Whats up with billiards supply stores?

poolplayer2093

poolplayer2093

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
they're always trying to charge more than retail price for everything. i tried to hit up a local supply store for a new tip. they didn't have kamui so i asked about their moori's . they wanted like $35 bones for 1 not installed. then they wanted $4 for a triangle tip. the guy looked at me like i was a simpleton when i told him the prices were a little high.

and these store owners wonder why people shop online instead of locally
 
Tips

poolplayer2093 said:
they're always trying to charge more than retail price for everything. i tried to hit up a local supply store for a new tip. they didn't have kamui so i asked about their moori's . they wanted like $35 bones for 1 not installed. then they wanted $4 for a triangle tip. the guy looked at me like i was a simpleton when i told him the prices were a little high.

and these store owners wonder why people shop online instead of locally
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Wow! Pricey. AAA Billiards Okla. City. Triangle installed $10 and $9 for league players.
 
Retail outlet owners gotta eat, too...they have more overhead than an internet outlet, who really just acts as a middle man pulling/ordering merchandise from wholesalers as the orders come in. Internet retail outlets will bury traditional outlets/retail stores unless they get clipped by some other special internet / interstate commerce fees/taxes to level the playing field. Now we're talking politics, though...

Just order your tips from Pooldawg or Seyberts. Best deals going and no one laughs at you for buying just a couple of $3 tips. The difference with them is that you can't go physically there and talk them into letting you pick through their box of Triangles or Elkmasters for the best ones.
 
I went to a local supply store a couple of weeks back looking for a white diamond tip. I asked the salesman if he had any......he walks behind the counter pulls out a box and slams it on the counter. He shows me the tip and I told him it wasn't a white diamond and asked what it was. He said the box says Made in China. That's all he knew. I asked to see his other kinds of tips and he pointed to the same box he pulled out and slammed on the counter. He only carried ONE tip!!!!

They just can't compete with online retailers any longer. People don't have to leave the house to get what they want and save gas money that way.....plus most of the time shipping is free.
 
A few years ago I went to a Billiards and found the exact cue I had been looking at on line. The on line price was $279 his price was $315 but he could discount it a little. I then called an online retailer to get the "special" price and he was willing to sell it for $190 shipped. You know had the Billiards store been even close to the $190 I would have bought it from him.
 
I would say that the retail stores cater to homeowners and players that want an item asap. Want an item but did not know to shop around. Want a cue but are apprehensive about buying it online. When I set up my room I purchased everything from a retail store. After that I started seeing things online substantially cheaper from reputable companies.....such Muellers, Ozone, Seyberts.
 
West Point 1987 said:
...Just order your tips from Pooldawg or Seyberts. Best deals going and no one laughs at you for buying just a couple of $3 tips. The difference with them is that you can't go physically there and talk them into letting you pick through their box of Triangles or Elkmasters for the best ones.
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Seyberts Billiard Supply
702 East Chicago Road, Coldwater MI 49036

You can go there :thumbup:

-s
 
to avoid emergencies, you can always order quantity from online seller and store them.

the other trick is to have a friend who is a wholesaler :D. a friend of mine is a wholesaler of many pool brands, i often go to him and need not worry about price.
 
everthing is all good

Untill you find out that half of that you want is out of stock.
opened my big mouth yesterday on some tips was putting in a order and offered to add to my order some other items
out of stock , out of stock, Getting tired of ordering half and going other places to finish order, no savings in that.
MMike
 
If billiard supplies is like most other industries, you can buy an item cheaper online than your retailer can buy it from his distributor.

A friend of mine used to own an Amoco gas station (now BP). He bought his Amoco oil at K-Mart because he could get it cheaper there than buying direct from Amoco. Crazy.
 
bdorman said:
If billiard supplies is like most other industries, you can buy an item cheaper online than your retailer can buy it from his distributor.

A friend of mine used to own an Amoco gas station (now BP). He bought his Amoco oil at K-Mart because he could get it cheaper there than buying direct from Amoco. Crazy.
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K-mart might order 10000 cases at a time and your friend might order 10.
Just guessing on the amounts but that's why they get the lower pricing.
I'm in the floor covering business with a large company. When we order carpet pad we buy it a trailer load at a time 300 or 400 hundred rolls about once a month. Our cost is much lower then a small mom and pop shop that may order 50 rolls a month.
 
Allen Brown said:
I went to a local supply store a couple of weeks back looking for a white diamond tip. I asked the salesman if he had any......he walks behind the counter pulls out a box and slams it on the counter. He shows me the tip and I told him it wasn't a white diamond and asked what it was. He said the box says Made in China. That's all he knew. I asked to see his other kinds of tips and he pointed to the same box he pulled out and slammed on the counter. He only carried ONE tip!!!!

They just can't compete with online retailers any longer. People don't have to leave the house to get what they want and save gas money that way.....plus most of the time shipping is free.
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I worked for a billiard supply store for 10 1/2 years. We stocked Elkmasters, Le Pros, Triangles, and Water Buffalo tips. We never stocked any layered tips because the shop lathe setup, for what it was, would only shred such tips if we tried to install a layered tip. So we didnt stock layered tips. And the amount of tip sales was never enough to justify investing in an upgrade of the lathe setup, nor were the volume of tips sales enough to invest in additional non-layered tip brands. In the course of a month, if we sold 6 or more tips we were doing good. What tips we stocked was a convenience issue and not a profit making issue.

When one considers that there are 30+ different tips available in the marketplace between layered and non-layered, just how many of those tips do you think a billiard supply store should invest in stocking? Particularly if they rarely sell tips compared to other merchandise they stock? and the number of retip jobs they perform during a month is minimal.

As to the salesman in question, you need to consider a couple of things. The first is that he is most likely an idiot, and not even a pool player. And 2nd, his employer is certainly an idiot. Because only an idiot would hire a salesperson and not make an effort to instruct his employee in proper sales behavior, customer service, and product knowledge.
 
measureman said:
A few years ago I went to a Billiards and found the exact cue I had been looking at on line. The on line price was $279 his price was $315 but he could discount it a little. I then called an online retailer to get the "special" price and he was willing to sell it for $190 shipped. You know had the Billiards store been even close to the $190 I would have bought it from him.
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When I solid cues, the shop I worked at would sell cues a discount upto 20% off of the suggested retail. Why 20%? because as an authorized dealer for the cue brands that we sold in store, our dealership aggreements stipulated that was the maximum discount allowed in order to retain our dealership. At the time, McDermott, Viking, Pechauer, and most other brands were implementing that stipulation as part of their authorized dealerships in order to deal with and protect the value of their brands against online retailers who didnt care about anything other selling anything and everything as cheaply as they could.

In your shopping experience I will assume that the cue at $315 was probably priced at near suggested retail price. 20% off of $315 would bring a suggested sale price of $252.00. That's a $63 savings. Getting the same cue model at $190 is nearly a 40% discount. So you got a great deal at that price and can consider yourself lucky.

But If this online retailer was a legitimate authorized dealer, than his sale could constitute a violation of his dealership agreement, depending on the brand of cue of course. And the cue brand could then yank their dealership in that kind of circumstance.
 
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