Don't whinge that social media is just another thing that club committees need to manage. Use Facebook as a way to get input, advertise and sell your merchandise with the following tools:

1.Use facebook polls – these are a great way to gauge interest on a new or upcoming merchandise release or get feedbacks on designs. Pose questions like – which design would you prefer? would you pay $60 for this? What item would you like to see added to the merch list?

2.Setup a store or links to your webstore/team app – use social media to drive people to your online store. If you don’t have a store you can even use facebook to set one up and facilitate payments. You can then distribute items directly or at the club

3.Use ‘offers’ functionality – Facebook has an ‘offers’ functionality where you can create a limited time offer. This can help with creating hype and demand for a product. Not only will an offer (potentially in the form of a discount) create awareness but putting a timeframe on the offer creates a sense of urgency encouraging people to buy now

4.Educating posts – Often merchandise officers are frustrated at the complaints they receive from players/supporters. Wrong sizing, high cost, waiting for orders, etc. Use social media to educate the complainers before they complain. Put up deliveries schedule, explain why you have chosen certain products, share size charts, etc

5. Pictures, pictures, pictures – A picture tells 1000 words. With merchandise pictures are very important. Make sure you take extra effort in getting high quality pictures up on social media. Not only will it help with your conversion, pictures are much more commonly shared and will create awareness outside of your clubs facebook group

6.Create a merchandise event – Unlike traditional merchandise days this could be an online event that acts as a reminder to players and members to purchase their uniforms/apparel. If they accept your event they will receive reminders which should trigger them to take action. Even better use the facebook events to advertise a physical merchandise day

Bonus:

Use Paid Ads – facebook now allows you to place ads towards a very targeted demographic. For example if you want to boost merchandise sales to your local area you can specify that ads are only delivered to people who like your sport and are from a certain area

*please get in contact with us if you don’t know how to setup any of the above and we would be more than happy to help out