I'll do my best to keep my mouth shut about the idiots I've seen post in Doug's topic about his Reloadeds.  I don't mean to blow any pro shop secrets, but from the supplier we have, Doug's price of 125 SHIPPED is cheaper than we can get them!  If my boss did something like that, he'd be losing over 20 bucks a ball once he received the ball and added the shipping price to what he paid.  

Do you ignorant whiners even know what it takes to run a pro shop?  There are so many little expenses that you have no clue about.  Most of the smaller things are what you get for free.  You come in on a league night, and your thumbhole is too tight, or too sharp.  Bevel knives, bevel sanders, the round graters, you know, all the stuff that pro shops pay for and make little adjustments to your thumb hole for FREE with.  Say a grip is a little loose, there's some glue.  I mean, heck, then you add other things like a vaccuum cleaner, towels, paper towels, and Windex, things like that come out of profits.  And that's all small stuff.  If a center doesn't own the pro shop, the pro shop pays rent, unless there is some special deal going on.  All the tools to run a pro shop have to be paid for, that's why the extra costs.  People then complain about "Well, after they pay for the drilling machine, everything from there is pure profit."  Yeah, after you break even for the MONTHS it takes to pay one of those things off, unless you had some rich relative die.  

Who wants to run a business just to break even?  What would be the point of running your own business just so your profits are enough to cover the expenses?  All your time and effort would be wasted.  Buddies can afford to sell for that cheap because they either have money to back it, enough customer support to make it worth their time, or a really good deal with a supplier, or maybe they're even a supplier period.  A pro shop isn't a business you have to make money, it's a business you have if you like abuse and stupid customers.  You're all so smart, why don't you go get a bank loan and open your own shops?  Unless you have a good economy in your city where people are willing to pay higher prices for equipment because they realize the logistics of owning a business (I see nothing wrong with drillwizard charging 229 for the Reloaded, if people pay that price, more power too him.  Probably allows him a lot more freedom in other areas), you're gonna run yourself into the ground after you burn yourself out on it because the gain just isn't worth the pain.
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Forget Kung Fu, I know Ron Bahr!!!

The only difference between youth and adult leagues are that the big boys are allowed to whine.  They're more entertaining anyway.

Yeah, and that's what people don't realize.  Doug is really giving of himself to go above and beyond and lower each ball to a price that probably isn't making him squat.  And you people just want more.  Just blows my mind.  Honestly, have you people no decency or respect for a great guy?  He's one of the few that will go that far to please a customer.  Some of you might remember this story, but I'll tell it again.

My boss has an old couple come into the shop one day.  The guy had an old plastic Brunswick that he wanted plugged and drilled to fit his span.  Didn't want the fingers moved, said it was alright to just drill right back through the plug.  The boss gets it done, and the guy comes back in.  Puts his fingers in it and hates it.  Said it was too tacky.  Wants it plugged and drilled again somewhere else.  So instead, the boss orders him a brand new Target Zone and drills it for the guy, all for FREE.  The other ball was old, and he didn't want to risk having the plug crack.  

Meanwhile, this old guy's wife wins a ball in a raffle.  It was a urethane Groove.  Through talking with her, he determined the ball wasn't going to hook enough for what she wanted, so he tried to talk her into buying a Power Groove, and just paying the 10 buck difference.  She didn't want to do that, because she didn't like the color of any of the Power Grooves, she HAD to have the Cranberry Groove.  So he went ahead and got it for her.  She said she wanted it drilled to hook, so he drilled it max leverage.  Of course, like he thought, it didn't end up hooking enough.  So he sanded it for her for free.  Still didn't hook enough.  Then she said her thumb was off, so he threw a slug in there and fixed it for FREE.  When he gave it to her, she said the thumbhole was too snug, so she REFUSED to let him sand it out, and just told him to keep it.  

Back to her husband, the boss gets the ball done, the brand new free Target Zone, and gives it to this guy.  He gets all huffy about it because evidently the old ball he brought in was memorabilia, it had been his son's, and his son had died of cancer recently.  So in the midst of all of this, they'd been going around to all their senior friends and badmouthing my boss's work.  The boss gave both the old guys balls to him, and put a respectful request on a note into the box with one asking them to please not badmouth him to their friends.  She wrote him back with very rude and cutting remarks, saying in one place, and I quote, "You screwed up a new ball for me.  It did me no good to win it.  The ball did not hook, and however you said you fixed didn't end up working.  I told you to drill it to hook, and it didn't.  As far as I'm concerned, you can take the ball and shove it where the sun don't s____.  You're a terrible pro shop owner, I think you should choose another profession."  

Soooo.  Then the skank- . . er, woman, wrote a letter to the Better Business Bureau about him.  Oh, and this was after he ordered her a brand new Cranberry Groove to take somewhere else and have a more "competent" pro shop operator drill it better.  He spent a couple HUNDRED dollars to satisfy a customer, and that was how he was repaid.  Idiots beware.  Rant off.
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Forget Kung Fu, I know Ron Bahr!!!

The only difference between youth and adult leagues are that the big boys are allowed to whine.  They're more entertaining anyway.

Your boss sounds like a stand up guy to me, however I do not need a lesson in small business economics.  Unfortunately, the model for running a bowling business has changed.  

I have had the same driller for many years and I am fortunate because he also is an internet reseller.  He has been successful because he has changed his way of doing business.  If I can get a ball cheaper on the internet, I will buy it.  It isn't being cheap to get the best price on a product.  Having said that, I am more than willing to pay for good service.  In many cases (auto insurance for example), I am willing to pay more because I feel I get better service than some of the less expensive carriers.  

If your shop isn't making enough on merchandise markups, your boss needs to rethink how he prices his services.  

Nuff Said!

Doug,

I totally agree with everything you said and you are right, saving money is not everything but in my area, the pro shop guys are not very nice (at least the ones I have used). The guy I have now is a regional pro barely making enough out of his shop to get by, but I have send him several people and I do that as much as I can. He has worked in pro shops before, but never owned his own until last year. I want him to make it, not only because he does good work, but he is a friend now as well.

But the thing I don't understand is this. How can I buy NIB balls off Ebay cheaper than you pro shop guys can get them. It makes no sense to me, but even the guy I use now says he pays over $100 for any newer ball such as the Freak, Freak Out and those both can be bought on Ebay NIB for much less than $100 including shipping. I guess the guys online get a huge price break because they buy in quantity.

Once again, I say the local bowling supply distributor is screwing the local mom and pop pro shop guys and thats just not fair..

JK

Well I know that where I live proshops are selling stuff for roughly $180-$200 for highend stuff. Just half an hour away the proshops get $250 for the same stuff. Economy is real bad around here.

With that said, even for the $175 drilled and shipped by Doug is more than fair. The $125 shipped taken to a proshop to be drilled equals about $160....is $15 that imortant to people? I know that there are people financially strapped.

It was hit right on the head about the free service bowlers want from a pro shop. I am opening one in the next few weeks. I think that unless a ball is bought from me (or drilled by me) that there should be a small charge to open a hole or bevel a hole, sanding, polishing or cleaning a ball.

My opinion on the buying balls online is mixed. I have bought some online. But if I buy a ball on ebay, where is the warranty? If something happens to the ball and it was an online proshop where you got, you have shipping to and from to cover, that is about $30, so where is the savings?

I guess warranty is not a big issue any longer, since in reality a ball company does not have to warranty a ball if there are finger inserts in it.