SimonTheBeetle:
No but seriously... how about opening up a used (second-hand) market? And you WGT sell a ticket or a voucher in the pro shop so that anyone who wishes to sell or buy used equipment would have to purchase and use it for each and every transaction.
Sales of brand new products may drop, but you will generate a new source of revenue that has much greater potentials.
Simon, I think your idea is intriguing, but there are a couple of problems I see with it.
1. Any player-to-player (P2P) sale of a club or sleeve would cut WGT out of a sale of that same club or sleeve at full Pro Shop price. Even if they charged a commission on the P2P sale, WGT would make far less money. Why would they want to do that?
2. Any player wanting to sell a club or sleeve would not be able to do so unless and until there was a buyer. The way it is now, the player does not have to wait to sell. WGT will buy the club back at 25% of the retail cost. Granted, that seems a little bit low, but WGT has to make money somehow... and they really don't even have to offer to buy it back at all.
3. What happens in the case of buyer's remorse? How does WGT reverse the P2P transaction... or do they? Either way, somebody's going to be upset.
4. Although the programming to implement a P2P exchange would not be impossible, it would be complicated enough that I really don't think WGT could do it without messing it up. I mean, for gods sakes, they can't even fix the Showdown bugs or make simple changes like getting rid of the WATCHING OPPONENT banner in multiplayer games.
WGT's current 25% Buyback program isn't the most generous, but it's efficient and it works. Just my thoughts.