The beautiful ‘retail’ game

When Hamilton brothers Brooke and Darby Macdonald opened Soccer United Football Supplies in a diminutive Alexandra St store in November 2021, it was a relatively small punt, initially just to test the Christmas market, and barely registered on the wider retail scene. Hamilton blogger Grigor Griffin caught up with them three years on.

Soccer United co-proprietors and brothers Brooke and Darby Macdonald. Photo: Mary Anne Gill

At the rate with which Soccer United lures in football-mad customers from all over the golden triangle like moths to a naked flame, it might soon rate alongside Hamilton Gardens as one of the province’s big tourist attractions.

Soccer United – now domiciled in the old Bridgestone Tyres building at 443 Anglesea St after starting out in 2021 in Alexandra St – is the largest specialist retail outlet of its type in the country.

Its freshly renovated 400sqm premises including a spongy-turfed practice pitch for boot and equipment testing, a deeply specialist boot room, and shelves boasting New Zealand’s biggest range of football souvenirs.

It is an investment of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Brothers Brooke and Darby Macdonald had no retail background when they took their leap of faith with Soccer United.

But they have previously built successful enterprises such as Research Motors and RFM Rentals, at the old Ruakura Research Centre, so were always well placed to make some astute signings, settle on an attacking formation and take their new outfit to the top of the table.

As a former player, football dad and a Liverpool fan-tragic, Brooke had found it difficult to find the right gear for his youngest daughter after the demise of Kahikatea Drive’s The Soccer Shop in 2020.

From that initial motivation, the Macdonalds set about building a business where their point of difference was having staff who are footballers, dripping with football knowledge.

“We wanted a store that was welcoming to football players,” Macdonald explained.

“While the big-box retailers have exploded over the last couple of decades, the customer service and level of expertise – or even just level of interest in the products they are selling – has, in our opinion, been greatly reduced.

“Basically, they buy in, sell and then it’s: ‘Next’. They don’t have a particular interest in the sport.

“We wanted to be a bit more receptive of customers’ needs when it comes to football because we have a lot of people who are just new to the game.

“If you ask a question about a product, a team, or even techniques when we’re striking balls in the practice area, all our staff have a genuine interest in helping a customer out.

“And honestly, every third or fourth customer that comes in goes, ‘look, my son and my daughter have just started. What do I need? What do I have to do?’

“And we love that because then we can say, ‘this is what you start with, this is what ball you need.”

On the memorabilia side the store goes heavy on the likes of Messi and Ronaldo, as you would expect.

But for anyone looking for more deeply symbolic club souvenirs, on their shelves you can also find Tottenham Hotspur fluffy dice, an Arsenal wallet (empty) and Watford beanies.

Of course it’s not perfect. They are a bit light on the Southampton souvenirs. The Saints won’t always be bottom of the table. And there might be a touch too much Liverpool stock for some of us.

But these are minor quibbles. The range is impressive. Down one row of hangers there even reside Zambia national team shirts. In kids’ sizes, with names on the back.

“Some stock will sit around for 8-9 months,” Macdonald reflected.

When the Macdonalds started their retailing journey they worked on the premise they knew what they knew – but also knew what they didn’t know, and were happy to take advice from those who did have expertise.

But today they have a much more precise idea of the market and the requirements for clubs, schools and individuals.

“More importantly, we’ve got an idea of brands of quality and what we can genuinely recommend to people based on our experience.

“So, it’s given us a belief that what we’re offering is actually not just selling something because it’s for sale. We’re selling it because we believe in it. That’s especially true with our training equipment and obviously certain boots as well.”

Meanwhile Soccer United also has a huge on-line presence.

“We need to be nationwide. You can’t have this investment and just be local. We do despatch quite a bit of stuff to the South Island, which is pretty good, but we are trying to reach out to all the clubs because even though we’ve been blitzing social media for a couple of years, there are still people who have never heard of us.

“And the hard-case thing is, if you put ‘Soccer United’ into your search engine, they’ll come up with our website – but the very first question that people ask is, ‘Is Soccer United real?’

“Because people have been burnt so much by football stuff from around the world by ordering stuff from a New Zealand website – and it gets sent eight weeks later or doesn’t get sent at all.

“So, for the first couple of years, every second phone call we got was, ‘Are you guys actually in New Zealand?’. I’d answer the phone and they’d hear my accent and they’d go, ‘Oh, you sound like a Kiwi’.

“And when people turn up here – honestly, I get it every day with kids, especially – they will walk in and go, ‘it’s fantastic’.  We’re used to it now, but if I was 10 and I came in here, I wouldn’t want to leave.”

Mind you, as it is Brooke seldom leaves. His days start at 6am, at Research Motors and he commutes to Soccer United after 9am, then at 5pm returns to Ruakura to wrap up the day.

Older brother Darby does his shop hours at the weekends as part of a crew that includes four full-timers and five part-timers.

“Darby knows a lot of people and when they come in, he always has a good chat with the senior footballers. Half the time Darby’s fouled them on the pitch anyway, and they come in still with his stud marks.”

Soccer United’s shift to Anglesea St is their second major expansion, after initially spreading to a larger shop across the road in Alexandra St.

“We’d grown out of that space and the customer experience was quite poor because you had to drive around the block eight times to find a car park. At Anglesea St the car parks (back and front) are gold. It means the customer can park, come in, and take their time.”

There is only one other dedicated football shop in New Zealand apart from Soccer United, which is Football Central in Wellington, which operates in quite a different market.

“Our market has now spread. We have customers who routinely will drive up from Taupo, across from the Bay, or come down from Auckland, which is great. And we’re trying to make that as accessible as possible.”

Establishing a commercial liaison with new A-league club Auckland FC has helped. A large banner outside the store advises that it is the Waikato headquarters for the Black Knights.

“We’ve been very, very fortunate that Auckland FC has done so well… We’ve had a very close commercial relationship with them and that’s been going from strength to strength as the team evolves.”

In a challenging retail climate, like Auckland FC, Soccer United is continuing to rack up hard-fought wins.

“There are times you have to take a deep breath, but we’re getting there. We are doing constant reviews but are hitting our financial targets.”