Well Matt Mallinder as mentioned earlier is apparently holding a competition for a new jersey design, perhaps you could put in a proposal of your own. In answer to your questions:
1. what would the minimum production run have to be, to get the price to a level of say £20 to £25? Depends on the Company, some will charge a lot for artwork plus have quite a high minimum order, normally the more upmarket brands will expect this and being upmarket charge more as a result. The yellow and blue Jerseys we had made from one of the typical companies making club kit were £25.00, only a few were made, purely to market research the design and to calculate the possible demand. As a comparison to something that we have gone past the fact finding stage to the finished article then we charge £35.00 for our Italian made BikePlus jersey, but the
Artwork alone cost us a quite a bit, as in low hundreds. Worth noting that the artwork is only charged once, not for repeat orders. A well designed set of garments may be in production for quite a long time, so with this in mind and with the quantities that the CTC organisation would require then set up costs would not be as much of a deterent as it would be for a DA section for example, who will order far less in comparison, making the set costs more prohibitive.
As to which price and quality you decide to go with takes some thought, we here for example chose the manufacturer
Santini for our BikePlus kit, not the cheapest, yet quite a bit below the more expensive end of the market. I wanted clothing with our name on to be well made and designed yet good value, using high quality materials, infact anything with our brand name on I want to be of good quality and be seen as such, branding promotes an image after all and the same appplies to promoting the CTC, if you make the effort to get the designs and quality right it quite simply shows, the same applies if you don't.
In many ways it is just as important to decide what quality you want to go for as it is the artwork. In the case of the CTC branded items do you go for £20/25 per jersey and sell it on price, or indeed slightly higher quality and aim it at a slightly different market. The mid range garments will last longer and as a result look smarter for longer, which is more of an investment to the individual and of course looking smart is never a bad thing interms of reflecting and representing the image of the CTC. A scruffy CTC branded rider will deter as apposed to attract after all so I would not recommend the real cheap and cheerfull products for anything with a CTC logo. Of course it can also be argued that mid range prices will deter many from making the purchase, so I repeat it is worth doing a bit of research. Perhaps more leisure styled clothing that has become popular should also be considered, you could even run two manufacturers with the same artwork, one at the budget end and one mid range.
2. Can sizes upto XXXL be accommodated?: Many CTC riders are not exactly errrrrrrrrr racing whippets, some indeed do carry some relaxed muscle around the six pack area, so I would expect sizes upto XXXL to be ordered
3. What level of demand is there? As I mentioned earlier many sections have there own kit, but the CTC should also have universal kit available to all. Worth noting that if the kit is good then non CTC members may buy it, which may prompt them to join, I know it works for the
Addiscombe Cycling Club, our sister shops stocks, displays and sells their
Club kit and non members buy it as they simply like it, many then join the club as a direct result; of course it helps that they are local to us but you can see the theory.
4. Would the CTC allow the use of the winged wheel given that a) it's CTC members who want the garment, and b) it should all be good promotion for the club? Hopefull the CTC will indeed have a voting system to allow the members to chose the new designs, perhaps via their/this web site, so that the members can vote for
what they want and if they want the winged wheel then that is what they should have. Perhaps with the competition being promoted via 'Cycle' magazine, the winner receiving a set of free kit perhaps, presented by Jon Snow
wearing….
5. If positive responses are forthcoming for the above, who would / could take on the task - the CTC itself? Paul Smith, would you be willing? Well as you can see yes we were willing to both design and get the jerseys made in small enough quantities to market test, although in reality this is now up to the CTC Organisation along with the new CTC Shop and not the old one to get the new designs put into production. Although of course we could get them made by someone like Santini, although I can't see that the new CTC Shop would either need or want to get BikePlus involved.
In conclusion the CTC Organisation represents a large selection of members and just as important they need to attract some new ones. To have a design that is suitable for all I believe will require a larger range, both something along the lines from what we recognise from the recent styles that were available as well as lesiure styling. When BikePlus started to run the shop we already had a range inherited from when the CTC Shop was still run in house, with two styles of rain jacket, a fleece, helmet cover as well as traditional jerseys, plus lycra as well as a baggy short. Perhaps at least one jersey could be made to appeal to the many enthusiasts who like the winged wheel design and another with a design that may be aimed at attracting new younger members who perhaps may not be into the retro styling.
When launching the competition the objectives could easily be established, for example, a CTC anniversary s/s jersey, mid weight and winter jacket and a comparible line up with a different design to appeal to different riders. Plus a baggy leisure styled short with modern styled baggy cut top to match.
If the new club kit is right it will be a success for everyone, if it is wrong the opposite applies, some time and effort needs putting into it to make sure that right it most definetly will be, after all the CTC organisation want it to be a success as do the new shop.
It will not be that not hard to get it right, by the same token it is quite easy to get it wrong.
Paul Smith
www.bikeplus.co.uk
Kentish Man wrote:Paul Smith SRCC wrote:W
.....the blue and yellow model was a limited edition and was popular with the members, although we only had a few made as we were told off about the design, especially for using the winged wheel badge, I think it was seen as being a bit to retro; which is why it was a limited edition
.
Paul Smith
www.bikeplus.co.uk
I really like this design. Several questions though (this started as 2 questions but is mushrooming!):
1. what would the minimum production run have to be, to get the price to a level of say £20 to £25?
2. Can sizes upto XXXL be accommodated?
3. What level of demand is there?
4. Would the CTC allow the use of the winged wheel given that a) it's CTC members who want the garment, and b) it should all be good promotion for the club?
5. If positive responses are forthcoming for the above, who would / could take on the task - the CTC itself? Paul Smith, would you be willing?
As for indicative demand - I would have one, possibly two (one short sleeve and one long?).
Can anyone set up a survey seeking responses to level of interest and range of sizes required?