Well you can look at it as no over head to carry in your store. You the proshop owner should be happy that they are bringing you their balls to get drilled. This money should be all free and clear. I am a proshop owner and I am very happy with the internet sales, I only have to keep x amount of balls in my shop
and the rest just come in from internet.

I am not worried about getting rich of selling balls, I just want to make a living, so the more money in my pocket the better.

"I am not worried about getting rich of selling balls, I just want to make a living, so the more money in my pocket the better." I so agree with this. If the customer knows you will not warranty the ball drill it. It is pure profit for you. The problem is with the distubtors selling the stuff at the proshops cost. Lets take a look @ it from a car buying perspective. I have $30000 to spend for that price I want the best I can get for my price. I am going to search hard and long to find the car for the lowest price so then I can add the extras to it. I can't blame some ppl for buying bowling balls if the internet some people have a little money to spend. I personally would have a hard time paying $150-225 for a bowling ball that didn't work for my game that was recommended by my proshop. It happens I see people who have paid $250 bucks for a hammer claw that off the internet was only $50-75. I personally support my proshop he does great work he also sells bowling balls 10-20 over cost. He doesn't have to pay for all the extras that you guys do. My advise would be get a union together and go after the companies and show them how much you are losing to the distributors and convince them to sell to you directly are use your union to form your own distributing group so you can pass the savings to your customers.

proshops get the balls fromthe distributers for the same price, The reason why the proshops sell them so high is tohelp with the overhead. Since online shops have no over head so they can sell them just above cost.

Now the proshops can benifit from this, No overhead meaning they dont have to carry soo many balls now. They can just benifit from the internet sites. I know for fact that a online shop here on the east coast has a deal with local proshops that they drill the ball for $15.00.

The internet sites are not going away no matter how much people complain. There is too much money involved in the sales to the online sites. So it all boiles down to your own marketing and how much more you want to sell the ball for then the next company.

There is many proshops in town that are not even affected by internet sales and
dont care about them either way. If you are a good driller and have a nice shop people will go to your shop no matter what.

This is a very good read for myself and my friends, because we have just leased a proshop in a bowling center and i intend to run the shop full time.

I have been watching ebay closely and seen all the TPC players on ebay going for dirt cheap and yes i even bidded on one sorry couldn't resist.

I am likely going to set up an online store on ebay to sell more product. but i am in a slightly more advantagous situation than most of the other shops here in this post. I am canadian( and proud) so there is only a handful of distributors and they all respect the manufacture-distributor-proshop-bowler chain of distribution. The distributors all sell direct to the public but charge the same as proshops do.

Also i work for a bowling magazine so we regularly get test balls weeks before public release, so we get a heads up on what's hot and what's not.

I saw on the ebay auctions that they are shipping to canada at a flat fee as well. I for one have purchased items other than bowling balls online and from the US and the momment it gets to the boarder it gets taxed or hit with a pile of customs and duty, so for me the savings becomes Zero in the end. with exchange rates, shipping, and customs, i save very little when i buy online on certain things.

the idea of a CO-OP would be a good one, or basically something that is a little more widely used than IBPSIA. IBPSIA mostly be teaching rather than pricing controls association is not widely followed because of the expense in the membership fees.

sorry i don't have any helpful suggestions but i am going to use this post to my advantage.


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Timothy @Juniors Pro-Shop
Montreal, Quebec.