What "team store" models actually cost — and why Peaq doesn't do them

A growing number of UK kit suppliers offer "team stores" — branded online portals where each player buys their kit individually rather than the club placing one bulk order. It sounds clean. In practice the economics are more complicated than the pitch suggests. Here's the honest version.

What a team store is

A team store is a hosted online shop, locked to one club's design, where individual players (or parents) order and pay for their own kit. The supplier handles fulfilment; the club gets a small revenue share or a discount on staff orders.

From the club's perspective, the appeal is real:

• No bulk order to fund up front.
• No collecting £30 from each player and chasing the ones who haven't paid.
• New signings can buy kit any time without the committee organising a top-up run.

What it actually costs

Per-player prices on team-store kits are typically 30–50% higher than the equivalent bulk-order price. Three reasons:

• Each kit is produced individually. No batching efficiency — the setup cost of a custom kit is the same whether you make 1 or 50, and team stores produce on-demand.
• Card fees, store hosting and platform margin. Suppliers running team stores have to cover the cost of running a per-club ecommerce platform plus payment processing.
• Higher returns/exchanges overhead. Individual buyers return more often than committee-led bulk orders, and the supplier prices that in.

Quick comparison, using realistic UK numbers:

• Bulk-order custom kit, sublimated, 16-player squad: £30 per player at Peaq.
• Team-store equivalent: typically £42–£55 per player, sometimes more.

For a 16-player squad over three seasons, that's roughly an extra £600–£1,200 across the squad. Worth knowing before you decide which model.

When team stores make sense

We're not anti-team-store as a concept. There are clubs and contexts where they're the right call:

• Large clubs with many teams — a 200-player youth setup running twelve teams across age groups can't run twelve bulk orders. The store model spreads admin.
• Clubs with significant lifestyle ranges — if you sell hoodies, polos, beanies and bags alongside the kit, a store catalogue makes sense.
• Sponsored or revenue-share contexts — clubs who want a kickback on every sale, where the store doubles as a fundraising channel.
• Clubs where individual customisation matters — initials on every player's training top, etc.

When they don't

• Single-team Sunday-league or grassroots committees commissioning one squad's kit.
• Clubs whose treasurer is happy to collect £30 a head — most of the supposed "admin saving" doesn't materialise.
• Anyone optimising for total cost across the squad.

Why Peaq doesn't run one

We've thought about it. Two reasons we've decided against it:

It compromises the per-player price. Most clubs we work with are committee-led grassroots operations who care about getting the best kit per pound spent. A team store would mean we'd have to charge more for the same kit, which doesn't fit what the studio is for.

It changes the relationship. Right now, when you commission a Peaq kit, you're talking to the same person who'll see it through to delivery. A team store turns that into a transactional ecommerce relationship. We think the design rounds, the sample pack, and the conversation matter more than per-player flexibility.

What we do instead

For everything a team store solves operationally, we offer simpler alternatives:

• Mid-season reorders — single-piece replacement and new-signing orders ship in the same 3–4 weeks at the same per-player rate.
• Year-on-year continuity — designs held on file for 24 months, so year-two and year-three orders skip the design rounds.
• Bulk-order pricing — the £30/player base price is the price, no platform margin tacked on.

How to decide

Three questions:

1. How many teams are you ordering for? One: bulk wins. Five+: store probably wins.
2. Is the kit selling itself, or are you funding it? If players are happy to pay extra individually, a store works. If you're chasing every pound, bulk wins.
3. Do you want a relationship with the supplier or a transaction? Honest question. Both are valid; they're different products.

For grassroots, single-squad, committee-led kit projects, we think bulk wins by enough of a margin to be obvious. That's why Peaq is built around it.