From playful scarf shop to total supplier for big clubs

We speak to Jo Appeltans who, together with Gilles van Doorne, has been running the companies TopFanZ and Belgoshop since 2015. "TopFanZ is a company specialized in everything to do with sports merchandising, especially soccer merchandising is important in this. This is the only sport in the Netherlands and Belgium in which merchandising is really big. But for us it is sport in general, our slogan is not for nothing: 'For the love of the game'. This reflects in the whole company, we all have a great passion for sports. This is also why we chose not to get into corporate merchandising. We look at the potential customer, does it fit within our scope? If yes, then we are going to help it further. We strongly adhere to that.

Some of the clubs we do merchandising for include: Anderlecht, KRC Genk, Standard de Liège, Club Brugge, Willem II, Sparta Rotterdam, NAC Breda, and many others.

Total solution for our customers

We are also trying to provide a total solution for soccer clubs. On the one hand, we will create, purchase or produce products ourselves. The latter can be done, among other things, by investing in machines that we bought from Dimix at the end of 2020. On the other hand, we will also pack in the e-commerce and logistics piece. So not only buying or making the products but also building a webshop and shipping the products is part of it. So the full e-fulfilment and being a logistics partner for the clubs is a big part of that. We help the clubs through marketing to sell their products better.

Producing in-house and thus personalizing

Making the move to more in-house production is actually quite logical. It allows us to personalize more products and expand our product range. In addition to textiles, we can now also offer stickers and posters, etc., faster and in smaller quantities.

For production and logistics, we have put a lot of effort into automation in our company. If you want to grow over time, you must first make sure that everything is automated and that you have a good structure. This is certainly reflected in our approach to e-commerce. In addition, through marketing support and visualization, we try to make the experience for the supporter as beautiful, grand and personal as possible.

Clubs can work with us in different ways. We try to be very flexible and offer everything as long as it fits within our scope. So if a club only wants to buy a number of products with a logo from us, that is certainly possible, but we always strive for a total solution. With this we are actually a little partner of the soccer club and we feel best with that.

History - from Sjalleman to TopFanZ

Since 2002, as a supporter of the local soccer club (STVV), I became responsible for merchandising. During that time I managed to take the merchandising to a higher level for this club. In 2011/2012, I decided to start my own business as a side income, called Sjalleman (regional Flemish dialect for seller of scarves, ed.). A year later, I took the step of quitting my regular job to focus entirely on this business. Then the idea was to do this small business on my own, from home, for the next 20 years. At that time, in 2013, leading up to the 2014 World Cup where the Red Devils were going to play, Gilles and I crossed paths. He was living in London at the time and wanted to go to the Red Devils' game with some friends. He searched online for Belgium items to order (scarves, T-shirts, etc.) but found nothing. He couldn't order anything delivered in London. Thus came the idea to start a webshop with only Belgium articles. He started looking for a supplier and came across me. We got talking and in 2014 decided to merge the companies Sjalleman and Belgoshop, thus TopFanZ was born.

Now we have continued to grow and at peak times we work with 11 people. Gilles has a strong IT background, is Dutch-speaking but was raised completely French. Those are just the two things I miss. I have this great passion for soccer and merchandising and I have a bit more of a sales profile. So we complement each other very well.

In 2019, we did a complete rebranding with TopFanZ. That was also necessary to move away from Sjalleman's playful and playful, which we had outgrown in the meantime. We are more than simply a supplier of scarves.

Seeking partnerships

There is actually very little competition for us. No other company now does what we do, which is to act as a kind of intermediary between the clubs and merchandising suppliers. We are the link and therefore make it tremendously easy for d clubs to bring all their merchandise and supporter issues to us. We really are a one-stop shop for the clubs.

We constantly seek partnerships, both with our customers and with our suppliers. These are sometimes very specific suppliers, such as baby clothes. This supplier no longer has to send a representative, we distribute the products and I work with the specialist in the field. Win-win.

We unburden the soccer clubs, take care of all merchandise from A to Z and distribute it. In return, we have the exclusive right to make this merchandising for, say, 3 or 5 years for these clubs.

The Netherlands is actually our next market. We are already working with some clubs in the Netherlands, such as NAC Breda, Willem II, MVV Maastricht and FC Volendam. It's just a matter of generating name recognition so that we can support clubs there in the same way. This way of working, being a total solution, is also new for the market, also for the Netherlands.

Because of the investment (Mimaki CJV150-107 and CG-75FXII) that we have now made, we will also do the printing of the shirts for the players themselves for two clubs. In the past we already did that for all shirts bought in the webshop by supporters (the match replicas with for example name and number on them). But since we offer this service anyway, we will also do this for the player shirts if people want. We can then also help in the sponsor selection phase by, for example, quickly making a dummy shirt with the logo on it. In this, the response time is super important.

Unburdening our customers

The unburdening piece is also reflected in the customer service we offer to clubs. They can choose to outsource all customer service to us. We make sure that all returns are processed, questions are answered, etc. The advantage is that people buy a product because they are fans of a club. So we have relatively little to do with returns, exchanges or dissatisfied customers.

Cooperation with Dimix

The cutter, within soccer merchandising, is actually a basic product. The name and number on the jersey is one of the first products you start with. This is something we had been doing for a while, of course. But the volume increased more and more, as did the demand if we could also make stickers, posters, etc.

I started researching to see if it wasn't interesting to buy our own machine, to be able to move faster and start producing products ourselves. By talking about it and with Filip (Naten, account and product manager Dimix), to see what the (technical and creative) possibilities were and what machines there are, we came to the purchase of the Mimaki.

A great example is that of club Anderlecht. The materials man there is going to retire soon, but suddenly next week is already the last match he will attend. They wanted to honor and surprise this man and have all the players put on a T-shirt with his picture on it. We had 3 days to do this and by being able to move quickly, we were able to help and relieve the club. This was such a success that the shirts were sold in the shop afterwards.

Because Filip and I know each other from STVV soccer club and because of that he also knows our company, he can give me good advice. For example, about which machines are available on the market. By being well informed about this, you can better assess what is a good investment and how you can, for example, expand your offer. But it is more than just a machine. I can always come to Filip with questions and really feel a partnership with Dimix. Just as that is very important for us and our customers, I also look for that in our suppliers. I am looking for someone who can advise me and, above all, offer me good service. A great example is borrowing a set of showroom heat presses until the delivery of our ordered presses arrives. This way our production does not stand still and we are very much helped.

Booming business

We have about 1,000 different types of items being sold. In Belgium alone we have 16 soccer clubs that sell professionally and everything that is in such a shop comes through us. So all together that's a lot of products. Besides the regular clubs, of course you also have the European Championship and World Cup. Those are really booming times for us. Now with the European Championships we send about 300-400 packages a day with only Belgium products, which are also personalized. We try to do this as efficiently as possible in the design and production process, by only making the items once they are ordered. As a result, we actually have almost no waste or loss of material.

Future

We are now in different locations. The office cum showroom and the logistics center a little further down the road in Halen. We are now looking at a new building to centralize everything in one place. In the past we have always followed the growth and now we want to get ahead of the growth. One step ahead, so we can grow with the same resources. We want to provide even more services to our existing customers and also expand our territory. Where we are now in Belgium and serving some clubs in the Netherlands, we want to see if we can take England, France and Germany in addition to further growth in the Netherlands. There are always other customers of the same size as in Belgium. The intention is really to copy this concept and expand into Western Europe. Of course all this in a healthy way."

Want to know more?

Visit https://topfanz.com/

In the photo: Jo Appeltans and Filip Naten (Dimix)