Retro football-shirt etailer TOFFS (The Old Fashioned Football
Shirt) celebrated a 30 percent year-on-year rise in turnover for
the month of February. Michele Finch, company secretary,
attributes some of the rise to the heightened awareness the Green
and Gold campaign-a movement by Manchester United fans seeking to
overthrow the club’s current owners. TOFFS stocks Newton Heath
football shirts, the club’s original name, and has seen
significant uplift in sales, even though “it is one of our
oldest styles, so it isn’t something someone can accuse us of
jumping onto the wagon with,” says Finch.
Another reason for the boost, she notes, is that the UK has
exited the recession; fans are able to put their hands in their
pockets to buy nonessential items like retro football
shirts.
In its 20-year history, TOFFS has consistently hit annual sales
of £1.4 million to £1.6 million, says Finch, who admits
the business had expected to be hit hard by the downturn.
“During the recession we budgeted accordingly and wrote a
business plan for a worst-case scenario. Thank goodness that
didn’t happen and we more than broke even,” she says.
In 2010, TOFFS is looking to grow sales to £1.9 million
thanks to the football World Cup. Football fever is already
starting to take hold; sales in mid April are up 50 percent on
the same period last year. “Remember too, that we don’t
sell the current strips,” says Finch, “so everything
we do is based on history. Our average customers make two
purchases. Therefore, we don’t have a customer coming back again
and again each time a new strip is released.” However,
where it is at a disadvantage regarding repeat custom,
“what we do have are customers who are more than happy to
spread the word and recommend their friends,” says
Finch.
To further broaden its potential customer base, TOFFS has a
multilanguage website to serve customers in French, Italian, and
Spanish markets. It holds an exclusive license with the Italian
Football Federation and has secured a promotional deal with
Italian beer Peroni in the run-up to the World Cup. Further, it
will run a joint marketing campaign with UK-based Papa John’s
Pizza during the World Cup.
Following the tournament, TOFFS will unveil a new website built
by Dydacomp, the business also invested in upgrading its order
management system (from the same vendor) to coincide with the
launch.
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