West Indies Gear A Hit (13 November 1998)

13 November 1998

West Indies Gear A Hit

The Barbados Nation

Sales of the West Indies Cricket Collection have been excellent, says UK Sportsgear, official clothing suppliers to the West Indies team.

"Our key markets have been the Caribbean and the UK as you would expect," sales manager Richard Brown told WeekendSport without giving figures.

"However, we have received orders from all around the world - from Japan to South Africa - thanks to our website and Internet advertising.

"Obviously, the majority of our customers are West Indies supporters but there is certainly a much wider appeal. You could almost say the West Indies are to cricket as Brazil are to football," he said.

"The most popular garments are the competitive playing shirts and you may be surprised to know the "Traditional" shirt is nearly as popular as the "Calypso" shirt.

"We have done extensive advertising in the cricketing Press, including on-the-pagemail order and generic ads, brochure inserts and promotions.

"On the Internet we have a dedicated WI site featuring a secure online credit card transaction facility."

In addition to being one of the sponsors and the official clothing suppliers to the West Indies team, the British company also sponsors/supplies English county champions Leicestershire, Surrey, Derbyshire and Hampshire County Cricket Clubs and recently supplied competitive clothing to Wales, Scotland, Bermuda and Guernsey's Commonwealth Games teams.

UK Sportgear are not contracted for the 1999 World Cup because there will be one tournament shirt (design) supplied by the organisers.

"During the past six months or so, we have been developing relationships with Caribbean manufacturers and expect most of our collection to originate from the Caribbean by the Australian Test series," Brown said.

Source :: The Barbados Nation (https://www.nationnews.com/)