Club 1872 has grown increasingly concerned over recent weeks as the scale of the issues with delivery of Castore x Rangers products, and subsequently concerns over the quality of some of those products, have come to light.
Having previously enjoyed a constructive dialogue with both Castore and Rangers on the expectations of supporters around this new retail arrangement, we had hoped to be able to address these concerns directly with them. Unfortunately, although we have had belated contact from Castore today, we have not yet received any response to our specific concerns. Also, despite asking a number of detailed questions of the club, we have received no answers to those questions.
We have sympathy with Castore and Rangers over the tight timescales to produce kit for this season which have been further compounded by the challenges around Covid-19, and we have told them as much. However, those challenges do not fully explain or excuse the poor customer service or lack of reliable communication around the quality and delivery issues that have occurred. It also appears that these issues have been considerably more widespread than has so far been acknowledged by Castore or Rangers. They cannot and should not be dismissed by trying to focus solely on the volume of sales which have been achieved. Those sales are a testament to the incredible loyalty of the Rangers support but they cannot be taken for granted.
Of further concern to Club 1872 was the statement released by Castore, with the assistance of Rangers, on Thursday 20th August, which attempted to explain the differences in quality between two versions of the home replica kit which have been sold to supporters. The explanation given – that some of these tops were “pro kits” released early in error – does not appear credible and does not stand up to scrutiny. We would remind both Castore and Rangers that whilst all interested parties can work together to improve the reported problems with quality, customer service and communication, trust will not be so easily regained with the support if it is lost.
The quality issues, customer service problems and lack of reliable communication from both Castore and Rangers have been completely unacceptable and they should now be honest and open with supporters about what has gone wrong, how they plan to fix it and how they will ensure that we will not see a repeat in future seasons. We firmly believe that all Rangers supporters want to continue to show their financial support to the club through the purchase of Castore x Rangers products but they deserve a proper explanation about what has occurred over the past few weeks in order to rebuild confidence.
Issued by Supporters Voice Limited, a Club 1872 company
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