Not acceptable to me

[KCCO]

If the funds are there, I would let this ride out until they arrive, then deal with getting some kind of compensation out of them as that's just poor business from an OEM.

Order another set of irons from somewhere else at this point though, I would just think you could possibly come out ahead after settling your troubles you had with Callaway, if compensated well enough, selling them may help pay for others, or you could tell them possibly sending you a new driver will make you forget. My .02

 

***forgot to add if they don't do anything, send back and just get refund

[SheriffBooth]

Has Tesla ever had positive cash flow in its corporate history? Are there any examples of a profitable exclusively direct sales model for durable consumer goods?

 

It might work for golf clubs. However, I would think the locations would be very limited, very strategic. If nothing else TM could use them as tax write-offs.

 

I would think it might have worked for higher demand goods like refrigerators or televisions by now if it was a sustainable model - I'm trying to think of a consumer durable that's successfully employed a direct sales model. I think the vast majority of golf purchasers like to comparison shop, and like to touch, see, and try a variety of products prior to making a purchasing decision. We have to remember that the GolfWRX bubble is a fairly unique corner of the greater golfing world.

[CallawayLefty]

This is bad, but callaway has great customer service and my guess is they'll find a way to make it right.

 

That said, when are OEMs going to figure out that in todag's E-commerce world, their shipping times are totally unacceptable. I find 2 weeks to be about the fastest you get clubs. 3 to 4 is standard, and cases like this aren't out of the norm. Amazon can have basically anything to my door in 48 hours. I know there are custom and stock issues in golf that don't exist in other industries, but anything more than a week to ship anything other than truly exotic shafts, special grinds, things like that is ridiculous. And those things should be 2 weeks only.

 

I understand where you are coming from, but you aren't the only person the company is building a set of clubs for. Let's say best case scenario Callaway has 10 builders, and it takes an average of say 75 minutes to build a set (weigh the heads, grab the shafts, swingweight, cut, glue, grip), at best, they are producing 80 sets a day. This is being MEGA generous...having built a few sets from scratch myself it usually takes at least 90 minutes to build a set properly. I'm not talking some garage hack and glue where they just grab any head and any shaft and slap it together. Custom work from the OEMs goes through a lot of quality control checks and building check points usually. Now they have to do this for every order in North America or Europe (as they usually have only one build location per continent)...maybe two in North America because Canada and the USA are so large.

 

There are definitely more than 80 sets of Callaway clubs being ordered per day, or in need of repair, or being need to be made stock to get to places like Golf Galaxy or PGASS. It's not as simple as driving a couple of miles to your buddies place who happens to work on clubs to get them done and he can turn them around next day because he has nothing else to do. I work at a high-end fitting and build shop and the amount of quality checks done before they go out is insane, we are so busy right now we have 3 builders working full time, one of which works 10am-midnight almost daily, and we still can't keep up.

 

Just a little look from the other side of the "Amazon" world. It's not always as simple as pulling a box off of a shelf and slapping a shipping label on it. Now having said that, end of May/early June delivery is a bit ridiculous, they need to be better at forecasting product demand.

 

You get back on topic at the end, but the rest of your argument doesn’t match the issue at hand. The issue is, they are taking orders, sometimes with quotes on reasonable lead times, and not delivering. Only for the customer, or retailer, to find out by doing their own dirty work that the components are further back ordered.

 

As someone who works in golf, all of these happenings are very common, but it’s become really bad over the last couple years as ownership is telling these companies to make more reasonable projections and hold less inventory. For example, the Cobra F8 one length hybrid was not expected to sell by Cobra. So they only made a small amount. Unexpectedly, the club took off and since they didn’t have supply chains setup to keep inventory coming in, they are scrambling and have 2 month back order dates just merely trying to satisfy retail accounts, let alone direct to consumer sales.

 

It’s a dangerous game and I understand that TM is not expecting to sell a million sets of P-790s or Callaway with Apex MB. But you better be ready to handle it in case you do.

 

I wasn't talking about the OP, I understand they are upset, and deservedly so. I was answering directly to whom I quoted. They are saying it is unacceptable to have anything take two weeks, and hint that they even find stuff taking a week to be a little bit too long a lead time. I'm just pointing out that it's not that simple to just say "work faster and harder." There are a lot of moving parts and building a set of clubs is not as simple as a lot of people think it is. Putting part A into Part B and making sure there's a grip on it is only about 25% of doing a proper build.

 

I have worked golf retail for over 13 years, I really wish they would just flat out refuse to take orders on stuff that is backordered, or better yet, give us a heads up so I can warn the customer. "Hey, product X is backordered until supposedly May 30th. No guarantees that it will even be squared up by then. Just letting you know that if you really want it there will be a wait for it. If you're cool waiting for it, then so am I, but I think we should explore options." Honestly, my job would have been so much better. On the other hand, people need to learn patience. I don't know how many times I've said "your clubs will take 2.5-3 weeks to come in. We will call you when they are in," only to have the customer call me or email in 3-4 days wondering where the clubs they ordered are and why we haven't called them yet because it's been close to two weeks. Sigh.

 

I think there is this perception that your clubs are being built by some humble expert club builder who is sitting there grinding it out over your set. I would say by and large that's just not accurate. These are low level manufacturing jobs. I say that not to insult the work being done, just to highlight that you're talking about bumping your club building staff by a handful of low hourly wage employees. And the work is done largely on a production line - meaning one guy pulls the heads and shafts, one guy installs the shafts, one guy grips them, one guy does quality check, etc. Again, I don't believe it's one guy grinding it out over Frank from Wisconsin's special set of clubs. It's just four guys making $11/hr sticking manufacturing components together...same as every other manufacturer of any other product.

 

As to stock, in all but extremely rare circumstances, if a club company does not have enough stock to send out the item within 1 to 2 weeks, then they are just doing something wrong. There were comments above that shareholders won't stand for excessive inventory being held - how do you suppose shareholders would feel about some significant % of their customers bolting because they can't get clubs delivered in a reasonable time? Do you think the guy who started this thread is likely to order from Callaway again? At minimum, I'd guess he'll think about it pretty hard. Threads like this are pretty much a worst case scenario from a customer care standpoint. This guy is gone in all likelihood, and people who read this thread are negatively influenced. I can't imagine that excess inventory costs them more than this thread applied on a macro level does.

 

Here's the point of all of this - I am not 100% sure what the correct amount of time is to receive a set of golf clubs. Suffice it to say, we can agree that it's longer than getting an in stock t-shirt from Amazon. I mentioned above that 1 week to ship seems reasonable to me, with 2 weeks for stock issues. That's already about triple to six times as long as it takes to order most things online these days. So anything much longer than that starts to seem really excessive to me. I think some OEMs have figured this out. Ping and Mizuno do not seem to have issues. I am sure both do less in sales (significantly in the case of Mizuno) than TM, Callaway, and Titleist, but I would expect that they are roughly as profitable on scale to their operation size. So it CAN be done if the company at issue cares to do it.

 

EDIT: And to respond to something else you said...there is no such thing as patience in the world of American consumerism. I'm not saying that's a fact that I personally support, just stating that it is a fact.

[Anser]

This is bad, but callaway has great customer service and my guess is they'll find a way to make it right.

 

That said, when are OEMs going to figure out that in todag's E-commerce world, their shipping times are totally unacceptable. I find 2 weeks to be about the fastest you get clubs. 3 to 4 is standard, and cases like this aren't out of the norm. Amazon can have basically anything to my door in 48 hours. I know there are custom and stock issues in golf that don't exist in other industries, but anything more than a week to ship anything other than truly exotic shafts, special grinds, things like that is ridiculous. And those things should be 2 weeks only.

 

I understand where you are coming from, but you aren't the only person the company is building a set of clubs for. Let's say best case scenario Callaway has 10 builders, and it takes an average of say 75 minutes to build a set (weigh the heads, grab the shafts, swingweight, cut, glue, grip), at best, they are producing 80 sets a day. This is being MEGA generous...having built a few sets from scratch myself it usually takes at least 90 minutes to build a set properly. I'm not talking some garage hack and glue where they just grab any head and any shaft and slap it together. Custom work from the OEMs goes through a lot of quality control checks and building check points usually. Now they have to do this for every order in North America or Europe (as they usually have only one build location per continent)...maybe two in North America because Canada and the USA are so large.

 

There are definitely more than 80 sets of Callaway clubs being ordered per day, or in need of repair, or being need to be made stock to get to places like Golf Galaxy or PGASS. It's not as simple as driving a couple of miles to your buddies place who happens to work on clubs to get them done and he can turn them around next day because he has nothing else to do. I work at a high-end fitting and build shop and the amount of quality checks done before they go out is insane, we are so busy right now we have 3 builders working full time, one of which works 10am-midnight almost daily, and we still can't keep up.

 

Just a little look from the other side of the "Amazon" world. It's not always as simple as pulling a box off of a shelf and slapping a shipping label on it. Now having said that, end of May/early June delivery is a bit ridiculous, they need to be better at forecasting product demand.

 

You get back on topic at the end, but the rest of your argument doesn’t match the issue at hand. The issue is, they are taking orders, sometimes with quotes on reasonable lead times, and not delivering. Only for the customer, or retailer, to find out by doing their own dirty work that the components are further back ordered.

 

As someone who works in golf, all of these happenings are very common, but it’s become really bad over the last couple years as ownership is telling these companies to make more reasonable projections and hold less inventory. For example, the Cobra F8 one length hybrid was not expected to sell by Cobra. So they only made a small amount. Unexpectedly, the club took off and since they didn’t have supply chains setup to keep inventory coming in, they are scrambling and have 2 month back order dates just merely trying to satisfy retail accounts, let alone direct to consumer sales.

 

It’s a dangerous game and I understand that TM is not expecting to sell a million sets of P-790s or Callaway with Apex MB. But you better be ready to handle it in case you do.

 

I wasn't talking about the OP, I understand they are upset, and deservedly so. I was answering directly to whom I quoted. They are saying it is unacceptable to have anything take two weeks, and hint that they even find stuff taking a week to be a little bit too long a lead time. I'm just pointing out that it's not that simple to just say "work faster and harder." There are a lot of moving parts and building a set of clubs is not as simple as a lot of people think it is. Putting part A into Part B and making sure there's a grip on it is only about 25% of doing a proper build.

 

I have worked golf retail for over 13 years, I really wish they would just flat out refuse to take orders on stuff that is backordered, or better yet, give us a heads up so I can warn the customer. "Hey, product X is backordered until supposedly May 30th. No guarantees that it will even be squared up by then. Just letting you know that if you really want it there will be a wait for it. If you're cool waiting for it, then so am I, but I think we should explore options." Honestly, my job would have been so much better. On the other hand, people need to learn patience. I don't know how many times I've said "your clubs will take 2.5-3 weeks to come in. We will call you when they are in," only to have the customer call me or email in 3-4 days wondering where the clubs they ordered are and why we haven't called them yet because it's been close to two weeks. Sigh.

 

I think there is this perception that your clubs are being built by some humble expert club builder who is sitting there grinding it out over your set. I would say by and large that's just not accurate. These are low level manufacturing jobs. I say that not to insult the work being done, just to highlight that you're talking about bumping your club building staff by a handful of low hourly wage employees. And the work is done largely on a production line - meaning one guy pulls the heads and shafts, one guy installs the shafts, one guy grips them, one guy does quality check, etc. Again, I don't believe it's one guy grinding it out over Frank from Wisconsin's special set of clubs. It's just four guys making $11/hr sticking manufacturing components together...same as every other manufacturer of any other product.

 

As to stock, in all but extremely rare circumstances, if a club company does not have enough stock to send out the item within 1 to 2 weeks, then they are just doing something wrong. There were comments above that shareholders won't stand for excessive inventory being held - how do you suppose shareholders would feel about some significant % of their customers bolting because they can't get clubs delivered in a reasonable time? Do you think the guy who started this thread is likely to order from Callaway again? At minimum, I'd guess he'll think about it pretty hard. Threads like this are pretty much a worst case scenario from a customer care standpoint. This guy is gone in all likelihood, and people who read this thread are negatively influenced. I can't imagine that excess inventory costs them more than this thread applied on a macro level does.

 

Here's the point of all of this - I am not 100% sure what the correct amount of time is to receive a set of golf clubs. Suffice it to say, we can agree that it's longer than getting an in stock t-shirt from Amazon. I mentioned above that 1 week to ship seems reasonable to me, with 2 weeks for stock issues. That's already about triple to six times as long as it takes to order most things online these days. So anything much longer than that starts to seem really excessive to me. I think some OEMs have figured this out. Ping and Mizuno do not seem to have issues. I am sure both do less in sales (significantly in the case of Mizuno) than TM, Callaway, and Titleist, but I would expect that they are roughly as profitable on scale to their operation size. So it CAN be done if the company at issue cares to do it.

 

EDIT: And to respond to something else you said...there is no such thing as patience in the world of American consumerism. I'm not saying that's a fact that I personally support, just stating that it is a fact.

 

Yep

 

TM and Callaway employ a large mostly hispanic workforce to glue stuff together. They're entry level factory jobs.

 

It's not a tour van setup :)

 

But you're wrong about others not having issues. Ping once sent me the completely wrong wedge, I told them, they took 3 months to send the right one, then never even remembered I owed them a wedge to send back. Everyone has logistics issues at the numbers these companies produce.

[dxdgenert]

Has Tesla ever had positive cash flow in its corporate history? Are there any examples of a profitable exclusively direct sales model for durable consumer goods?

 

It might work for golf clubs. However, I would think the locations would be very limited, very strategic. If nothing else TM could use them as tax write-offs.

 

I would think it might have worked for higher demand goods like refrigerators or televisions by now if it was a sustainable model - I'm trying to think of a consumer durable that's successfully employed a direct sales model. I think the vast majority of golf purchasers like to comparison shop, and like to touch, see, and try a variety of products prior to making a purchasing decision. We have to remember that the GolfWRX bubble is a fairly unique corner of the greater golfing world.

Apple.

[phatchrisrules]

This is bad, but callaway has great customer service and my guess is they'll find a way to make it right.

 

That said, when are OEMs going to figure out that in todag's E-commerce world, their shipping times are totally unacceptable. I find 2 weeks to be about the fastest you get clubs. 3 to 4 is standard, and cases like this aren't out of the norm. Amazon can have basically anything to my door in 48 hours. I know there are custom and stock issues in golf that don't exist in other industries, but anything more than a week to ship anything other than truly exotic shafts, special grinds, things like that is ridiculous. And those things should be 2 weeks only.

 

I understand where you are coming from, but you aren't the only person the company is building a set of clubs for. Let's say best case scenario Callaway has 10 builders, and it takes an average of say 75 minutes to build a set (weigh the heads, grab the shafts, swingweight, cut, glue, grip), at best, they are producing 80 sets a day. This is being MEGA generous...having built a few sets from scratch myself it usually takes at least 90 minutes to build a set properly. I'm not talking some garage hack and glue where they just grab any head and any shaft and slap it together. Custom work from the OEMs goes through a lot of quality control checks and building check points usually. Now they have to do this for every order in North America or Europe (as they usually have only one build location per continent)...maybe two in North America because Canada and the USA are so large.

 

There are definitely more than 80 sets of Callaway clubs being ordered per day, or in need of repair, or being need to be made stock to get to places like Golf Galaxy or PGASS. It's not as simple as driving a couple of miles to your buddies place who happens to work on clubs to get them done and he can turn them around next day because he has nothing else to do. I work at a high-end fitting and build shop and the amount of quality checks done before they go out is insane, we are so busy right now we have 3 builders working full time, one of which works 10am-midnight almost daily, and we still can't keep up.

 

Just a little look from the other side of the "Amazon" world. It's not always as simple as pulling a box off of a shelf and slapping a shipping label on it. Now having said that, end of May/early June delivery is a bit ridiculous, they need to be better at forecasting product demand.

 

You get back on topic at the end, but the rest of your argument doesn’t match the issue at hand. The issue is, they are taking orders, sometimes with quotes on reasonable lead times, and not delivering. Only for the customer, or retailer, to find out by doing their own dirty work that the components are further back ordered.

 

As someone who works in golf, all of these happenings are very common, but it’s become really bad over the last couple years as ownership is telling these companies to make more reasonable projections and hold less inventory. For example, the Cobra F8 one length hybrid was not expected to sell by Cobra. So they only made a small amount. Unexpectedly, the club took off and since they didn’t have supply chains setup to keep inventory coming in, they are scrambling and have 2 month back order dates just merely trying to satisfy retail accounts, let alone direct to consumer sales.

 

It’s a dangerous game and I understand that TM is not expecting to sell a million sets of P-790s or Callaway with Apex MB. But you better be ready to handle it in case you do.

 

I wasn't talking about the OP, I understand they are upset, and deservedly so. I was answering directly to whom I quoted. They are saying it is unacceptable to have anything take two weeks, and hint that they even find stuff taking a week to be a little bit too long a lead time. I'm just pointing out that it's not that simple to just say "work faster and harder." There are a lot of moving parts and building a set of clubs is not as simple as a lot of people think it is. Putting part A into Part B and making sure there's a grip on it is only about 25% of doing a proper build.

 

I have worked golf retail for over 13 years, I really wish they would just flat out refuse to take orders on stuff that is backordered, or better yet, give us a heads up so I can warn the customer. "Hey, product X is backordered until supposedly May 30th. No guarantees that it will even be squared up by then. Just letting you know that if you really want it there will be a wait for it. If you're cool waiting for it, then so am I, but I think we should explore options." Honestly, my job would have been so much better. On the other hand, people need to learn patience. I don't know how many times I've said "your clubs will take 2.5-3 weeks to come in. We will call you when they are in," only to have the customer call me or email in 3-4 days wondering where the clubs they ordered are and why we haven't called them yet because it's been close to two weeks. Sigh.

 

I think there is this perception that your clubs are being built by some humble expert club builder who is sitting there grinding it out over your set. I would say by and large that's just not accurate. These are low level manufacturing jobs. I say that not to insult the work being done, just to highlight that you're talking about bumping your club building staff by a handful of low hourly wage employees. And the work is done largely on a production line - meaning one guy pulls the heads and shafts, one guy installs the shafts, one guy grips them, one guy does quality check, etc. Again, I don't believe it's one guy grinding it out over Frank from Wisconsin's special set of clubs. It's just four guys making $11/hr sticking manufacturing components together...same as every other manufacturer of any other product.

 

As to stock, in all but extremely rare circumstances, if a club company does not have enough stock to send out the item within 1 to 2 weeks, then they are just doing something wrong. There were comments above that shareholders won't stand for excessive inventory being held - how do you suppose shareholders would feel about some significant % of their customers bolting because they can't get clubs delivered in a reasonable time? Do you think the guy who started this thread is likely to order from Callaway again? At minimum, I'd guess he'll think about it pretty hard. Threads like this are pretty much a worst case scenario from a customer care standpoint. This guy is gone in all likelihood, and people who read this thread are negatively influenced. I can't imagine that excess inventory costs them more than this thread applied on a macro level does.

 

Here's the point of all of this - I am not 100% sure what the correct amount of time is to receive a set of golf clubs. Suffice it to say, we can agree that it's longer than getting an in stock t-shirt from Amazon. I mentioned above that 1 week to ship seems reasonable to me, with 2 weeks for stock issues. That's already about triple to six times as long as it takes to order most things online these days. So anything much longer than that starts to seem really excessive to me. I think some OEMs have figured this out. Ping and Mizuno do not seem to have issues. I am sure both do less in sales (significantly in the case of Mizuno) than TM, Callaway, and Titleist, but I would expect that they are roughly as profitable on scale to their operation size. So it CAN be done if the company at issue cares to do it.

 

EDIT: And to respond to something else you said...there is no such thing as patience in the world of American consumerism. I'm not saying that's a fact that I personally support, just stating that it is a fact.

 

I realize it is an assembly line of sorts and you don't have guys like Don White sitting there grinding an iron or a guy like Wishon with a swingweight scale to the 0.00001 decimal point. At the same time club building isn't hard, but it is hard. They have to make sure they get it to within that +/- 1* and SW margin, which over 1000s of sets can be pretty difficult due to the manufacturing tolerances of head weights and lots of shafts (looking at you KBS) being WAY out of spec most of the time. After building clubs for a month straight, you kind of get the knack for it. You can build them with your eyes closed. I mean I HATE building clubs, but I can do it well enough, quick enough that most people wouldn't even know there is a difference between me and the my old coworker who does nothing but builds. So for someone who does it day-in day-out, 5-6 days a week, I'm sure they can slap a pretty much perfect set together in their sleep, while I may take a little longer but the end is similar.

 

I guess where I am going with this is that it still takes time to build a set and 2 weeks should be the norm for anything custom, regardless of who is doing it, do it properly. Bending an iron set PROPERLY can take upwards of 30 minutes. Make sure the club is sitting flush in the machine and the measurement is accurate and all that takes time. Add in you have to check the specs for each build for length, okay, they want 1/2 inch over, so you have to mark off each club longer than normal, etc., different grips than standard, plus the 200 orders or so that were placed ahead of you that week, plus shipping...it's not hard to see why something can't be ordered on a Tuesday and be on your doorstep by Friday morning.

 

I don't mind the wait if it is done properly. Mizuno is a good example of this, they are fast, but in my experience they have terrible quality control. I've ordered 5-6 iron sets last year that I can remember from them, and 3 came in wrong, that I know of. Callaway is a little longer (2 weeks +/- a day or two), but every club I have ever checked is bang on. Titleist is a mix of the two, fast and accurate. Then again they are dealing completely in stock stuff most of the time, so it makes it way easier to just slap an s200 into a vokey head than Mizuno who has to worry about what shaft, what grip etc and aren't dealing with the volume you see with Cally and TM. So it's a win-win for them.

 

As for Amazon...check out this article http://uk.businessin...-bottles-2018-4

[CallawayLefty]

 

I realize it is an assembly line of sorts and you don't have guys like Don White sitting there grinding an iron or a guy like Wishon with a swingweight scale to the 0.00001 decimal point. At the same time club building isn't hard, but it is hard. They have to make sure they get it to within that +/- 1* and SW margin, which over 1000s of sets can be pretty difficult due to the manufacturing tolerances of head weights and lots of shafts (looking at you KBS) being WAY out of spec most of the time. After building clubs for a month straight, you kind of get the knack for it. You can build them with your eyes closed. I mean I HATE building clubs, but I can do it well enough, quick enough that most people wouldn't even know there is a difference between me and the my old coworker who does nothing but builds. So for someone who does it day-in day-out, 5-6 days a week, I'm sure they can slap a pretty much perfect set together in their sleep, while I may take a little longer but the end is similar.

 

I guess where I am going with this is that it still takes time to build a set and 2 weeks should be the norm for anything custom, regardless of who is doing it, do it properly. Bending an iron set PROPERLY can take upwards of 30 minutes. Make sure the club is sitting flush in the machine and the measurement is accurate and all that takes time. Add in you have to check the specs for each build for length, okay, they want 1/2 inch over, so you have to mark off each club longer than normal, etc., different grips than standard, plus the 200 orders or so that were placed ahead of you that week, plus shipping...it's not hard to see why something can't be ordered on a Tuesday and be on your doorstep by Friday morning.

 

I don't mind the wait if it is done properly. Mizuno is a good example of this, they are fast, but in my experience they have terrible quality control. I've ordered 5-6 iron sets last year that I can remember from them, and 3 came in wrong, that I know of. Callaway is a little longer (2 weeks +/- a day or two), but every club I have ever checked is bang on. Titleist is a mix of the two, fast and accurate. Then again they are dealing completely in stock stuff most of the time, so it makes it way easier to just slap an s200 into a vokey head than Mizuno who has to worry about what shaft, what grip etc and aren't dealing with the volume you see with Cally and TM. So it's a win-win for them.

 

As for Amazon...check out this article http://uk.businessin...-bottles-2018-4

 

I hear you. I am just surprised that this cannot be more automated. Like when you order a club from Callaway, it quotes "1 to 2 weeks." What does that mean? When will the clubs ship? At the moment they take that order, they should be able to assess inventory, whether your item is in stock or back ordered, and custom assembly times. The tolerance should be a day or two. So if you order, it should say your club will ship no later than XYZ date. I think this is what Titleist is doing in my recent ordering experiences with them. They quote you a date that is your outside date, and usually ship a little earlier. I have not ordered from anyone other than them in a long time, and would say that Titleist appears to be the best I've dealt with. Their stuff takes between 10 days and 3 weeks to receive. I have never ordered anything that is highly customized or really exotic shafts. Even still, I do usually find myself saying somewhere around the 2.5 week mark "how in F can it really take this long to get a stock SM6 with an S400 Tour Issue shaft."

[SheriffBooth]

Has Tesla ever had positive cash flow in its corporate history? Are there any examples of a profitable exclusively direct sales model for durable consumer goods?

 

It might work for golf clubs. However, I would think the locations would be very limited, very strategic. If nothing else TM could use them as tax write-offs.

 

I would think it might have worked for higher demand goods like refrigerators or televisions by now if it was a sustainable model - I'm trying to think of a consumer durable that's successfully employed a direct sales model. I think the vast majority of golf purchasers like to comparison shop, and like to touch, see, and try a variety of products prior to making a purchasing decision. We have to remember that the GolfWRX bubble is a fairly unique corner of the greater golfing world.

Apple.

 

The vast majority of Apple products are sold using a retail model, through cellular providers, WalMart, BestBuy, Target, etc. Sure they have an online portal for purchasing, and they have brick and mortars of their own in shopping malls, but that's not how Apple got started or how most of their products make it into the wild. That said, Apple Stores have been very successful, but not to the point where Apple is getting out of retail.

[ZAP]

When I got home there was an email from Callaway. They refunded me for the four clubs I do not have and sent me a return label for the two I have to send back.

Guess they must be having supply chain issues because they did not even attempt to appease me at all.

 

Shopping.

[ajchang]

7 days for Mizuno JPX 900 HM/Forged combo set... just saying.

[phatchrisrules]

When I got home there was an email from Callaway. They refunded me for the four clubs I do not have and sent me a return label for the two I have to send back.

Guess they must be having supply chain issues because they did not even attempt to appease me at all.

 

Shopping.

 

MP18 my man. Cheaper, looks just as pretty, and feels the same. Loads of shaft options, loads of grip options. I'd put Srixon into the mix too but they do look a little bit funky compared to other blades (a bit wider sole that most). If you like Black, I'm a huge fan of the new Cobra blades. Modus, most true temper product, and all KBS product are free in them. Basic Golf Pride and any Lamkin grip are free with them. P730 is also really nice but there's definitely going to be some backorders on that front, TM is worse than Callaway a lot of the time.

 

https://www.cobragolf.com/king-pro-irons-custom

[ZAP]

I just ordered something suggested in this thread. I do not want to jinx it so I am keeping it to myself!

[dxdgenert]

I just ordered something suggested in this thread. I do not want to jinx it so I am keeping it to myself!

Huh? C'mon Man!

[ZAP]

I just ordered something suggested in this thread. I do not want to jinx it so I am keeping it to myself!

Huh? C'mon Man!

 

Well after I pulled the trigger on the Apex MBs I came on here and posted it. That turned into a sheetstorm. So now that I have ordered the Cobra CB/MB flow set I am nervous about telli...........

[PeanutsDaddy]

I just ordered something suggested in this thread. I do not want to jinx it so I am keeping it to myself!

Huh? C'mon Man!

 

Well after I pulled the trigger on the Apex MBs I came on here and posted it. That turned into a sheetstorm. So now that I have ordered the Cobra CB/MB flow set I am nervous about telli...........

 

Zap,

 

Happy to read that you've resolved the Cally issue.

 

Hoping the cobra experience is smoother. I ordered a set of F7s and a friend ordered a set of F8s on the same day. All went well and we had both sets in hand after two weeks. Both of us added a 5 iron after the fact and we're going on nearly a month. The shop has no clue where they are. The sad part is that the weather's so bad that I don't even care, and thankfully have a bunch of options to choose from until touchdown.

 

Look forward to your update.

[Anser]

All oem's are going to have inventory level issues - the sport is hurting and the companies who function it the business side of it aren't doing well either.

[ping rat]

there is some seriously potential novel writers in this thread.

[MaddMaxx]

Wonder if golf components are in Mr. Trumps sights?

Could take months to get anything and cost a lot more.

Wouldn't it be nice if they moved operations back or to Japan.

I wonder if anywhere else would have the volume to produces enough?

[buckrogers71]

So on March 30th I ordered Callaway Apex MBs 5-PW directly from the Callaway site. Site quoted "Available 1-2 weeks" so I figured maybe 3 weeks to a month I might have them. 5 and 6 irons arrived late last week so I sent am email asking about the rest to see if they had an information for me.

 

This is what I got today.

 

 

Hello,

 

Thank you for your email. I apologize for the delay on the remaining four irons. Here is the eta on them...

 

7 and 9 iron 5/31

PW and 8 iron 6/15

 

 

If I can assist you further, please let me know.

 

Thank you,

Esther

 

Callaway Golf

 

 

 

 

I'll be cancelling this order Monday and sending the 5 and 6 iron back. Not waiting that long. My current irons work just fine. Very disappointed Callaway.

 

Bro...dont you go through this EVERY time you order from Callaway???? LOL

[ZAP]

Update. Irons are in route. Four days from order to shipment.

I will say it again. All I/we deserve/want as consumers spending somewhat large sums of money is more transparency and communication about the availability

Of items we are buying. Golf season is finite here in Ohio.

[LPSISCO]

Has Tesla ever had positive cash flow in its corporate history? Are there any examples of a profitable exclusively direct sales model for durable consumer goods?

 

It might work for golf clubs. However, I would think the locations would be very limited, very strategic. If nothing else TM could use them as tax write-offs.

 

I would think it might have worked for higher demand goods like refrigerators or televisions by now if it was a sustainable model - I'm trying to think of a consumer durable that's successfully employed a direct sales model. I think the vast majority of golf purchasers like to comparison shop, and like to touch, see, and try a variety of products prior to making a purchasing decision. We have to remember that the GolfWRX bubble is a fairly unique corner of the greater golfing world.

Apple.

 

The vast majority of Apple products are sold using a retail model, through cellular providers, WalMart, BestBuy, Target, etc. Sure they have an online portal for purchasing, and they have brick and mortars of their own in shopping malls, but that's not how Apple got started or how most of their products make it into the wild. That said, Apple Stores have been very successful, but not to the point where Apple is getting out of retail.

 

Apple has enough brand cache to be able to do both - sell at retail themselves, and sell through other outlets. The other distributors have to deal with it or lose a ton of sales...almost half of all cell phones sold are Apple. It also allows Apple to offer exceptional service on their products at their sites to increase customer satisfaction irregardless of where the customer bought the product.

 

I doubt TM has the market share or cache to pull it off.

[ZAP]

Irons arrived today. They look soooooo nice in my bag. Sadly I probably won't have time and/or weather to hit them till Friday.

Is it too soon to order something else from Cobra?

 

Thanks for all the advice and information throughout this process. I find the whole thing interesting in some sick way.

[phatchrisrules]

Irons arrived today. They look soooooo nice in my bag. Sadly I probably won't have time and/or weather to hit them till Friday.

Is it too soon to order something else from Cobra?

 

Thanks for all the advice and information throughout this process. I find the whole thing interesting in some sick way.

 

Cobra MB blades? Nice choice :D. I'll take credit for that suggestion.

[ZAP]

Irons arrived today. They look soooooo nice in my bag. Sadly I probably won't have time and/or weather to hit them till Friday.

Is it too soon to order something else from Cobra?

 

Thanks for all the advice and information throughout this process. I find the whole thing interesting in some sick way.

 

Cobra MB blades? Nice choice :D. I'll take credit for that suggestion.

 

Credit given. Finally got to hit them today and I must say I was impressed. I remember liking them when I hit them indoors but outdoors is even better.

Hope to play Saturday and Sunday but it is supposed to rain. Booooo

[mac4pres]

If it makes you feel better, I ordered about 75 dozen (fairly small order) of various Callaway balls for our pro shop back in December and asked for a March 1 delivery. We're still waiting for the new chrome softs to arrive. Callaway says they were overwhelmed by the demand. As others have said, companies hate having inventory just sitting.

[mjbfyb]

Has Tesla ever had positive cash flow in its corporate history? Are there any examples of a profitable exclusively direct sales model for durable consumer goods?

 

It might work for golf clubs. However, I would think the locations would be very limited, very strategic. If nothing else TM could use them as tax write-offs.

 

I would think it might have worked for higher demand goods like refrigerators or televisions by now if it was a sustainable model - I'm trying to think of a consumer durable that's successfully employed a direct sales model. I think the vast majority of golf purchasers like to comparison shop, and like to touch, see, and try a variety of products prior to making a purchasing decision. We have to remember that the GolfWRX bubble is a fairly unique corner of the greater golfing world.

 

There is an audio company named Schiit (yes, that’s really the name), and they have been very successful with a direct sales model. One of the founders is an award winning science fiction writer and has a blog on head-fi.org documenting everything they went throught. It’s very well written and a fascinating read. High end audio and golf are similar. Not huge markets, but the die hards will spend considerable sums of money for very slight improvements and are always looking for something better. It looks like the new owners of Ben Hogan are giving this model a go.