As I said before on discounts, don’t give them. Charge a fair price and charge it to everyone. For good customers you can sometimes give away freebies for maintenance. A free cleaning, free surface tweak, maybe replacement inserts for balls you drilled at cost.

If you do things right and get that reputation then the customers you want will pay the price. And if they are not willing to then they are not the kind of customer you want as they are more interested in price than quality. We didn’t have time to drill every ball that was sold in town, didn’t want to drill one for nothing, and didn’t want to service the customer who was only concerned about price.

As far as paying, they don’t leave the shop with the goods until they pay for it. They don’t have the money then keep the ball, shoes, towel, inserts, etc until they do.

If they try to pay later (or don’t pay till later) make note of it and the next time you charge them up front before drilling or ordering.  You’re in a business not a charity.

As far as your boss not paying you that is your problem as much as it is his. I wouldn’t turn another tap in the shop until they paid me. If it became a regular occurrence I would leave, otherwise you are enforcing the behavior.

Yeah, you really have to be careful with discounts. Especially on new equipment, when customers only buy 1 piece. It is better to make a "special price" on services like drilling or to give a rebate on bundles, e.g. a ball and a wrist support.

If you offer good service, people will pay the prices you charge. And they will COME BACK! That's even more important. "Catching" a new customer is six times as expensive as keeping a satisfied one!
Never understimate the power of "word of mouth" of customers. On the positive, and even more on the positive side. Some numbers: a dissatisfied customer at retail talks to about 10-12 other persons (=bowlers in your area!) about bad experiences, but "only" to 2-3 about positive ones. These are proven statistics about shopper behaviour. And that's why customer satisfaction and good, experiencable service is so important.
Good service must be experienced. Offering a cup of coffee while people get their ball drilled can be a simple option. Be creative!

And, additionally, it is important to emphasizeand communicate that good service is not free. If people feel served, they will pay for it. If the service is good, they will come back and tell about it.
When your shop gets a rep as a "discount house", people will only come for this purpose and you will not be able to justify extra expenses for drilling etc.. People will come, but only buy if you can keep up cheap prices - you'd be competing with ebay sellers who will not have to pay a shop rent... That's why positioning in the (local) market is important even at pro shop scale.

Some thoughts by a marketing geek...
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DizzyFugu --- Reporting from Germany

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"All that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream..." - Edgar Allen Poe