So...why are some jerseys 2014 non-existant to purchase (NCAA/NFL)

[hormone]

I didn't know where to post this, but to get straight to the point...I won't pay full price for jerseys, so I'll get them through the NFL shop with my NFL visa 20% off or through sites like FansEdge or Lids with membership perks or coupon codes. Anyway, I'm (cursed to be) a diehard Buccaneer fan and Miami Hurricane fan. I am upgrading my jerseys this year (got an authentic red Jackson Bucs, a limited orange canes, limited smoke canes, replica green canes). I cannot find the white authentic Bucs jersey anywhere and I have only found one site that has the white Canes jersey (never found the orange basketball canes, but that's a different story). Why is it these items have never become available? Is it because the teams aren't the greatest? Is it because color probably sell more? Is it because there are a lot of Christmas sales going on and they don't want to put them out? I thought being new designs, they'd push them out asap because 1) they are new and 2) if the team changes soon, they won't have the extra inventory. Calling or emailing customer service is worthless because they say "keep checking" or "we never know what will become available" ...

So, any thoughts here? Thanks for your time and replies.

[FiddySicks]

I couldn't tell you when it comes to the white Bucs jersey, and that seems kinda strange to me. I work for a company called Genesco (Lids, essentially), and have worked with them doing storefront work, bulk shipping for the Seahawks, Sounders, and Mariners, and merchandise coordination for the D Backs, Cardinals, and Suns. With pro sports, you can usually find just about any piece of merchandise through the pro vendors because they'll produce just about everything even if they're pretty sure they'll ultimately take a loss on it. They know that certain items sitting on the shelves longer than others can be made up by the quick sales turnaround of other more popular items. Colleges are a little different though. I've worked exclusively with Arizona State and the University of Washington as well. I don't know the specifics of their contracts off the top of my head, but I can tell you that when it comes to college memorabilia, it all has to do with dollar amounts moved on comparable items in previous years. For example, it's damn near impossible to find Arizona State Limited jerseys because the stock on them is so incredibly low this season. The reason for this had to do with how slow sales were for this particular item in the seasons before. For example, you can usually find a larger number of black ASU alternate football jerseys in the Limited cut because they sold relatively well in years past. But the maroon home jerseys are harder to come across because the dollar amount on pieces moved was much lower. But the white jerseys, and this is usually the case with all teams, are almost non existent in the new Nike cut because the first run of them sat on the racks for months. You also have to take into consideration issues with NCAA licensing, how big of a cut the school, the vendors, and even the particular storefronts get which cut into the overall profit of the jersey for the seller (This usually affects University store fronts, but it can also effect online sales due to particular institutions having contractual obligations to a certain cut of every piece of merchandise sold). One of the reasons it's so damn hard to find the white road jerseys from even relatively large schools is that there isn't enough motivation when it comes to profit margins to stock and sell these particular items.

There's a LOT more to it, and it can be a lot more complicated, but that's generally the reason why you'll see that.

I'll also add this. When Nike took over the NFL contract and released the game/limited/elite cuts of college jerseys, they damn near changed the entire operation of how they sold their merchandise. They are very very VERY particular when it comes to how many pieces they'll sell to third-party vendors. This is one of the reasons why it can be so difficult to find certain jerseys, too. They paid an absolutely insane amount of money for that NFL contract (I'm pretty sure it was close to $2B), and one of the stipulations of that contract is that they had full control over what happens to their merchandise once it's released to third party vendors, and they also stem the flow of their merchandise when they think it's starting to get bogged down in certain areas and reconcentrate it in other areas to balance things out.

Nike is extremely frugal when it comes to their products, and often times they would rather take a hit on sales numbers rather than water down their sale markets. It's a brilliant strategy in the long run, and it's one of the reasons why Nike is such a force in the sports merchandise world.