New Level irons - price increase

[bigdriveandy]

25 minutes ago, me05501 said:

 

Any time I spend $1,000 or more I consider what my worst case scenario looks like. I've bought plenty of nice used OEM iron sets and resold them at break even or close enough. Sometimes I'm tempted by the Maltby stuff because the price is appealing, but then whatever you spend is pretty much a sunk cost. Recovery of value is non-existent. 

Exactly. I think the DTC brands, if they aren't going to be cheap, what is really the value proposition? To me, the total "value" of a club isn't just the way it looks, feels, or performs but also the ability to demo it in multiple shaft/head combinations, get fitted by a professional for it, and also, to some degree, the ability to resell it if you don't love it. Any DTC brand doesn't have any of the ancillary value propositions, so the more the price goes up, the performance/feel/looks MUST be so good that you are definitely committed to playing that club for as long as you feel you need to in order to extract all the money you paid for it. For NL I just don't see it when the prices are almost double what you could have gotten the same clubs for two months ago...

[Minarets]

DTC need to be cheap(er) for my interest.   I have been VERY interested in NL and bought a 7i demo club due to the pricing.  But what I struggled with was not being able to try different shaft, head, combos in some kind of fitting process. If they are going to be close in price, I’m going to go with some thing that I can try combinations out locally.

[Thayneil]

On 1/4/2023 at 5:51 AM, bigdriveandy said:

Interestingly enough, I noticed today that New Level only sells their irons on a per club basis now. Instead of 5-PW for $770, they are $150/club which makes them $900/set. Just curious what you all make of this as a 17% price increase overnight definitely eats away a little of their value proposition in my opinion. I guess the one silver lining here is they have included more no upcharge shafts than they used to.

6-pw for 750 with nice upgraded shafts?

 

[Thayneil]

On 1/4/2023 at 5:51 AM, bigdriveandy said:

Interestingly enough, I noticed today that New Level only sells their irons on a per club basis now. Instead of 5-PW for $770, they are $150/club which makes them $900/set. Just curious what you all make of this as a 17% price increase overnight definitely eats away a little of their value proposition in my opinion. I guess the one silver lining here is they have included more no upcharge shafts than they used to.

6-pw for 750 with nice upgraded shafts?

 

[Thayneil]

On 1/4/2023 at 5:51 AM, bigdriveandy said:

Interestingly enough, I noticed today that New Level only sells their irons on a per club basis now. Instead of 5-PW for $770, they are $150/club which makes them $900/set. Just curious what you all make of this as a 17% price increase overnight definitely eats away a little of their value proposition in my opinion. I guess the one silver lining here is they have included more no upcharge shafts than they used to.

6-pw for 750 with nice upgraded shafts?

 

[bigdriveandy]

15 minutes ago, Thayneil said:

6-pw for 750 with nice upgraded shafts?

 

My point exactly, they basically made a 5 club set the same price that they used to charge for 6 clubs. Industry standard is still 7 clubs. And at their prices, a 7 club set is now $1,050 which is almost insignificantly different than many bigger brands that have ALL of the benefits that myself and others have listed. 

[Minarets]

For 7 clubs with recoils (so some upgrades) is 1200+ now. That’s close enough to the big guys that I’m not sure what the savings really are? Save $150-300? What do I lose now in re-sale over the big boys?

[goudok]

unless you absolutely need/love NL they are out of touch with the pricing

[GAGolfer1]

Was considering pulling the trigger on a set. 0% chance now. 

[bryanwmilburn]

3 hours ago, bigdriveandy said:

Exactly. I think the DTC brands, if they aren't going to be cheap, what is really the value proposition? To me, the total "value" of a club isn't just the way it looks, feels, or performs but also the ability to demo it in multiple shaft/head combinations, get fitted by a professional for it, and also, to some degree, the ability to resell it if you don't love it. Any DTC brand doesn't have any of the ancillary value propositions, so the more the price goes up, the performance/feel/looks MUST be so good that you are definitely committed to playing that club for as long as you feel you need to in order to extract all the money you paid for it. For NL I just don't see it when the prices are almost double what you could have gotten the same clubs for two months ago...

Nailed it.

[ilikegolf26]

Paying a Tour player ain’t cheap. They just signed Chez Reavie. 

[RogerinNewZealand]

2 hours ago, Minarets said:

For 7 clubs with recoils (so some upgrades) is 1200+ now. That’s close enough to the big guys that I’m not sure what the savings really are? Save $150-300? What do I lose now in re-sale over the big boys?

Resale is the key difference 50% off. Last xmas bought more J33cb. This xmas bought 712cb. Nice. Cheap. Ten minutes from home. Have rebuilt spine aligned added swingweight and new gptvs. Simple. Can always buy some 4 to 6 year old red dot Pings for great value irons to play.prices have gone crazy But with new Titleist drivers etc out the 2 model old are less and i just grabbed an ok 917f2 3wd for great price. Old stuff gets sold. 917 is now Old! But Great.

[Chunkitgood]

In many ways a lot of anti competitive forces are heavily weighted against smaller businesses.

 

It may well be that a smaller company may feel compelled to raise prices while a larger firm may believe it can defer or avoid doing so.

[Thayneil]

16 hours ago, bigdriveandy said:

My point exactly, they basically made a 5 club set the same price that they used to charge for 6 clubs. Industry standard is still 7 clubs. And at their prices, a 7 club set is now $1,050 which is almost insignificantly different than many bigger brands that have ALL of the benefits that myself and others have listed. 

i am guessing they pay  25$ for heads  12-15 for shafts  3 for a grip

 

say  $43 tops all in?

[Jag80]

Keep an eye out for "sales" or additional discount coupons in the future! Dipping toe with price increase.  If it's not sustainable, will have to correct.  We don't know their margins, so let's see how it plays out. 

[GAGolfer1]

Just a poor business decision on their part. I’m sorry but no one is going to buy their irons because Chez Reavie is on staff. They have been buying because price and quality. 

[Ger21]

I almost bought a 623 combo set last year, until the MB heads got pulled. I thought it was around $550 for heads only? Now 7 heads only is $800. Who's paying that much for heads only?

Edited January 6, 2023 by Ger21

[CRGOLF]

Sad about the price increase.  Switched to Takomo 101T irons ($589 USD + shipping) on blind faith and love them over my PXG Gen5 and Rogue St Max.  

[bryanwmilburn]

4 hours ago, CRGOLF said:

Sad about the price increase.  Switched to Takomo 101T irons ($589 USD + shipping) on blind faith and love them over my PXG Gen5 and Rogue St Max.  

If Takomo just used DG shafts I would have owned at least 1 set by now. Can’t get along with KBS unfortunately!

[vandyfan]

Yes, it sucks. I was toying with the idea of dropping a GI22 (or two) down in my long irons because they were $110. Now at $135 they are basically the same as major OEMs that I can actually test out in a simulator. Now I have to take a flyer on New Level (since they seemingly suspend and then re-activate the demo program on a whim) for the same price? No thanks. It's a bummer because I always want to play New Levels and something happens. 

[DDJ]

So - I committed to a 6 to A set during Black Friday sale - 25% off 750 - $562 and was pretty thrilled with that price point.  Keep in mind - I'm in Canada and with US $ conversion plus shipping and Can tax ( 13 % ) - ended up at like $944 Canadian ( wa wa wa ) all in.  Still alot cheaper than OEM for great quality.  I'm thinking the price increase and no discount puts them way too expensive to take a flyer on now.  Too bad

 

I will say - I am still very excited to put them in play.  They look great and I have high expectations - and hope I love them.  Maybe they are still worth it.  Agree though - resale would / will be brutal.

[bigdriveandy]

Holding out hope that they will relent and have some sort of sale or something soon… but who knows. Even just to get them back down to their old price. It would have made sense to maybe just increase the price this much when they released a new model but I get that I’m just bitter that I didn’t buy when I had the chance.

[vh2145]

Recently picked up a PD and OS 7 iron for testing. They looked awesome at set up behind the ball but the bottom line for me was they didn't perform as well as my Taylormade M4's. 

[dmeeksDC]

The appeal to New Level is that they make irons that are fully forged but forgiving. If you look around, there are not that many companies putting our pure 1020 carbon steel forged irons these days.

 

This could be a PXG move. Raises price and then have regular sales and closeouts. But it also makes the used New Level irons attractive because those are often very good deals. 

[5 O'Clock Charlie]

Yea this is insane. I got these in October for $718.77, basically $100 per club. I wouldn't even think about buying these at this price now.

 

 

 

Edited January 7, 2023 by 5 O'Clock Charlie

[Thayneil]

On 1/6/2023 at 7:37 PM, Liveonce said:

Just a poor business decision on their part. I’m sorry but no one is going to buy their irons because Chez Reavie is on staff. They have been buying because price and quality. 

didnt they buy them before because nobody was on staff?

(kept the price down)

[UNDERPLANE]

On 1/4/2023 at 7:33 PM, mktrout said:

Priced themselves right out of consideration. 

Yep

[clutchputt71]

On 1/4/2023 at 3:28 PM, Jmccas said:

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I may be off but from the plural tour player reveals, they might have to raise prices to pay tour players.  

[daegyu]

I went to their site to see what all the fuss was about. I don't know what I'm missing but I think they look kinda ugly 🤷‍♂️

 

Would much rather try out Takomo if I had to go with a non-OEM 

[Sparty4202]

I bought a set of 902PD 5-PW last summer for $660. I absolutely love the irons, they check most of the boxes for me but I don’t think I’d be buying them now with the new price increase. The big draw for me to demo last year was the look and price, with the price spread getting smaller with the OEMs I’m not sure I’d pull the trigger on them now.  
I will say that their build quality was very good to specs and they are much better to work with on custom orders than most OEMs.