A leading Premier League football club, renowned for its fanbase and stadium atmosphere, wanted to elevate the premium matchday experience while unlocking new retail opportunities.
The challenge?
Some fans would often skip club retail stores due to queues or other commitments, resulting in lost sales.
The club sought an innovative way to meet fan expectations for speed and convenience, create personalised shopping experiences, and capture impulse purchases without disrupting the match day experience. Sustainability was also a growing priority, with a focus on minimising waste from unsold inventory at large-scale events.
To solve this, the club partnered with PMC to pilot a new digital commerce approach using Direct-to-Shopper (D2S). Powered by PMC’s Graphene, a cloud-native and API-first platform built on AWS Lambda, D2S enables frictionless, app-free purchasing experiences via custom microsites.
D2S delivers frictionless purchasing straight to the customer. For the club, this meant creating match-specific mobile storefronts that box holders could access either before the match, or during the match directly from the box, with no logins or downloads.
By simply scanning a QR code or tapping a link sent to their mobile device, box holders could make purchases within seconds - turning every matchday into a new sales opportunity. Alongside this, microsites can be tailored to have featured offers to help boost sales.
This allows fans to pre-order merchandise and club apparel in advance before the match day experience, with their order ready to collect at their box seats on arrival. Alternatively, fans are able to order club items from their box and have them delivered to them - all fulfilled seamlessly on-site via a pick-pack-dispatch system. Personalised goods also integrate well with D2S, allowing fans to personalise their shirts to be printed on site, with delivery straight to their box seats.
D2S also integrated seamlessly with the club’s existing retail systems and infrastructure, allowing for rapid deployment and minimal disruption.
D2S gave the club a powerful new sales channel outside the bounds of traditional retail. Event-specific microsites enabled highly targeted and relevant offers, while real-time stock visibility allowed for agile inventory control.
The underlying Graphene platform provided resilience and effortless scalability via serverless AWS Lambda architecture. This made it ideal for unpredictable surges of traffic during match days, along with the added benefit of cost efficiency.
Additionally, from a sustainability standpoint, the club could dynamically shift inventory based on real-time demand, reducing overproduction and waste.
The introduction of D2S delivered immediate impact, with increased premium customer spend and overwhelmingly positive feedback on the convenience of the service. Box holders enjoyed a seamless shopping experience that complemented the match day experience while the club gained a future-ready commerce model that supports personalisation, speed and sustainability.
With D2S, the club has created an entirely new way to engage with supporters.
It’s one that aligns with modern digital behaviours, changing consumer expectations and a focus on broader sustainability goals. It opens the door to opportunities for improved revenue and customer satisfaction, both on matchdays and further beyond.
By removing traditional retail friction points, Direct-to-Shopper seamlessly enables brands to deliver personalised, sustainable and effortless experiences for the consumer.
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