Tennis-warehouse.com makes demoing easy
Neat way for online tennis retailer to set itself apart from typical stores:
Anyone in the continental 48 Unites States may demo up to four racquets for six full days…The racquets will be delivered by UPS within two days. You return them the following week on the same day of the week you received them. For example, if they arrive on a Monday, you ship them back the following Monday. Included in the racquet box is a postage-paid return label so all you have to do is seal the racquets back in the box, put the return label over the original label and take the box to a staffed UPS drop off center or any UPS driver.
Brian
on 13 Aug 09Does anyone do this with golf drivers? I’d be hooked!
Phil Scott
on 13 Aug 09One of the problems with playing hockey and living in Louisville is that there are no proshops. Buy skates is tricky – every company (and product line) has a different type of boot and sizing chart, so you may wear a 8D CCM, but a 8.5E Bauer.
Icewarehouse.com provides free shipping back on their skates if they don’t fit. They had no problem with me ordering a size 8, 8.5 and a 9 skate and shipping them out to me, and letting me return the ones that didn’t fit for free.
Scott
on 13 Aug 09That would be great for golf clubs! You really can’t get a feel for them at the demo range.
Tim
on 13 Aug 09What’s the big deal? You still pay for postage.
For decades, you can walk into nearly any Pro Shop, be it tennis/golf/etc and they will do the same at no charge.
Golf pro shops are notorious for allowing you to play any club a full round of golf at no charge.
condor
on 13 Aug 09Interesting idea, however you have to provide a credit card and pay for shipping (which makes sense for obvious reasons). However this smacks of ‘free trial’ marketing promotions that count on people not reading/following the rules to the letter of the law and ending up “buying/signing up” for the product when they were just looking for a free trial. This type of promotion walks a very fine line.
Anonymous Coward
on 13 Aug 09Wonder what the damage rate is on the returned ones. Tennis is probably fine, but there are a lot of hack golfers out there.
Steve
on 13 Aug 09Competitive Cyclist (http://www.competitivecyclist.com/road-bikes/demo-saddle ) does the same with road bike saddles. A new saddle can cost a few hundred bucks, and the only way to test them is out on the road.
Qian
on 13 Aug 09I did this once and it worked out pretty well. In fact, I ordered some small items like strings or grips at the same time, and they shipped them for free in the same box. I ended up not liking any of the demos as much as my own racquets, so it probably saved me a few hundred bucks. The only downside is six days isn’t quite long enough to properly test out four racquets, and the shipping fee is the same even if you just want to demo one racquet.
Seamus
on 14 Aug 09Just tried this out a few weeks ago to see how the various K-Factor versions compared to my all time favorite Prince Classic Graphite. Much preferred to typical pro shop demos, because I could carry them around to various games/matches around town and they all had pretty fresh strings.
Yes, it’s a short window to demo, but it only took me 3 practices to make my choice, the K-Factor 95 hands down, and also ~$70 more than the Graphite. Great service.
Anonymous Coward
on 14 Aug 09Tim, not everyone has what you have. A huge percentage of the population lives outside the reasonable range of a high-quality pro shop (or even a pro shop at all).
Tim
on 14 Aug 09@Anonymous Coward
If you live outside the “range of a pro shop”, I doubt there even exist places to even play tennis/golf/etc.
You make it sound like most people live in the tundra of Alaska … at which point – it’s so cold, would you even be outside playing tennis/golf at all?
Chad Garrett
on 18 Aug 09I like this idea, but not for the typical reason. I don’t play tennis, but I’d like to try the game out. I like the idea of “renting” rackets for just the cost of shipping. I’m sure they’d rather not ship to me, though, because I don’t know what I’m doing.
This discussion is closed.