A key factor of the team manager‘s responsibilities is purchasing and selling team merchandise for his club. The merchandise is produced by a manufacturer, who‘s merchandise varies in quality and production cost. The Team Manager can choose from eight different kinds of merchandise: team jerseys, scarves, t-shirts, hats, flags, stickers, coffee cups and posters. The merchandise is then distributed to the club‘s fans at a set retail price by the use of fan shops.

To obtain merchandise the team manager must contact the manufacturer and place an order. The Team Manager is able to choose the quality of the used fabrics and materials as well as the manufacturing process. The golden rule hereby being: the higher the quality - the higher the overall cost. The quality of the used fabrics and the manufacturing process are of equal importance to the final quality of the merchandising products.

Each order, independent from its quantity, is delivered to the team manager‘s storage depot within 24 hours.

The team manager can place as many merchandising orders as he wishes. However he is not allowed to place an order for a specific merchandising product, if the combined amount of the product in storage and orders has exceeded the limit. The limit is approximately three times the daily sales figure of that specific product.

As soon as the manufacturing process has been carried out, the Team Manager is able to access the merchandise in his storage depot. If the quality of the merchandising products already in stock varies from the quality of newly produced merchandising products, an average value (mean value) is calculated for all specimens of that particular product. The new degree of quality determines the new retail price for all products of that particular nature. All merchandising products remain in the storage depot until they are sold. The size of the storage depot is unlimited and therefore every delivery from the manufacturers is accepted.

The merchandising products are labelled with price tags in the storage depot. To determine the retail price of a certain merchandising product the Team Manager can appoint a price between a pre-set minimal and maximum value. The retail price is restricted to this price range. While determining the retail price of a product the team manager doesn‘t necessarily have to considered the quality of the product, however the worse the ratio of product quality to retail price is, the worse off your sales figures will be. On the other hand a high-quality product for a low price will be more attractive for your club‘s fans.

Merchandising sales are made by the fan shops. The construction and maintenance of the fan shops is not one of the team manager‘s responsibilities, therefore he does not have to worry about that aspect of the game. Each night after closing hours the fan shops hand in their daily sales report of the past 24 hours. The sales report gives a quick summary of merchandising units sold and money taken in. This data is transferred to the clubs bank balance and is documented in the sales statistics report for merchandise.

One club can only sell units of merchandise that are actually in stock. If there are no units of merchandise in stock in the storage depot, the club is unable to make sales.

The ordering of merchandise can be delegated to the team manager‘s assistant. The team manager can hand in a daily order form to his assistant containing the amount and quality of units, which is then automatically passed on to the manufacturer. This daily order form is saved and the assistant will proceed to order the appointed units on a daily basis.

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