rlfans.com/downloads.php

wakefield.rlfans.com/downloads.php

The answer is prob on here but Im watching Shameless so how do I join the Supporters trust?

Follow Bren's link above!

But when you download the form please only send £5 not £10 as membership will run to our year end of 31st August 2012.

Dragged this back up as the promised statement on the website never materialised and the online shop now seems to have died completely. All I seem to be getting is an error message. Not good enough i'm afraid, sort it out 'cos it will be costing the club in lost sales.

Class.

I stood with the Bulls fans all the match when they played us at BV a few weeks back, most of the game I harped on about how much I'd like to See Elima back at Wakefield, then one of them eventually said "He wasn't that good though when he played for you was he?" I replied "No."

And right on cue....

James Elston ‏ @jameselston21

Reply Retweet Favorite · Open

our new online shop is nearly ready to go live just going thorough some final tests

Was about to post the same thing - you zinged yourself!

Fair play if its being sorted. Probably should have put that statement out a couple of weeks ago to let us know though!

Maybe they're trying to avoid the RW disease of making statements about things they're working on, with a date that subsequently slips and they then get slated for it?