In a word Clarence, Eveton don't do marketing, like everything else that wasn't already nailed down it was out-sourced for a ridiculous return from kit- bag given the insane media attention that you quite rightly observe across the pond. I read a sobering article a couple of months back from Colin Fitzpatrick which lifted the lid on a similar arrangement with Nike where we are almost pleased to have them as shirt manufacturers rather than the other way around !

You should be able to purchase Everton kit at Nike stores as you can now everywhere in England — not just in Everton stores — available in all Nike stores across UK

Anyway, Nike also let you order from the UK if you go in the store and tell them what you're after. I've bought US clothing from the USA Nike store and they delivered to the UK Nike store after a short period.

Hope this helps your dilemma.

When we had Kejian as sponsors, we could have easily become China's favourite club . One billion Evertonian's (ok maybe a slight exaggeration) and the money that potentially could have been generated through the sale of merchandise would have put us on sound footing and probably even introducing a new era. Truly a waste that such a great opportunity was not capitalised upon.

The problem with counties like China and the rest of Asia though Marty, is that the VAST majority of the population are dirt poor and don't earn the price of a Big Mac in monthly wages.

Coupled with the fact that China especially is the hub of manufacturing and distribution of fakes then there's no demand for genuine shirts except occassionally from the nouveau middle class who might ask an expat to pick one up from the club shop when back on holiday. That way they know it's genuine.

Here in Thailand I can get an Everton shirt for £2.50 but to buy one online and get it shipped here costs £80. Both United and the RS opened up big stores to sell their merchandise, now only United's survive as a rack in the corner of a sports shop.

Clarence, Missed the boat with Cahill, we had him for his best years and he was massively popular over here after 2 decent world cup campaigns, could you buy an Everton shirt with Cahill on it anywhere here, not a chance.

It's not only the merchandising outlets (or lack of) for Everton which is second rate but also their everton direct store as well.

I've given up trying to buy my godson & his brother the new black away kits (they're both Kiwis so would appreciate the colour)

I can't for the life of me get the bloody site to stop crashing when I type their names into the space. Have tried internet explorer and chrome, both can't do it. Must've spent 3-4 hrs in all trying to give Everton 160 quid to no avail.

In Singapore, we could get our Everton tops at the local sports stores for about $110 (£55) for the latest season or $90 (£45) for last season's. They're always one of the last teams to arrive though, or at least when I tried to get mine they were. Teams like Man U, Shite, Arse, City, Barcodes, Spurs, even flipping West Ham and Villa shirts would be in stock for the start of the season but I'd be going back every week asking, "Are the Everton tops in yet?" "No."

You walk into any Adidas or Nike shop in the malls and they sell jerseys of every team they manufacture tops for, EPL, La Liga, Serie A, J League, all there. How sad that even with Nike as partner, Everton won't be among them.

Even if there were just 20k Everton fans out here in Asia, willing to stump up £45 for an official top, that would be worth about £1m in gross revenue. With our situation I doubt the club would look at that as peanuts. Claims that most of the region are too poor to buy merchandise might be true, however, China is now the largest smartphone market in the world representing 22% of worldwide shipments while the US accounted for only 16%. A reported 26m iPhones shipped worldwide in Q2'12 and China made up 20% of those. So we know at least 5.2m people in China can afford a 3G data plan and that's just iPhone users alone. You could triple that number for total smartphone users and still be wayyy on the conservative side. You can't tell me the club didn't miss a HUGE marketing opportunity in China. Maybe it's true that the majority of China don't have two pennies to rub together but it's equally true there are millions of consumers there with disposable income.

Seems to me like the people in charge at EFC have never lived or worked outside the UK or Europe and have tunnel vision when it comes to tapping in to the Asian market. All they think about is matchday revenue, corporate boxes, blah blah blah. Liverpool is a depressed area so why aren't they looking outside? There are billions of football fans outside the UK with money to spend. Take a look at the annual financial reports of clubs like Man U, Shite, Arse, Chelsea and you'll see commercial revenue makes up about 25-33% of their total revenue. EFC is woefully behind at 8%. If you've lived in this region or been here on holiday then the sheer number of footie fans about wearing Man U or RS tops would not have escaped observation. Well there are millions more of them in SE Asia than London, Liverpool and Norway put together.

Eric, the Thais you see wearing £2.50 knock-offs are just wearing it coz the Chang logo is on it, not because it has our club crest. There are plenty of middle class in Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and China, as well as Australia, S Africa, USA and now Belgium, that can afford to buy a proper top and would rather do so knowing that the money is 100% going the club as it's one way for us to show our support since we can't get to the game. Perhaps if the official one was even available for sale then less people would buy the cheap knock-offs! Match-going Evertonians already spend their hard-earned every weekend on the whole matchday experience so I can understand why historically, Evertonians generally don't 'do' merchandise. But for the foreign fan, what's £45-£55 a year for a shirt, or some flags or scarves? What I'm not prepared to do, however, is pay a big chunk of change to the postieman to order direct from EFC, when I could just pay a small mark-up to my local shop because they order in bulk. £20-30 in shipping is outrageous! I'm not saying EFC need spend big on some regional marketing blitz to win new fans, I'm saying just making the bloody shirts available to be purchased by anyone with the ability to walk into their local sports shop would be a start, whatever country they're in!

TL;DR, Kitbag/Nike exclusivity deal stinks!

I was in Eastbourne Sports Direct (or Sports Soccer, they're all the same to me) and the only thing I could find was an Everton mug. Which made two of us.

Rory, I've not seen a Thai with a knock off Everton shirt, only foreigners, the Thais wear genuine Buriram F.C. or Pattaya Dolphins F.C. shirts if they want to wear the Chang logo.

http://www.pattayautd.com/players/en.html
http://www.burirampea.com/th/home.php

As for disposable incomes in Asia, yes there are a lot of the nouveau middle class I mentioned but they don't want to take the risk to buy fake stuff at genuine prices so prefer to buy the genuine thing overseas.

Using iPhone as an example there are 100 Apple shops in Shanghai, but only 1 of them is owned by Apple and sells genuine iPhones. Also the best selling smartphone in China is made by Xiaomi, a Chinese company that makes better phones than Apple, and cheaper too.

So I think even if genuine shirts were available here, like the RS and United stores I mentioned before, they just wouldn't sell and would shut down. Now if the clubs were to come on a tour and bring merchandise with them then maybe you would see some sales.

I've never understood why we Internet users complain about access to Everton merchandise when it is all available online. I have never had trouble obtaining it and much prefer online shopping to being dragged round the shops. I thought most men did!

I'm assuming the online model has some merit since it seems to work for Amazon amongst others!

I appreciate the experience may be different if you are outside the UK, although I have ordered kit to be delivered to my Godson in Queensland.

On the Juventus thing, by the way, would there not be some link to Americans of Italian descent?

They are rubbish but they also think they are good !

When they were charging for Pre Season Friendlies on TV Everton (or wotever its called) I said £4 for a game was a waste of time and if it was free and advertised more there was a great opportunity to push the Club to non Evertonians because they were more likely to watchi if it was free, not like us mugs who pay for it.

I was told, in no uncertain terms by EFC that wasn't a good idea because they had to cover their costs ?

WTF !

How may £4 do thy think is going to pay for it !

It would have been a great chance to push the games in the Echo (or wherever) and get as many people as possible to watch them for free, but no, they know best.

Then the laugh was they couldn't even broadcast the first game properly so people paid £4 and got fook all !!

They haven't got a clue.....

Jon #153, what was the postage cost to Queensland?

It cost me 30 Quid to get a couple of shirts sent here to Thailand so it's not an experience I will be repeating.

I agree, our marketing is crap; however, laying it on the blame of the employees doesn't even scratch the surface.

Our club is skint. Investment banks in London pay circa +£100k per year to good marketing personal and typically have budgets bigger than our transfer kitty. These people are at the top of their game, strategic thinkers who bring tangible benefits to the organisation.

Without trying to compare Everton to an investment bank, it is clear that we are not paying anything near that sort of cash to our marketing dept.

I am no expert but a club of Everton’s size probably need 4-6 top marketing professionals (i.e £80k - £100k per year type) to genuinely improve and define a global strategy to move the club forwards... Does anyone really think we have £400-£600k per year to spend on 4-6 people?

Laying the blame on the existing marketing staff is easy but in my opinion, unfair. I am sure they do not come to work with the intention of trying to limit our club or deglobalise. It is clear to me they are under-resourced, potentially under-paid and maybe under-qualified or lack experience.

If my judgement is correct, the blame does not lie with them, but with the senior management who put the ‘plan’ together and who employed them in the first place.

Just back from Phuket.I could get a fake Black away shirt for 400 baht-16 NZ Dollars.Saw plenty of real shirts at the Jungceylon shopping mall but not Everton.At Bangkok Airport the only team to have a football shop was....Leicester City.Unbelivable

I bought a shirt from the E2 shop and shipped it to Aus along with a GB Olympic top to my sister for £6.20 — why would it be £30 to NZ? Again, total rip off.....
And the worst thing is her husband is a RS and has never been to a game in his life...

Rory - liked your post, however as you mentioned 100% goes to the club this is not the case. I understand that kitbag pay us £3m to have the rights - so the money would go to them and we still get £3m

I'm not sure if it still applies but the price you pay online for a shirt sent abroad is the same as the UK price, wasn't there a rule that said goods for export were VAT free??

Peter #163, it's because the shirt sponsor of Liecester City is King Power, the duty free company at Bangkok airport.

Hey Eric, cool links. How much do they sell the Buriram and Pattaya Dolphins jersey to the locals for? And what's the standard of football like? Why aren't Chang and Everton organizing a pre-season tournament with them instead of with Malaysian and Indonesian XIs?

Thanks Paul. Is that £3 per year or over the length of the deal? I swear, it's like BK and Elstone are doing deals on Dragon's Den.

On the website they sell the shirts for almost Baht 400, which is 8 Quid.

I don't know what the standard is like as I've never watched them but I did read that the owner of Briram FC turned the club around when he bought it and may be interested in buying a Premier League team!

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story/_/id/1039636/john-duerden:-a-tall-thai-tale?cc=4716

Bill, if you're reading this, get him on the 'phone!

oops, that should be £3m of course.

Everton speak with forked tongue about making its brand global — we're not even a brand on Merseyside. The club's visibility in the city is virtually zero.

Nevermind, found it. Deal was signed in 2009 for £30m over 10 years, so £3m a year. I suppose if the club goes nowhere over the next 6 years then it looks like a good deal, considering it used to be a loss-making operation when merchandising was done in-house. But if we become regular CL contenders as we should hope, then Kitbag really stands to make out on this deal, if increased sales correlate with higher league placings and regular European exposure.

Hey Clarence, get used to it! Unfortunately, the marketing/publicity depts are either incompetent or just plain don't care. Many times I have emailed the club without even a courtesy reply.

Prior to this season, every pre-season over here (USA), they went far beyond incompetent... it was impossible to buy any Everton gear! And don't even mention the "communications" dept!

However, I went into the main Nike store on 57th / 5th Ave mostly out of mischief just yesterday and after spying the usual suspects... Barca etc. I complained to staff and was informed all Everton shirts had sold out!! Hard to believe but I will bug them again next week!

Should be Dennehy's for the Newcastle game

Guys, I'm not being funny but they are awful. I've been waiting since July 23rd for my foreverton pack to arrive. No apology, not even an acknowledgement that there are delays... nothing! Happy to take my £20 mind, weren't they!

"I can't for the life of me get the bloody site to stop crashing when I type their names into the space. Have tried internet explorer and chrome, both can't do it. Must've spent 3-4 hrs in all trying to give Everton 160 quid to no avail."

Have you tried turning it off and on again...........

Danny 141, alas you can't get Everton stuff in any Nike store I've seen, there's a huge one here in Manhattan and I went a few weeks ago. There's PSG stuff galore, but no Everton. David, I can't believe the Everton shirts were "sold out" it's more likely they were never there and the sales person didn't know what they were talking about, but I hope I'm wrong. I'm also hoping to be at Dennehy's for Newcastle game maybe I'll see you there.

Jon Beck, I understand you can but merchandise from the internet, and I have bought a shirt this way, but it's just the fact that so many other clubs have their merchandise in stores over here and we don't. It's frustrating.

Rory,

"Deal was signed in 2009 for £30m over 10 years, so £3m a year. I suppose if the club goes nowhere over the next 6 years then it looks like a good deal, considering it used to be a loss-making operation when merchandising was done in-house".

You shouldn't compare this abysmal deal with EFC's shocking business acumen of recent years. Half of the premier league clubs currently make more than £3M a year from merchandising. Clubs with less history and smaller fanbases. By 5-6 years time ALL of the premier league clubs will be generating more than that. Yet we'll still recieving our peanuts and being thankful for our 'historic' deal with Kitbag.
The fact EFC's earlier commercial activities were (and still are) so woeful is slightly irrelevant.

How many top brands (of anything) can you only buy in the City they originate? At least our deal with JJB meant our shirts got in a few different stores across the UK.

Kitbag saw us coming and thanks to Bill and Rob another revenue stream was sold off.
But hey who needs revenue streams and assets when we can rely on our good friends at Vibrac?

Clarence & Danny, the 'sold out' line is just a ruse to get you back in the store at a later date.

The crap marketing is just another symptom of the "hobbyist" approach this Chairman takes.

Every other EPL Chairman takes a wage for good reason ie they're pros they're not playing at it.

This is an 80 million-pound turnover business running at a loss for fuck's sake, you can't run a biz that size on a part time basis — it's not a Saturday morning car boot sale.

Bloody infuriating fans don't get it, clapping like seals when his mug appears on the screen.

How about being able to order merchandise when watching efc on tv - ie press the green button on your shy remote etc. dominos do it etc. it's so hard to get anything when you go the club shop I can't imagine how difficult it is if you don't live in Liverpool

From the OP

''She said outside of the club stores in Liverpool, you can't get Everton merchandise anywhere in England! My fellow Toffees, is this true? And if so, why can't we get competent marketing/sales/PR people''

Very good question!!

This has been a huge issue for the club, even before the Kitbag deal. Everton's marketing is something that particularly riles me. I'm from a marketing background and worked for a short time for a League One club who we recently played. There's been so many opportunities over the years for anyone with any gumption to promote our club internationally. I live over in the States now and every Nike store I've visited over the last month or so haven't had a single Everton item on sale. I was at the large Nike store in Orlando at the weekend and the sales person looked blankly at me when I asked if they had anything or were going to get anything in.

Over the years we've had 4-5 superstars of several countries play for us; Donovan, Cahill, Pienaar even Li Tie to name a few. We've missed some absolute golden opportunities to milk international fans for merchandise of the club and for these players. Even now, every bleeding sport shop I go into up and down the US has a number 10 LA Galaxy Donovan for sale, and I see tons of kids walking around wearing them.

But unfortunately how our short-sighted marketing plan is that anyone who wants to buy any official piece of merchandise has to go online through the official store and get it, and then pay the lovely postage fees that increase the price even more. For a standard delivery the total cost for a shirt and postage is over $90, for express it's over $100... bargain, right?

Where's Martin, telling us we all know nothing about Marketing and Merchandising, and to stop having a dig at the imperious clown BK and his merry bunch of carpetbaggers when you need him?

Clarence, the marketing and merchandising at Everton as explained above are very poor especially when put into context with our fellow peers in the EPL.

Barry: "Every other EPL Chairman takes a wage" — Do they though? I'm just curious... I've not seen anything on this and it might put Billy Boy's "hobbyist" approach into some context if true.

Of course we can't discount the possibility that this is just another overly dramatized porkie that's neatly found it's way into current Everton folklore for the dubious benefit of the adoring masses. As I understand it, members of a corporate Board of Directors typically get a pretty nice stipend, considering they only meet a few times a year in most cases. And of course get all their expenses paid.

Michael I have to confess I haven't checked each club individually and concede it could be folklore.

But the no wage thing is certainly tied in with the "Bill is blue" parable, metaphorically it is Moses rod invoking plagues of insects on the egyptians or in this case those asking for AGMs

I believe you get what you pay for in this world never more so than if you're running a 80million pound biz.

I think Elstone is getting an easy ride here. He gets a decent wage and those emails last August raised questions about him.

Peter Laing (#129), couldn't resist – "In a word Clarence, Eveton don't do marketing." :-)

I think Bill's stipend is about 24M?

We have a marketing department Clarence?

What we are missing on our board are some of the finest retail brains in the uk if not the world.
Whoa hold on we have one in Robert Green and we also Sir Terry as a big fan.

WTF

Paul we have Robert Earl who is also a past bankrupt, his background is hospitality not retail (a moot point of his shares being paid for by Sir Philip Green a well known retailer and tax evader and so called "friend of the club")

Local Tesco's in Manchester has Shirts for Everton, Liverpool and United - not shirts as currently worn by first team but footy shirts and polo shirts - dozens of them. £12.

1. There are stocks being sold outside of Liverpool alongside other big teams. I assume kitbag must be involved as they have exclusivity. Never seen Everton shirts here before so good things are happening re merchandising 40 miles outside of Liverpool. If they sell well I hope we see them here again. I bought 2.

2. No sign of any for City. Distribution problems also happen to other massive clubs. Even when there is a huge local market ready and waiting.

Merchandising, supply and demand, complex business, doesn't make sense to look at it piecemeal.

If you lads in US, Thailand, China, Outer Mongolia etc think that there is such a massive opportunity in selling Everton branded products I am sure you could import container loads of them and sell them in your own outlets and make a massive killing by cornering the market.

Maybe I've missed something but I thought that Ktbag pays us £3m a year in order to have the right to distribute our shirts, so whether 100 or 100m everton shirst are sold worldwide, our total revenue will still be..... £3m, as Kitbag keeps the rest.

If this is true then the club actually have little incentive to pursue any marketing drives as they have locked themselves into such a poor deal with Kitbag.

I may be wrong but that was my understanding.

I've recently worked in Malaysia where shirt sales are massive and Kazakhstan where they are growing and believe me nobody has heard of Everton or in general would buy an Everton shirt. To sell merchandise we need to become a brand and that means success on the field.

In general there is nothing wrong and much right in divesting activities that aren't your core business. Everton's core business is football.

Don't be cute Phillip, it's about perception and mindshare. Everton don't exist in anyone's mind because the media portray us as a small club and when they walk around the shops and see shirts like West Ham, Villa and Leicester City for sale but no Everton, it just reinforces that message. We're hardly going to create awareness trying to sell container loads from our bedrooms are we? That wouldn't even work in L4, nobody would know you were doing it. We don't have the distribution to make an impact. But the retailers and wholesalers that do, have to go through Kitbag and I guess it must be a bitch dealing with them or Everton gear would be all over the place.

Everton were more successful than Spurs in the 80s but everyone remembers Spurs as a big club from that era. Their shirts have been ever present in stores over the years. People have forgotten Everton exist. I can see it in their eyes when I tell people I support Everton. It's like when Luke tells Ben Kenobi he's looking for Obi-Wan... "Now there's a name I haven't heard in a long, long time."

We've been consistently finishing in the Top 8 for some time now, had a spell in the CL, a Cup final and semi-final appearance, caused a few upsets to the Sky favourites, people are noticing us. But with no retail presence it's no wonder fans outside UK think Everton must be some quaint little market town in the middle of Narnia. How can Everton ever become fashionable with no retail presence? Don't underestimate the power of the impulse buy. You never know when or why someone might become an Everton supporter. It's the club's job to ensure that happens as often as possible. Just see on the GOT forum today how a 17-yr old Singaporean kid decided to start supporting Everton 3 years ago because of a couple of games he watched where we fought back to a draw. Desperately wants a jersey but doesn't know where to get one. In this global economy, how pathetic is it that he can't just walk into a sports shop and pick up a shirt of one of the Top 10 clubs of the biggest, most popular league of the most watched sport on the planet?

I've bought and sold things on eBay for many years, enough so I could avoid any real sort of employment. I really don't see how the merchandise dept can fuck it up so bad that they actually make a loss! You sell something people want, they order it, you put it in a box, send it to them and charge them for it. You do the same thing with wholesalers but give them a large discount. How can a whole department of people get this so wrong that it needs to be outsourced to a third party?

Martin, success on the field is one way to build a brand but you don't need success to be a brand. You just need to be a brand. You see people wearing Spurs and Newcastle shirts? When was the last time they had success? They still outdo us in the regional merchandise stakes by a mile.

In Asia, football is about two things, status and fashion. Status so they can brag to their friends about who has more trophies. And fashion because people like the colour or pattern of the jersey or even the sponsor. Stupid maybe, but that's the way it is. Who cares why they buy it as long as they buy it? Commercial income makes up 33% of total revenue for the richest clubs in the PL. At Everton it's 14%. Matchday revenue can't be increased beyond a few million £'s as GP has a fixed capacity. Broadcast revenue is dictated by Sky and how they want to divide up the pie. The only income stream that is controllable by the club, commercial, has been signed away and locked up for the next 7 years, thrown the key away.

Someone at the club who was good at marketing would be able make Everton into a brand and force it into people's minds. Give them something to brag about, something to be passionate about, they'll buy into it.

Spurs fans love to bleat about their FA Cups, Villans think they're the 4th biggest club coz their silly League Cups bring their total tally higher than ours, I just say '9 league titles' and they shut up. Man Utd fans go on about their trophies, I just tell them they were shit in the 80s and Everton had more trophies than them until SAF appeared. They shut up.

The RS will of course go on about 5 times European champions, that's only because they can never change the fact that Everton were the first club in the city, they'll forever be the rejected, bastard offspring and they hate that. What else can they do but try to overcompensate? Plus Anfield has not hosted a World Cup semi-final.

I'm sure we can all think of many more things a potential new supporter could be impressed by and be proud about, even without having recent success on the pitch. But the fact is that, relatively speaking, Everton have been the most successful club outside the Sky 4 during Moyes's tenure. So much so that Moyes is now a bigger brand than Everton. If the club don't capitalize on it soon they're going to miss yet another boat. I'm sure in your opinion they're doing a marvellous job though, Martin.

The only thing I can take from all of these comments is that the postage is a bit pricey!

Someone spending 3-4 hours trying to order kit when there is an obvious bug on the system? Spend 3-4 minutes sending an e-mail to the Contact Us tab on the site instead.

Somebody else wanting free game coverage in the hope of selling a couple of shirts?

Everton get £3M per year whether they sell kits or not, a very good deal for the club considering that side of the business was making losses even in our heydays. It's fucking simple to order stuff online and, you've got to be a bit of a retard if you can't get around an online store in this day and age.

Nike don't need our shirts in their stores (or anyone's really); as long as those shirts are on the telly each week, it cons anyone under 25 to invest in the brand, and that's what it's all about isn't it? Selling T-shirts for £50-£90 when in reality they're worth about a tenner without the "swoosh".

Want to build up our worldwide fanbase? Win trophies consistently year on year – it's the only marketing tool that actually works, you'll never sell fuck all to non-existent supporters.

Want to get your shipping cheaper? Order through a third party and let them ship it cheaper if it's possible as some have quoted above. ToffeeWeb maybe? Grand Old Team? fuck, I might even set up my own e-bay store to do it.

Do it, Steve, do it!

Recently, I've been looking for an Everton fridge magnet. No seriously, I have. I can't find one that's halfway decent. There's a gap in the market there!

What are you going to call your enterprise, though? www.toffeetogs.com has a nice ring to it....

I like toffeetogs.com already Kev, although it sounds a little bit too upbeat and positive for my expected clientele.

Fridge magnets eh? what about one with the badge on with a legend underneath that reads: I'm smiling because I'm an Evertonian, I'm laughing because I can't do anything about it!

Fridge magnet like this Kev? https://www.dropbox.com/s/8rty6esivvjhha5/2012-09-09%2002.33.35.jpg

I got it off a mate who has a ton of these covering his whole fridge, including his favorite team, Spurs, and many other 1st Div teams at the time. Probably off some Ovaltine promo back in the 80s or something I'll have to ask him again.

Yeah, something like that Rory.

You'd think the official shop would do them, but amazingly they don't. They do a fridge magnet that's also a naff bottle opener but that's it.

You'd think they'd do a range - eg, AJ holding up the three fingers after scoring against LFC or the famous pile-on after Carsley's goal against the very same local rivals. Basically, great moments from the club's history. I'd buy a few.

Talking about fridge magnets I stopped at a petrol station in the middle of Nakhon Nowhere in Thailand and strolled around some market stalls out the back and fcuk me if I didn't find 3 Everton fridge magnets including 1 Everton USA!!!

146: "The problem with counties like China and the rest of Asia though Marty, is that the VAST majority of the population are dirt poor and don't earn the price of a Big Mac in monthly wages."

China's middle class numbers more than 300 million, with a spending power which countries like America can only dream of. This number is likely to be doubled within the next ten years.

I used to always buy 2 jerseys every year when I could buy them in my local sports shop in Dublin. But now it costs about €90 to buy an Everton jersey and get it delivered to Dublin. It's annoying because everyone else can get their kit for about €55 in the local sports shop and at least get to try it on. I always end up with loose fitting Everton gear as I don't want to order a size that's too small.

Maybe Julian but that's what? 0.5% of the total poulation? And don't forget countries like Thailand, Malaysia, Viet Nam where the middle classes only make up 1% of the population.

Some more fridge magnets
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/67372213/Everton%20Fridge%20Magnets.jpg

I live in London, and I can safely say, you can't buy anything in blue down here apart from Chelsea kits.

Personally I don't really care because I haven't wasted my money on a shirt for about 15 years, but it would make some commercial sense to a have presence down here. EFC have never been much good at this, it's not really news - at least not in the UK.

The first thing I'd like to see done is to remove the word 'Everton' from our badge on the shirts or at least change it to EFC as on the 80s shirts. It's almost like we have to tell people who we are. It's embarrassing. I'd like to see us put 9 stars in a circle around the tower to denote how many times we've won the league. It's amazing how many people follow football and don't know how big Everton are.

Since graduating, I've worked in marketing for 15 years for a global travel brand and two national UK businesses. I'm an true blue and it saddens to see my club continually fail to put the strategic commercial plans in place to truly capitalise on the numerous marketing opportunities there have been over the past 10 years to develop our brand on the world stage in line with the growth and popularity of the premier league during the same period.

BUT please don't place all of the blame directly on the marketing department at Goodison for missed opportunities. This is all about yearly budgets and which marketing agencies we are able to work with. Any corporate brand relies heavily on external marketing agencies for strategic direction, alongside an internal team at Goodison. And many of the big London agencies can dictate significant fees because they have some of the best marketing talent in the UK and the world.

The current agencies Everton use for various marketing activities are;

* http://www.oxygen8.com/clients/client_everton.php – CRM agency (Customer Relationship Management – offers and deals etc to your inbox/letterbox etc) Based in Birmingham, UK

* http://www.tangmedia.com/pages/3204/Everton_FC.htm – Our Marketing Communications Agency, much of the clubs corporate communications will be handled by this Gloucester based agency.

* http://www.mere.co.uk/header-page/sport/ – Our PR agency which is the same as Kitbag's. They are a small agency based in Hale, Cheshire.

I could find no agencies which were listed as Everton's brand agency. None of these agencies above are registered with the IPA the industry body for the top 250 Marketing Communication Agencies in the UK. This suggests why there is a lack of that global brand presence to maximise the opportunities that are presenting themselves on the pitch.

It's all about budgets and we all know that the majority of the revenue we are creating is being spent on servicing debt and players wages. This leaves the Everton operational side of the business with limited funds which in turn means that we can't afford the strategic brand and commercial marketing levers that are manipulated by many national and global corporate businesses.

Unless there is a step change in budget allocation at the club, then we will continue to work with marketing agencies we can afford and this likely means more years of missed opportunities and posts on fansites like this with us all scratching our heads...

In an era when we have sold all of the clubs assets over the past decade, I really hope that the board and the finance director at the club is forward thinking with the new BT money which is coming in to the Premier League next year, this could allow Everton's marketing department to work with more strategic brand agencies, as this is really key to growing our brand value and equity across the world. It is this type of direction which will deliver the commercial revenue streams we so desperately need to stabilise the club and to begin to remove the need to sell our best young talent to our rivals!

Tom's post makes a lot of sense to me.