Rangers FC targets long-distance fans with technology

NEWS Rangers football club is using analytics technology to identify pockets of the club's fans that fall outside the catchment area of its existing stores. The Scottish football giants already have 11 club shops around the UK and Ireland and, using the customer relationship management (CRM) technology, it has chosen eight sites for new stores with the aim of boosting sales of Rangers merchandise. Using software from Identex, which partners with the leading CRM vendors, the Ibrox club analysed information held in its databases of supporter details to identify buying trends and hotspots of fans not served by its established shops. Nick Peel, retail director at Rangers FC, said in a statement this has enabled the club to identify the most profitable locations for new shops, as well as new sites it had not even originally considered. "Based on Identex's reported results, we have already opened four temporary stores at areas including Kirkcaldy and Inverness in Scotland, and have plans to open a further four," he said. Andrew Campbell, divisional managing director at Indentex, said in a statement that a combination of analytical techniques including customer mapping, distance analysis and propensity scoring, were used. "Having gathered this information, we combined it with buying trends from other stores to get a clear picture of where in the UK and Ireland would be best to locate new Rangers shops," he said.