Hi there,
I had to register to comment on this matter, as an existing member of staff in the COMS Store at the moment. As a result of this I would like to state that any comments made, or opinions posted by myself on this thread, or any other thread, are not those of MCFC, but of me as an individual.
I can appreciate the sentiments already expressed on this thread, and also of the OP - this was obviously posted as soon as they'd found out the information on Tuesday afternoon. We were all called to an emergency staff meeting on Tuesday night to be told of a "pending contractual agreement" to outsource all retail business to Kitbag from 19th July 2010.
Attached is a link to the letter itself ->
Although the meeting was largely full of unknowns, because the small print is yet to be worked out. The club are liaising with Kitbag and the workforce through an Employee Focus Group over the coming weeks but as you can imagine, there's a lot of worry around at the moment.
There was talk of a major overhaul and expansion of the mail order/online sales operation - which in my opinion is desperately needed - a store being opened in Abu Dhabi, a possible redevelopment of the COMS store, and the closure of the current Arndale store with the opening of a new 'Flagship' City Centre store as early as September 2010 - Nothing has been postured about location, but I would imagine with the word "flagship" we're looking at perhaps the old Adidas store location on Market Street, or one of the vacant units in the Arndale around by the Apple store... This is great news, if it turns out to be true.
Clearly the move makes economical and logistical sense, and should serve the Club well moving forward, however there are a couple of concerns - one which has already been raised regarding the warehouse, the other where the 68 'casual' staff who work mainly Matchdays currently, but who do a lot of important work covering for full-time and part-time staff when ill or on holiday fit in to the new operation... Especially as all the stock will be sent to the store 'pre-prepared', which is not currently the case. My other concern personally, as someone has already stated on here, is that Kitbag are known to be expensive. Pricing will have to be carefully considered to avoid annoying the really important people, you guys - the fans.
