Fixing WWE Merchandise

[scomvp316]

I think the biggest thing that hurts WWE Merchandise isn't that its wrestling merchandise but alot of fans don't like wearing the gear with the WWE Logo. If WWE wants to control the distribution of their own merchandise the best way is create talent logos instead of the company logo. WWE could re-brand this merchandise per talent instead of wrestling merchandise. The other solution if fans don't like that idea WWE make a deal with Nike,Adidas,and or NB with the wrestling merchandise with the logo of one of the sporting merchandise company. Just because the company is PG doesn't mean the merchandise has to look like Sesame Street apparel. Make the shirts a little bit edgier and not too cartoonish like some of the apparel that they already produce. The one idea I get alot of feedback from fans of different wrestling events is to re-brand the dvd's. The one area is seperate the archives of WWE,WCW,and ECW. You could even re-launch apparel of the other promotions along with some of the stars of the past that were in WWE. The DVD concept is unload the archives onto WWEShop where fans can build their own DVD or Blu-Ray. You could charge what past PPV's would cost and you can breakdown those PPV's into singular matches. That can also be done for the weekly shows in the archives. Wouldn't it be cool if fans could build their own DVD with every Ric Flair segment from WWE and WCW.

 

[HBsam31]

You and I have went back and forth on the DVD/blurays a lot, and I think you have a great idea here. I am an avid collector of the dvds, and I would probably get off on being able to create my own dvds lol. With the vast library they have I think they limit us as fans as far as what and what they don't make available to us. If I could go online and create my own dvd from their vast library I would probably spend myself broke. Great idea, and this is something I would most definitely like to see.

 

[scomvp316]

Maybe I should reclarify what WWE could charge for either individual PPV's or just plain individual clips. Each PPV depending on the popularity would be around 5.99 and each individual clip of PPV's should be 1.99. With weekly shows the cost would be half of what PPV's and their clips would be. Seeing WWE has mentioned they don't know what fans of other promotions like from the archives this would give the power to the fans. Whether some of us like "Best Of" or not it would cut down on the negative reaction to DVD's

 

[Jama7301]

I think the biggest thing that hurts WWE Merchandise isn't that its wrestling merchandise but alot of fans don't like wearing the gear with the WWE Logo. If WWE wants to control the distribution of their own merchandise the best way is create talent logos instead of the company logo. WWE could re-brand this merchandise per talent instead of wrestling merchandise. The other solution if fans don't like that idea WWE make a deal with Nike,Adidas,and or NB with the wrestling merchandise with the logo of one of the sporting merchandise company. Just because the company is PG doesn't mean the merchandise has to look like Sesame Street apparel. Make the shirts a little bit edgier and not too cartoonish like some of the apparel that they already produce. The one idea I get alot of feedback from fans of different wrestling events is to re-brand the dvd's. The one area is seperate the archives of WWE,WCW,and ECW. You could even re-launch apparel of the other promotions along with some of the stars of the past that were in WWE. The DVD concept is unload the archives onto WWEShop where fans can build their own DVD or Blu-Ray. You could charge what past PPV's would cost and you can breakdown those PPV's into singular matches. That can also be done for the weekly shows in the archives. Wouldn't it be cool if fans could build their own DVD with every Ric Flair segment from WWE and WCW.

I think this is why I liked CM Punk's shirts in the past. They didn't have the huge WWE logo on them, and they had designs that people would actually want on a shirt. Fist grabbing lightning? Yeah, I liked that. His old Ribcage style shirt? A-yup. Bad design: Chris Jericho's newest shirt.

That's just my take on this topic though.

 

[DirtyD79]

As I've said in the past a large part of the problem with not just WWE but wrestling shirts in general is they're either too inside jokish with catchphrases or you've got some other dude's mug cheezin' allover the front of it. Another problem is whenever WWE does make a shirt that looks cool from the front they always manage to put stupid shit on the back. Less is more, it's a shirt not a sandwich sign. Put simply they look like something nobody over 10 years old would wear.

 

[HenryOGodwin]

Put simply they look like something nobody over 10 years old would wear.

I mean, should anybody above 10 really be wearing wrestling t-shirts anyway? I would feel like an even bigger dick than I am already wearing any wrestling shirt. The last one was my Stone COld University shirt when I was like 16, and even then when it wasn't as douchey, I still felt like a douche. Adults don't wear wrestling shirts unless they are trying to fuck kids.

 

[FlairFan2003]

Merchandise, like everything else, goes up and down based on the popularity of the product...IE when wrestling popularity is up Merchandise sales increase, and vice versa. Fewer people watching means fewer people buying.

The only thing that really transcends this would be the "Greatest Hits" collections on DVD. These are not marketed to weekly viewers of Raw & Smackdown, they are marketed to an older demographic that likley doesnt follow WWE full time or only does so for short periods, say around WrestleMania for instance. These collections spotlight stars who either are retired/deceased or while maybe active now are in the twilight of their careers, these sets focussing mainly on their prime periods of success.

However, WWE really mined this goldmine with two Hulk Hogan sets (his matches were never that good to begin with), updated retrospectives on Steve Austin & Shawn Michaels combining WWE footage with their pre WWE careers (it helps WWE owns the video rights to so much non WWE product), and probably the gran daddy of them all, the two Ric Flair Collections (three if you count the Four Horsemen Anthology). They've also done sets for HHH, Multiple collections for Undertaker, sets for Dusty Rhodes, Roddy Piper, Ricky Steamboat, Randy Savage, even Curt Henning. After awhile it becomes hard to find stars who had careers long enough and prolific enough to spotlight, although WWE has also made a mint off of specialty collections combining WWE, NWA/WCW, World Class, ECW, & AWA footage for things like their "Greatest Steel Cage Matches" series or sets dedicated to Ladder Matches. We've also had retropsective sets celebrating the best of the biggest and most successful annual PPVs like Starrcade, WrestleMania, & Royal Rumble, sets dedicated to Raw & Nitro, Saturday Night Main Event, & Clash Of Champions. WWE has been churning these sets out with great regularity since Vince started aquiring the librararies of his old rivals circa 2002 (also around the time stars like Flair, Hogan, etc returned to the company).

At this point I think the Retro DVD market has been pretty well tapped. However, there maybe a few things that havent been done yet such as...

Greatest Hit Collections for NwO & The Attitude Era (both about to be released)

A second Brett Hart Collection or even a third Flair set (their careers are big enough to support this)

Collections for Lex Luger, Kevin Nash (separate from the NwO set) or a Steiner Bros Anthology (Scott's extremely bad reputation and constant bad mouthing of so many top wrestling stars makes this unlikely)

A Sting set (probably wont happen as long as he is under contract to TNA and unable to participate in the project) - Same with Kurt Angle

Ted DiBiase's career would make a great set, especially now that WWE recently aquired significant Mid South footage

A continuation of the" Greatest Rivalry" Series spotlighting matches and promos from other legendary rivalries (like they did for HBK-Hart)...many good ideas here if they wanted to make this a two or three times per year series, such as Flair-Steamboat or Flair-Rhodes, Austin-HHH, Randy Savage vs Hogan, Flair, and/or DiBiase, Piper-Hogan, Brett Hart vs Owen, HBK-Taker, Austin-Rock, Cena-Edge, many more

A "Best Of" set dedicated to Great American Bash/Bash At The Beach PPVs going back to the original stadium show in 1985 - Maybe one for SuperBrawl also

Set dedicated just to "Forgotten Classics" spotlighting great matches that aired on TV (like Raw & Nitro for instance) that have been forgotten because even though the match was really good it wasnt a part of a huge storyline or major feud (some of Brett Hart's early Raw title matches come to mind for instance) - This could be a great combo with stuff from the late 90s/early 00s alongside some vintage 70s/80s stuff.

As far as T-shirts, posters, etc - those things are marketed to kids and kids buy when the product is popular, those sales will rise again when the product as a whole ticks up in popularity.

 

[scomvp316]

I don't want any fans to take my statement the wrong way or take it too personal. If you are a dedicated fan of any promotion regardless of age and believe wearing wrestling apparel is beneath you then just don't be a fan. The same type of argument was made in the 90's of people wearing sneakers and sports jerseys all the time and for well over a decade wearing sneakers and jerseys was the in thing. Any fan that even has the slightest thought that adults wearing wrestling apparel are trying to lure kids and is a molester is the biggest idiot of all-time. For the last three years MMA T-Shirts have outsold player t-shirts of both the NFL and MLB. If WWE was to get rid of the logo on the apparel and strike a deal with a sports company like Nike or Adidas would be huge. In fact one of those companies could also help with the designs to make the apparel more appealing for marketing purposes!

 

[akathelaw]

Adults don't wear wrestling shirts unless they are trying to fuck kids.

Turn on ANY wrestling show from the past 20 years to see hundreds of adults (men and women) wearing wrestling shirts in the crowd. You're ridiculous.

Buy a shirt if you like it, or don't buy any. The mark-up on the shirts should tell you all you need to know. The high price means they sell a lot of them. I'm a life-long wrestling fan and I wear shirts with wrestling graphics often. I don't care what others think, I love wrestling.

 

[FlairFan2003]

I think the biggest thing that hurts WWE Merchandise isn't that its wrestling merchandise but alot of fans don't like wearing the gear with the WWE Logo. If WWE wants to control the distribution of their own merchandise the best way is create talent logos instead of the company logo. WWE could re-brand this merchandise per talent instead of wrestling merchandise. The other solution if fans don't like that idea WWE make a deal with Nike,Adidas,and or NB with the wrestling merchandise with the logo of one of the sporting merchandise company. Just because the company is PG doesn't mean the merchandise has to look like Sesame Street apparel. Make the shirts a little bit edgier and not too cartoonish like some of the apparel that they already produce. The one idea I get alot of feedback from fans of different wrestling events is to re-brand the dvd's. The one area is seperate the archives of WWE,WCW,and ECW. You could even re-launch apparel of the other promotions along with some of the stars of the past that were in WWE. The DVD concept is unload the archives onto WWEShop where fans can build their own DVD or Blu-Ray. You could charge what past PPV's would cost and you can breakdown those PPV's into singular matches. That can also be done for the weekly shows in the archives. Wouldn't it be cool if fans could build their own DVD with every Ric Flair segment from WWE and WCW.

This has a lot of potential because it could bidge the gap between the kids and tweens who buy the shirts, acton figures/toys and posters and the older fans like me who are NOT buying any of that but would (sometimes do) spend money on the Retrospective DVD sets... The ability to build your own set, buying indivdual matches/segments like downloading new songs from I-Tunes could be huge, at the very least it would be something that would always generate revenue, the potential for repeat customers is endless and the amount of matrial in the WWE video library is HUGE

 

[scomvp316]

The idea of "Retro" in entertainment being out of touch with the consumer is just not the truth. Many insiders of the DVD Industry have mentioned any entertainment company that creates more "Best Of" is marginalizing their profits. "Best Of" on average will only reach 75-80% of your normal buyers. When you sell these sets around 120,000 units you could of gotten 175,000-200,000 units with anthology sets. Some fans may say well I wouldn't watch some matches I wasn't interested in but that doesn't matter too much cause you bought the set so that already constitutes one unit sold. Thats why if you release anthology sets you release them as a whole and don't seperate them with 4-5 installments. In fact a year ago almost 25% of fans that were lost since 2002 were interested in buying anthology sets of WCW and ECW material and not "Best Of"

 

[mister_b1LL]

What I look for in wrestling T-shirts are designs that I could wear outside of the wrestling arena and not feel awkward about it. The best example of this in recent times was Dolph Ziggler's "It's not showing off if you back it up" shirt. When non-wrestling fans see the shirt, they don't automatically think it's a wrestler's shirt. It's similar in look to shirts that a lot of people are wearing these days. It's pink it's flashy, it has those big letters going down it. Point is I can wear that shirt everywhere and not get those weird "He's a wrestling fan" looks.

Same thing with John Cena's "Rise above hate" shirt. It was similar to the look of the time. I just wish it didn't have "Hustle, loyalty, respect" on the back cause would've totally bought it if that was the case.

 

[theBec2101]

A lot has to do with the audience they are selling too. I think to sell to everybody they just cant go with childish catch phrases and g rated attire. all they have to do is look at the numbers Austin sold and rock sold. Don’t get me wrong Cena and Mysterio sell as well but there is no comparison. I mean who are they really up against to out sell. Zack Ryder had it for a little but he fizzled out fast. Just because you come out with different colors it the same shirt. They are going to have to come up to sell to all ages not just the kids and that’s what Rock and Austin did. It appealed to both kids and adults. Simple snake and smoke and skulls for kids and some edge words for the teenagers and adults.

 

[Slash-LN]

The idea of "Retro" in entertainment being out of touch with the consumer is just not the truth. Many insiders of the DVD Industry have mentioned any entertainment company that creates more "Best Of" is marginalizing their profits. "Best Of" on average will only reach 75-80% of your normal buyers. When you sell these sets around 120,000 units you could of gotten 175,000-200,000 units with anthology sets. Some fans may say well I wouldn't watch some matches I wasn't interested in but that doesn't matter too much cause you bought the set so that already constitutes one unit sold. Thats why if you release anthology sets you release them as a whole and don't seperate them with 4-5 installments. In fact a year ago almost 25% of fans that were lost since 2002 were interested in buying anthology sets of WCW and ECW material and not "Best Of"

This ties into what I was going to say. I own the Survivor Series anthology and I would like to get the Summer Slam one. I wish they would do the same thing for all past pay per views. Have In Your House, King of the Ring and such. I debated buying the King of the Ring dvd they put out but opted not to because whenever I watch a best of I always wish I had the full show. Yes I know I can just go to Youtube and find all the matches but it's not the same to me.

That being said I think there could be a market for a build your own dvd concept. When I buy a superstar dvd I usually only watch the documentary part once. For the first time ever I downloaded one (CM Punk) instead of buying it. So in a case like that I would rather just put together promos and matches and watch those. Maybe I would put together the events leading up to a pay per view match and then have the match on last. I have a friend who has done a couple of his "best of" match dvds for me already. He has an extensive vhs library that he has put on his computer so there was a lot to choose from. I can only imagine how awesome it would be to have everything in the WWE library to chose from.