Direction C

The kit sorted, nothing to chase

Sizes collected once, a pack made up for every child, the whole club delivered on one day, spares kept in Madrid.

This direction drawn against the market as it is today

Swipe the picture sideways to see all of it.

Big brands via distributors (Joma, Nike, Macron)
Local sports shop (Deportes Polos type)
Custom specialists (Aimar, Wade, Panda)
EKANA todaycheaper than the specialists, no shop of its own
Direction C

The dashed line is what this direction would offer; EKANA today and the three supplier groups stay solid.

The situation

At a small club the kit order is run by an unpaid volunteer on his own phone. He collects the sizes and the money, guesses how many spares to order, stores the boxes at home, and makes up each child's pack by hand. The industry has fixed the ordering website and the family payments. It has not fixed his year.

What we saw

The pains the industry has not fixed sit around the kit, not in it: the wait, the boxes, the replacement, paying before seeing.
A batch takes four weeks or more from any custom supplier, and a lost shirt in March takes as long again.
In Spain, Britain, Germany, Ireland, Italy and Portugal, no football kit supplier found collects sizes itself, bags a named pack per child, delivers a whole club in one day, or holds that club's spares locally. The closest real match anywhere is a school-uniform maker in the Gulf, for a different sport and a different market.

More of what we saw

What the trade offers instead is the club's own online store, where every family orders and pays for itself and is posted its own parcel. That hands the choice back to the family; it does not take the work off the club.
A batch can come out worse than the sample the club approved, and custom kit cannot be sent back.
Clubs buy the cheapest deal every season because kit is an obligation. Two thousand amateur teams in Madrid are run by a captain with a phone.
What keeps them away from custom suppliers is minimums, weeks of waiting, all the admin on one person, and paying for kit never seen.
Clubs know how much to order except at the edges: late registrations, and the last year of a design.
Suppliers already replace a ripped item, usually free. Nobody has fixed how long it takes when everything ships from Egypt.
The German online makers and the Madrid print shops sell speed and single pieces, and nothing else on this list.

What we do differently

Sizes are collected once. A box holding one of every size goes to the club for an afternoon, families try them on and enter the size themselves, and the volunteer writes nothing down.
Every pack is made up at the factory. The child's name goes on the bag, not into the shirt, so any spare fits any child. The whole club arrives on one agreed day and families collect at training.
A spares box: a few units per size, ordered with the batch and kept in Madrid. A lost shirt is replaced in days while it lasts.

More of what we do differently

A late registration is dressed from the same box.
No deposit until the club has held a produced sample of its own kit, and families see that sample before they pay.
When the box runs low the top-up rides the factory's next run, and we say plainly that it takes weeks, not days.
The order page, the family payments and the club's cut come up to what the industry already does.

What we stop doing

We stop making the volunteer guess. The club orders what families ordered, plus the spares we set together.
We stop asking anyone to pay before a produced sample exists.
We stop delivering loose boxes to be sorted at the club.

More of what we stop doing

We stop offering the whole catalogue. The pack is a handful of pieces.
We do not promise a shirt printed in a day. Everything is sublimated in Egypt, and the spares box is what makes days possible.

The message to the club

Give us the sizes once. Every pack arrives made up, on one day, with spares on a shelf in Madrid. Nothing to chase.

Who buys

The parent who pays for the pack and the volunteer who runs the club's order. The president signs off the design and the delivery date once and steps back.

Who pays

Families, through the club's order page, at the price EKANA charges today, which is the cheapest custom kit a club in Madrid can buy. The spares allowance is a few extra units on a batch of hundreds and is carried inside that price. The club keeps its cut as today.

The package

Drawn as the club would see it, it is on what we would present to the club. Item by item, it is this.

What is in it

The kit: the club's own design, fully custom, sublimated so the design is dyed into the cloth rather than pressed on top, produced only after the club has held a sample.
Sizes collected once: a box of every size to try on at the club, and a size field on the order page.
A pack per child: his shirt, shorts and socks, named, bagged and made up at the factory.
One delivery day, agreed with the club; collection on the first training day.
The spares box: a few units per size, ordered with the batch, held in Madrid, replacements in days while it lasts.
Nothing paid before it is seen: no deposit until the club is holding a produced sample, and families see that sample photographed on the order page before they pay.
The order page: where sizes are collected, and where families pay online and the club's cut arrives without anyone chasing it. The payment side is the same as any other supplier already offers; the sizes side is not.
Coaches' kit in the same delivery, as a pack like any other.

What is deliberately not in it

A local finishing step in Madrid: stock arriving already sublimated from the factory, with a step such as names and numbers added here afterwards. Karim's own correction is that this, not blank garments printed here from scratch, was always the idea; the estimate that rejected it costed the wrong version, and the right version has never been costed. We do not promise it, and the question stays open rather than settled.
Replacements in days once the spares box is empty: the next top-up rides the factory's next run and takes weeks.
Replacement in days for anything with a name or a number dyed into it: sublimation puts it in the cloth, so it has to be made again and takes the factory's weeks. The box replaces the plain garments in the pack.
A rebuilt website, a season of social templates, and cleaning up the club's badge: this direction changes how the kit reaches the child, not how the club looks.
Clothing for the town to wear off the pitch: everything here is made for the squad and ordered by the people in it.
A discount for returning old kit: nobody has checked whether recyclers in Spain pay or charge.

Which exercise each part of this came from

The buyer utility map: The wait, the boxes, the single replacement and the batch that comes out wrong are marked as pains the industry fights over and has not fixed: that gave us the pack, the one delivery, the spares and the sample first.
The three tiers of non-customers: Clubs and captains stay away because of minimums, weeks of waiting, all the admin on one person and paying for kit never seen: so remove the admin and the risk, not the price.
The six paths: The parents pay but were never designed for, the volunteer is the real point of contact, and the blocks all sit before and after the kit rather than in it.
The strategy canvas: EKANA is weakest exactly where this direction works, near the bottom on small orders and at the bottom on the shop: that is where our own line has to move most.