Former Kitbag boss helping clubs score in Asia
THE former boss of North West e-commerce company Kitbag is working with leading European football clubs including Barcelona, Juventus and AC Milan and well as Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea to grow their revenues in Asia.
Ray Evans, who left Kitbag four years ago, is now a director of Hong Kong-based company EZ Shopnet – an e-commerce company founded by businessman Perhson Wong – who made a fortune manufacturing Manchester United and England football kits in the Far East on behalf of Umbro.
He says e-commerce in Asia is seeing “astounding growth” – in China alone there was a reported $2bn of sales in just 17 minutes during Singles Day earlier this month.
“In the UK and Europe to a lesser degree e-commerce is pretty easy to do, it’s mature, but in Asia, it’s not the case and brands and businesses need a huge amount of help – not everyone you speak to says the same thing, so it can be very confusing.”
Evans, who lives in south Manchester, has spent the last two years working to understand the dynamics of the Asian market and has visited China and Hong Kong every six to eight weeks.
“China is the dominant force in e-commerce – there’s two main plaforms, the Alibaba-owned Tmall (China’s largest third-party platform for brands and retailers) and jd.com (China’s largest online direct sales company). You find social media driving e-commerce in a totally different way there too.”
Manchester City FC, which has been expanding its commercial activities in the Far East and has just launched an office in Singapore, has appointed EZ Shopnet as its online retail partner for Asia Pacific.
EZ Shopnet is operating five official Manchester City online stores in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and South East Asia. Each of the five stores operates in local languages and currencies, with local customer support enabling the club to get official merchandise to their fans quickly and cost effectively.
City is one of EZ Shopnet’s impressive roster of European football clients, which include AC Milan, Athletico Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus, Olympic Lyon and Paris St Germain.
It also works with Chelsea, Liverpool and the Football Association too.
Evans says: “There is a huge opportunity for Premier League football clubs in Asia. In China this is the first year that the Premiership is on free-to-air TV, so its profile is increasing all the time. Supporting a team is a different process – here and in Europe it’s most often for geographic or family reasons, but in Asia it can be a player first – such as Ronaldo for instance – and then a club.
“Most clubs in Europe see opportunities in Asia and they want to find a route to the consumer there, and that is probably the most complicated thing.”
Chinese interest in the ‘beautiful game’ is growing. President Xi Jinping is said to be a Manchester United fan, though visited Manchester City’s Football Academy on his recent state visit.
The premier is said to want to use football to promote China on the global stage and develop grassroots football to achieve this goal.
The recent investment by Chinese institutions into City Football Group, the parent company of Manchester City was the latest in a number of deals involving Chinese investors targeting European clubs.
Other transactions include: Rastar Group which owns 56% of Spanish club Espanyol; Dalian Wanda Group – 20% stake in Spanish club Atletico Madrid; CEFC China Energy Company which has 60% of Czech club Slavia Prague, while Ledus owns 100% of French club Sochaux and the United Vansen International Sports Company – owns a majority shareholder in Dutch club ADO Den Haag.
