Retriever wrote: re Debater's list of questions:
Have you asked the same of another online table tennis shop owner not a million miles away from here?
I consider haggisv a good friend. I value his input, ideas and experiences when I film and test products. He probably knows more about my future plans than most and I respect his integrity and need to earn a living. As such we generally don't chat about commercial details or business. I guess it's a trait of table tennis players. In my experience table tennis players seldom discuss anything other than table tennis and their performance, both good and bad. In short no I haven't.
I did ask Bill Thornton once though, UK retailer. He said there is very little markup in selling equipment and that each seller in the UK specialises in a couple of brands. If you order from him a brand he is not the UK distributor in he will keep a small amount of stock of it and if that is exceeded, he will contact the other authorised shop and get it from them. They all share their product range this way whilst keeping their brand identity. What I find strange in today's alleged world of "choice" is how little freedom sellers seem to have. Butterfly in particular appear to operate a "vigorous" approach to the pricing of their products and who can sell where. That to me seems like possible commercial "blackmail" and the total opposite of free and fair competition. Do as we say or else we won't sell to you, is not free market competition. I'd like to know more in particular about this aspect of being a table tennis seller and whether my perception is right or wrong. How can there be such small variation in the price of the same product across so many sellers. Only discounts tend to be on obsolete stock or bulk purchase. Retailers tend to offer free postage on higher value orders rather than undercut the price of equipment offered by other sellers. It seems to be a cozy yet fragile "understanding".
The biggest factor in where I buy from is reliability, then the currency exchange rate. Only when the pound is strong do I look abroad. It's currency variations which act as the "price" reduction, not the actual prices charged by sellers as they are so static and similar.
The ittf say they make no money from authorising equipment as they have to cover the cost of independent testing, retailers say they make little money on sales, so who does make the money and where?
As for whether or not tabletennis11's CEO will answer any of my questions, who knows. But if he invited the questions he should be prepared to answer them or why invite them in the first place?
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