Strategies for Football Clubs - Why and how to use Amazon Brand Stores. Or not.
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Strategies for
Football Clubs
Why and how to use
Amazon Brand Stores.
Or not.
1
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Table of Contents
dear readers,
Growing up in Germany in the late 90s, there always has been this one foot-
ball club that dominated German football: FC Bayern Munich. Set out to win
their tenth championship consecutively, this club continues to dominate the
pitch and in financial terms. Other teams struggle to bridge the gap to the Chapter 1 Page 4
leading Bavarian team. Intro to the topic
Living in 2022 by now, new and digital markets have emerged, providing
teams with sales opportunities apart from the matchday. Amazon, whether Chapter 2 Page 6
you like it or not, is the top online shopping platform in the European mar-
ket, almost every citizen shops at Amazon. With the Brand Store, Amazon
Overview - What is the status quo
provides an opportunity to sell the merchandise of football clubs almost in the world of football?
worldwide.
As I engaged myself with the possibilities of the Amazon Brand Store, one Chapter 3 Page 14 Published by
FBIN
idea began to float in my head: How to build an Amazon Brand Store Thomas Maurer e.U.
Dietenberg 205/4
8563 Ligist
Huge football clubs are very much like a lot of big companies: They tend to
move slowly in pursuing new marketing opportunities and often rather join Chapter 4 Austria
www.footballbusinessinside.com
or defend well-established markets than taking risks by investing in emerging Advantages and disadvantages of Page 16
markets. In doing so, this creates opportunity for small and medium-sized Responsible for the
clubs to fill these voids. Amazon Brand Stores content
Nils Lappahn
nils.lappahn@tuskoblenz.de
In my opinion, competing teams should focus on areas, that aren’t already
dominated by the giants. With this report, I’ll hope to provide you with use-
Chapter 5 Page 18
Layout
ful information to help you decide, if the Amazon Brand Store offers a new Interview with Viraphong Vongpraseut, Thomas Maurer
opportunity for your very own club and give you a head start to competing TSG 1899 Hoffenheim maurer@footballbusinessinside.com
clubs.
All contents of this publication are
protected by copyright. No part of
Good luck and best regards, Chapter 6 Page 20 this publication may be reprodu-
Summary ced in any form or by any means
without written permission. FBIN
accepts no responsibility for the
correctness, completeness and
up-to-dateness, nor does FBIN pay
any damages.
Responsibility for the content of
advertisements lies solely with the
respective authors of the adver-
tisement.
Nils Lappahn Further information can be requested
nils.lappahn@tuskoblenz.de
at office@footballbusinessinside.com
2 3
Chapter 1
Intro to the Topic
The business of football is subject to constant managers to operate their own online shop and club shop on Amazon, which can further incre-
change: While a few years ago expressions like to customise its design. ase external visits through links. An Amazon
“sweeper”, “man-to-man marker” and “centre- Brand Store has many positive aspects, which About the Author
half” were commonly used to describe what Online shopping is increasingly overtaking lo- we will look at more closely below.
was happening on the pitch, today we speak of cal retail, and not only because of the corona Nils Lappahn
“tipping sixes”, “false nine” and “distant tens”. pandemic. And the most well-known portal for First, however, we would like to take a look at
digital shopping is Amazon. The market leader the world of football and see how this Amazon
Of course the language did not adapt without offers an extensive range of different products product is currently used by the clubs.
reason, but is a result of tactical and technical and is used by many sellers as their selling plat- Nils Lappahn, 33, is an entrepreneur located in
changes in football. Just as football has been form. Amazon allows sellers to customise the Koblenz, Germany, specializing in online mar-
changing on the field, processes outside the various product detail pages, practise effective keting and e-commerce. In the year 2019, he
green pitch have also been developing. branding and create recognition for their own became the vice president of the German foot-
brand, but it is difficult at first. Infobox ball club TuS Koblenz 1911 e.V., which formerly
Here, digitalisation in particular can be identi- AMAZON played in 2. Bundesliga, the second division of
fied as a driver of change: It gives clubs, whate- With Amazon Brand Store, the online giant German professional football.
ver level they are playing on, significantly more provides a powerful tool intended to be of as- Turnover of US$ 386.06 billion in 2020
opportunities to reach their fans and other sistance at this point. This provides sellers who Right from the start of his vice-presidency he
interested parties. Regardless of whether it is have a registered brand, which would include Most successful online shop in Germany set out to implement a new marketing strategy
press releases on social media, or their own most football clubs, with a platform to set up based on turnover for his club, consisting of a club-owned podcast,
online fan shop, tthrough digitalisation football their own individually branded store on Ama- new website, digital profit center and a livestre-
clubs have gained new channels for reaching zon. For 32% market value growth compared to aming offer for the fans.
fans and interested parties. Merchandising, in the previous year
particular, benefits from the advantages of di- clubs, an Amazon Brand Shop is like having an In his working career he’s the associate of an
gitalisation. If a few years ago a fan had to visit own fan shop: The user can customise the de- 53% share of online retail trade turnover Austrian-based e-commerce consulting compa-
the local fan shop in his search for a jersey of sign of his shop with the help of a user-friendly in 2020 ny, that aids other companies in their e-com-
his favourite club, today merchandise items can modular system and many templates, adapt merce activities, especially the Amazon market-
be ordered from your own online shop or from them to his corporate identity and in this way 6.7% share of all retail trade turnover place.
external providers with a simple click. place his products effectively. All merchandise
articles can be compressed and displayed on a US$ 10.4 billion turnover in 48 hours In the last couple months, he zeroed in on the
However, it does require setup and regular single page, for example. Amazon also sets up a on Prime Day promises and drawbacks of the Amazon Brand
maintenance of the shop. These days, however, personalised domain for every Brand Store. In Store regarding the marketing possibilities for
there are possibilities that make it easy for club this way, there is a direct link to the respective football clubs.
4 5
Chapter 2
Overview - What is the status quo in the world of football?
For some clubs, Amazon’s tool is nothing new. AS Monaco
Some clubs have already set up an Amazon Ligue 1
Brand Store, operate it very successfully and
benefit from the many advantages. As Monaco from the French 1st league has a
very visually appealing Brand Store. The top
In the next chapter, we’d like to have a look at a French club refers to the different categories
few examples from professional football: What of its items with elaborately designed graphics.
makes the clubs particularly good, and what One can find jerseys, workout gear and other
can still improve? merchandise of the Monegasque club on its
Amazon Brand Store.
We scouted around in the Top 5 leagues and
took a closer look at a sample store from each AS Moncao is the only club in the top French
league. league to use this option with its presence on
Amazon.
First, a statistical insert:
The top French clubs are registered as official
brands on Amazon and do sell merchandi-
Of a possible 98 clubs in the top se items, but do not use their own individual
brand stores to do this.
five leagues in Europe, ten currently
use their own Amazon Brand Store,
which corresponds to just over 10
percent.
6 7
Tottenham Hotspur Atalanta Bergamo
Premier League Serie A
In the English Premier League, too, there is only Two clubs in the Italian Series A have establis-
one club that is already making use of the ad- hed own Amazon Brand Stores. They are AS
vantages of an own Brand Store. Roma abnd Atalanta Bergamo. We took a closer
look at the Atalanta store as an explicit examp-
This is Tottenham Hotspurs, which has already le.
cooperated with Amazon before as part of the
Amazon series “All or Nothing”. Atalanta, which has been working its way up
to the top of the Italian league for a number of
The Spurs brand store is simple, and less indi- years, tries to work with emotions in its brand
vidualised than the sample from Monaco. Yet store, using images of fans, filled stadiums and
the store is definitely branded on the identity training sessions.
of the traditional London club and also provides
visitors a quick overview of all the merchandise In addition, the store is structured simply and
items. logically. You only need a few clicks to obtain an
extensive overview of the product portfolio of
the Bergamo club.
8 9
TSG 1899 Hoffenheim Bundesliga In contrast with the premier League and Ligue 1 and Serie A, significantly more clubs in the German Bundesliga have made use of the op- portunity to set up a custom-designed store on Amazon. +They are the absolute top clubs of recent ye- ars, namely Bayern Munich and Borussia Dort- mund, the two Berlin teams Hertha and Union, Borussia Mönchengladbach and TSG Hoffen- heim. We’d like to take a closer look at the brand store of the latter in the following We also did an interview with the manager of TSG about their experiemces wit their own Amazon Brand Store.This can be found under registry point 5. Of all the examples until now, the TSG store can be highlighted as particularly positive. With much love for detail and graphic elements, the Brand Store is perfectly aligned with the corpo- rate desig of the club and also triggers lots of emotion through the display of pictures. They have also integrated videos in the start page of the store, which adds even more to the emotionality and increase interest in the club. The many subpages of the Amazon Brand Store were also designed and presented in great de- tail. There you don’t only get an overview of the many different products, but they are also each displayed with images and information. As a special feature, the TSG Hoffenheim store also has an „About us“ subpage on which the club briefly introduces itself with a team photo, among other things, and thus sparks even more emotion in potential buyers. 10 11
LaLiga’s own Amazon shop Summary
Until a few weeks ago, the Spanish LaLIga was Getafe CF, Cádiz CF, Granada CF, Athletic Club, The random sample of all the clubs in the
the absolute pits when it came to the topic of Levante UD, Villareal CF, Real Sociedad, Depor- most successful European leagues in the 20/21
Amazon Brand Stores. Not a single club from tivo Alavés, RCD Espanyol, RCD Mallorca, RC season shows that, so far, only a few (just over
the top Spanish league had an own brand store. Celta de Vigo, Real Betis Balompié and Club At- 10%) teams have used the option of an Amazon
lético Osasuna are currently making use of this Brand Store.
To find a positive example from Spain, you had offer.
to look around the second tier LaLiga 2. There, However, our examples among the clubs that
Girona FC stood out for having created their Until now, the important clubs like FC Barcelo- already operate their own brand stores do for
own individual brand store with great attention na, Real Madrid or Atlético Madrid have been the most part use the entire tool palette offered
to detail. Apart from current pictures, you can shining in their absence. by Amazon.
find a presentation video on the new jersey and
many other merchandise items on the Cataloni- They are, however, listed as official brands with By using customised graphic elements and a
an club’s store page. Amazon and sell merchandise on this platform, simple structure for the store page, the clubs
although without the advantages of an own can present their complete portfolio of wares
However, the page changed completely in De- brand store or making use of the LaLiga shop. and increase their sales.
cember 2021, just before the change of year. La-
Liga Managing Director Óscar Mayo announced Recently, the Spanish LaLiga recognised this po-
a cooperation with Amazon, which resulted in a tential and established its own shop in coope-
separate LaLiga shop. ration with Amazon. This store offers the LaLiga
clubs the opportunity to enter the Brand Store
With this shop, LaLiga fans have the opportuni- realm even more easily and to operate a custo-
ty to purchase merchandise and other products mised store with a large reach.
of the 13 clubs that are currently participating
on Amazon. Using the concrete example of TSG Hoffenheim,
in the following interview we will learn in detail
The Internet platform recently featured a sepa- how they were able to increase sales and what
rate home page for the LaLiga shop, with links experience they gained.
to the respective brand stores of the participa-
ting clubs.
These are adapted to the identity of each club,
although the basic structure of the shop is the
same for all the clubs.
With the league shop, LaLiga wants to give its
clubs another tool to present themselves even
better to football fans worldwide.
12 13
Chapter 3
How to build an Amazon Brand Store
To create an Amazon Brand Store, the club first IMPORTANT Amazon Brand Store structure
has to be registered as a brand. You can do this You should let Amazon Off to a good start: You can set up your brand
via the Amazon Brand Registry (https://brand- assign you a vanity URL. store without having any programming skills.
services.amazon.de/). Now you can start to Example: www.amazon.de/fcbayern
create your brand store. The modules can be joined and individual sub-
To do this, you need to open a new case in Ama- pages placed in a targeted manner by dragging
You must open the Store Builder to create your zon Support and request it. When making con- and dropping.
store. You will find this in your seller or vendor tact, enter your desired vanity URL right away.
account under Stores - Manage stores - Create/ Your Amazon Brand Store is automatically opti-
Edit store. You now have the basic setup for your Amazon mised for tables and smartphones - it’s respon-
Brand Store. Now for the details. sive.
First you need to choose the brand display
name and upload the brand logo. Before you start building the structure in Ama- IMPORTANT
zon Store Builder, you need to think about the If you want to add graphics with text, make
The brand name will be used in the shop URL, product portfolio. sure the font is legible even on small devices.
for example, and should therefore be chosen Which items do you want to present or sell in
with care. However, you can change the selec- your Brand Store? You will find all the design element in the right
ted parameters at any time. Which items should be highlighted? menu bar in your Store Builder.
You now have the choice between TIP
four shop templates: It’s a good idea to check the preview (menu
Marquee bar at the top) regularly.
Highlight
Product grid
Empty
The first three templates are ready-made mo-
dules. The shop template “Empty” is ideal if you
want to present your products individually.
14 15
Chapter 4
Advantages and disadvantages of Amazon Brand Stores
More than 50% of all product The greatest disadvantage for sure
searches start on Amazon. is the loss of customer information.
You can’t ignore the fact that Amazon is THE If somebody buys something via my own on-
player in e-commerce. There is no other com- line store, I am able to further process the data
pany in the world that can test and implement transferred. I can generate statistics, identify,
e-commerce trends on the basis of data like contact and upsell users. For the most part,
Amazon. there is no way I can identify a purchaser at
Amazon. This means that a lot of important in-
An Amazon Brand Store will bring a club sales formation is lost.
that it wouldn’t have been able to realise via
an own online shop. An own online shop would In a time in which “data is the new oil”, the loss
not have the same reach, the almost perfect of data sets is a high price to pay.
check-out process, the database that Amazon
has. It is almost impossible to offer the same The Amazon modular system has many advan-
user experience and the same user interface as tages. A shop can be built up easily and quickly,
Amazon’s. although this does happen at the expense of
individuality.
Another advantage is that Amazon Brand Stores
are indexed by Google and will thus appear in If you want to implement your own navigation
Google search results. structures or own systems, you’ll quickly come
up against boundaries. The scope of functions
is limited.
Another disadvantage with Amazon is the
“faceless business partner”.
If there are problems, I can’t quickly grab the
phone or send an email. The Amazon Seller Ser-
vice is complex and directly responsible emplo-
yees are rare.
16 17
Chapter 5
Interview with Viraphong Vongpraseut, TSG 1899 Hoffenheim
Other clubs in the professional leagues approa-
ched us and asked for tips on creating stores.
You could say that we are regarded as a kind of
best practice.
How did you become aware of the possibility ness expands its visibility within Amazon ex-
of an Amazon Brand Store? ponentially. Were there critical voices, for example from
In the Brand Store you can do individual brand your fan base?
We became aware of the possibility of a Brand presentations as specific texts, images and vi-
Store within Amazon for the first time when deos can be added. The contents is dragged There were certainly critical voices, but they
we first did research on Amazon. and dropped into tiles and can be placed in- were limited. Amazon is generally regarded
dividually. In principle, setting up an own site very skeptically because of a variety of issues.
We were asking ourselves how we could di- works like a type of modular system, which
stinguish ourselves from other companies makes it very user-friendly to maintain. What aspects do you consider important when
on Amazon. You can use A+ content to build designing a Brand Store?
beautiful product detail pages. However, we How long did it take to set up the Brand Store
also wanted to draw attention centrally to our and what work steps had to be carried out? For us, it is important that the recognition va-
entire product palette. lue of the brand is visible in the shop. Despite
Thanks to the modular system, we were able Amazon‘s rather restrictive requirements, it is
SSC Napoli was one of the first clubs to raise to set up the Brand Store very quickly. Visuals always possible to adequately represent the
its visibility to a new level within the Amazon that were readily available only had to be ad- company‘s own CI in the brand store. The Ama-
cosmos with the help of a brand store. It very apted to Amazon’s requirements. Only a few zon shop should also always be an extension of
quickly became clear to use that we also nee- days passed between the first shops sketches your own online shop.
ded a Brand Store. and going “live” with it.
The Brand Store should be tidy and categorised
What, in your opinion, are the advantages of Other work steps that had to be carried out logically, and like your own online shop it should
a Brand Store? beforehand were, for example, registering our be kept up to date at all times. Of course, usa-
brand with the Amazon Brand Registry and bility plays a big role for the customer in the
The Brand Store is like having your own websi- specifying the vendor or seller model. Brand Store as well.
Viraphong Vongpraseut te - just on Amazon. A sort of shop-in-a-shop,
Digital Performance & Online Marketing which has been working successfully in statio- What feedback have you received on your Did you sell products on Amazon before? How
TSG 1899 Hoffenheim nary retail trade for years. Brand Store to date? did the sales figures change after your started
the Brand Store?
It gives businesses yet another option for The feedback has definitely been positive.
communicating brand messages, unique sel- The store is easy to navigate and offers a good We started the Amazon Brand Store and selling
ling positions and other incentives to buy. In overview of the entire TSG Hoffenheim mer- our products at the same time. Therefore we
combination with the product pages, a busi- chandising portfolio. can’t provide an informed opinion on this.
18 19Chapter 6
Summary
The digitalisation of the world and the challen- When considering an Amazon brand store, one
ges and opportunities associated with it do not should keep in mind that the club not only ce-
stop at (professional) football clubs: While fans des sovereignty over customer data to Amazon,
used to have to go to the merchandising shop but also that the online giant is viewed incre-
on the day of a match to fit themselvs out with asingly critically in society and a Brand Store
fan merchandise, online shops now offer a wide could encounter rejection, especially from foot-
range of products and easy ordering options for ball traditionalists.
buyers.
TSG Hoffenheim, a club that operates its own
With the Amazon Brand Store, the online mail Brand Store, also reports such negative feed-
order dealer and e-commerce market leader back. However, TSG also reports that the esta-
Amazon offer clubs an opportunity to sale their blishment of the Amazon shop has been largely
products at another point of sale in adiditon positively received and means that the club has
ot the club online shop. With its modular sys- greater digital reach for its merchandising pro-
tem, the Brand Store makes it possible to open ducts.
a Brand Store for selling club merchandise on
Amazon. In order to do this, the club brand (Professional) clubs seem to be only starting to
must be registered on Amazon and the basic make use of the Brand Store: Only 10% of the
structure of the shop set up. Existing photo and clubs in the five top European leagues make use
video material of the club can be usd to set up of the advantages of the brand store, although
the Brand Store. it can be assumed that this could change in the
near future.
The brand store offers clubs the opportunity to
use Amazon’s immensely large customer base
for their own purposes and to reduce existing
hurdles to purchase, since, in contract with the
club’s online shop - buyers already have a cus-
tomer account and the ordering process based
on the site is thus simplified and accelerated.
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