OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Hmmm.. what to make of this?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/4x-Yasaka-New-E ... 4ac81b7c44



Yasaka New Era training rubber in plain transparent sealed plastic packs (like the Haifu training rubber). Who are these for? They don't seem to fit the "cheap schoolkid training rubber" profile, like the 729 Batwings or 868 twinpacks, nor are they something elite players would use, like Whale/Shark. Or maybe there are clubs/provincial teams that use it as a backhand rubber?

Iskandar

Just want to say, to me, what constitutes a training rubber is a rubber that fits the purpose of what you want to focus your training on. The rubber does not have to be perfect on non-training related aspects, as that would be a match rubber. If you want to train on every basic strokes, the an all round rubber is ideal - not too fast and not too thick.

I don't think they're low quality at all (even when you get to the, uh, questionable ones, as we shall see later). What I think they are is rubber marketed to those with lower income - mainly students buying rubber on lunch money, or (Chinese) factory workers, and such. Or perhaps to institutional purchasers such as schools and youth clubs (who would stock them in the school bookstore or club pro shop). In the last two weeks, I've seen packets of General Sponge 729 in Chinese bookstores, at prices quite a bit higher than you'd find on AliExpress, but QUITE a bit lower than you'd see for the few sheets of Tibhar on the same shelves. Butterfly rubber was pretty much non-existent (kids can't afford it).

Why would they sell high quality rubber (I suspect the General Sponge stuff is identical to 729 in individual packs) at a lower price? To sell more of it. Wouldn't it eat into sales of the more expensive but identical stuff? It might, but not if you convince the general public it's not as good!

It pays to sell the same stuff with minor differences in packaging or appearance at different price points to different people. Is there a huge difference between all those types of topsheet 729 sells (729, 729 FX Super, 729-1, 729-2, 729-3....729-n)? There may be, but I doubt it. Why does Eacheng operate three or four separate "shops" on AliExpress? Marketing. An extreme example. Those of you who were PC enthusiasts in the early 1990s probably remember a trade rag called PC Week. You got it for free if you filled out a huge questionnaire. In each issue (every week!) there would be about a dozen to fifteen ads for PC clones - all from purportedly different shops. The PCs in the ads all looked different - - different grilles and bezels and nameplates. Yet, all of these ads were from two companies - Everex and PCs Unlimited (which later changed its name to Dell). Why bother with this subterfuge? It sold more PCs.

Makes you wonder about the other end of the scale - "National" rubber!

I rubbered up the C3 (ALL+) this afternoon with a sheet of Corbor and a sheet of 828. To tell the truth, there was little difference - both were great for looping (when I didn't miss the ball altogether.. ), serving and hitting, lousy for pushing (the sponge is just way too thick, I often ended up pushing too high or too long). It's that 2.2 sponge at work. The 828 actually has 2.0mm sponge despite what's on the packet, I measured it, it was a little better for pushing than the Corbor. Both felt soft compared to the sheets of 729 I've been trying before this.

Iskandar