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Selling equipment?

• Noobingalltheway 222 Posts

  Sat, Feb 12 2011 1:54 AM

  I know the reasons why WGT won't allow gifting old clubs, but how about a happy medium?

  How about allowing us to sell our old clubs on to other members? Yes, you won't get the full potential revenue if a noob is buying a used club rather than from your shop, but you will:

  • Please your customers
  • Make the game a little more realistic
  • Get a lot of the revenue (I'll explain this part)

  Ok, so say the Rapture V2 255 yard rated driver in your shop. Cost 1185 credits. Can only sell for 25% of that value (297cr)

  So a Pro is looking for a new driver...he would more often than not, go and buy that same driver from the club shop, but maybe someone will sell theirs to him for half that price...he still has to go buy 600 credits from WGT to do that.(50% of revenue gained)

  On the other hand, I want some new irons, but I don't want to go and spend 1200 credits on the Tour Preferred irons that I want, so I'll stick with the Raptures I have already (no revenue gained).

  But say if this was brought in, and someone had some of those irons up for 600 credits...now thats a much better price, I will go and buy those, so I need to go and buy 600 credits from you. (50% of potential revenue gained) though we know of course that in this instance the potential revenue would never have been realised.  BTW this is my current situation, in case anyone is thinking "that would never happen"

  I see this as a win-win - what are others' thoughts?

  Rob

• borntobesting 9,710 Posts

  Sat, Feb 12 2011 2:52 AM

  Noobingalltheway:

  I know the reasons why WGT won't allow gifting old clubs, but how about a happy medium?

  How about allowing us to sell our old clubs on to other members? Yes, you won't get the full potential revenue if a noob is buying a used club rather than from your shop, but you will:

   

  • Please your customers
  • Make the game a little more realistic
  • Get a lot of the revenue (I'll explain this part)

   

  Ok, so say the Rapture V2 255 yard rated driver in your shop. Cost 1185 credits. Can only sell for 25% of that value (297cr)

  So a Pro is looking for a new driver...he would more often than not, go and buy that same driver from the club shop, but maybe someone will sell theirs to him for half that price...he still has to go buy 600 credits from WGT to do that.(50% of revenue gained)

  On the other hand, I want some new irons, but I don't want to go and spend 1200 credits on the Tour Preferred irons that I want, so I'll stick with the Raptures I have already (no revenue gained).

  But say if this was brought in, and someone had some of those irons up for 600 credits...now thats a much better price, I will go and buy those, so I need to go and buy 600 credits from you. (50% of potential revenue gained) though we know of course that in this instance the potential revenue would never have been realised.  BTW this is my current situation, in case anyone is thinking "that would never happen"

  I see this as a win-win - what are others' thoughts?

  Rob

  Win-win? As many of us who don't buy credits but rather get them buy taking surveys and completing free offers I don't see WGT thinking that it is a win-win situation. 

• piztaker 5,743 Posts

  Sat, Feb 12 2011 3:14 AM

  WGT earns money for every survey done don't forget. But as for the selling on of old clubs, I don't think it would work. It'd be more like E-bay on here.

• bluescouse 1,185 Posts

  Sat, Feb 12 2011 3:28 AM

  Of course it could work, but it would eat into WGT's profits so don't hold your breath.

  Sean

• andyson 6,415 Posts

  Sat, Feb 12 2011 10:19 AM

  Interesting post Noobingalltheway!

  Whether individual resale would work depends on the probability that everyone and anyone will not buy the 1200 credit clubs from WGT anyway. 

  Let's take your case where Player A is considering buying the 1200 credit clubs, and there is a Player B who owns those clubs, wants to sell them, and also want's to buy 2 sleeves of Callaway balls for 300cr each.

  Look at these 3 cases and the transactions....

  

  For sake of discussion

  let's say half the people who want the 1200cr clubs today go ahead and buy them from WGT. 

  And say there is 100 people considering the 1200cr clubs and 100 people who have the 1200cr clubs to sell and also will buy 2 sleeves of Callaways for 600cr.

  What is WGT's revenue?

  50 pairs complete Case I above.  50 x $15 = $750 WGT revenue

  50 individuals complete Case II above and buy balls.  50 x $3 = $150 WGT revenue

  So under today's system WGT would gain $750 +$150 = $900 WGT revenue

  And let's say all 100 people who want the 1200cr clubs today would go ahead and buy them from another player for 600cr if Individual resale were available.

  100 pairs complete Case III above.  100 x $6 = $600 WGT revenue

  WGT is $300 ahead with the current system even if only half the players buy the clubs from WGT at $1200.

  I know you're wondering where is the break even point where individual resale turns a better profit for WGT.

  In the above scenario, if only 25% of players buy the clubs from WGT then the revenue is equal to 100% of players buying clubs at half off from other players.

  In a different scenario, maybe not all the players would buy their clubs from another player, maybe a mix of some buy from WGT, some from other players.  In those cases WGT makes more money with today's system.

• Noobingalltheway 222 Posts

  Sat, Feb 12 2011 1:13 PM

  I understand what you're saying, but its all about perception and ways of thinking.

  My way of thinking....

  Ok so say 50% of the people buy from WGT, and WGT end up $900 better off (you're assuming of course that all 100% of player B will buy the balls, whereas in my case above, I would have sold my driver and bought the irons, but wouldn't have bought the irons if I didn't sell my driver for about the same price

  Also, the assumption is there that all players who have used clubs to sell, will be selling for half of their original value (tbh, I'd buy used clubs for 1000 CR over new for 1200 - as on WGT it makes no difference - so theres also more there in terms of variations of the model)

  Lets go back to your scenario 1 vs scenario 3

  50 people buy their 1200 CR for new clubs from WGT ($600)

  75 people buy their Callaway balls from WGT ($225)

  Total $875

  100 people buy 1200 CR clubs from another player at varying prices from 600 - 1000 CR (est total, $800)

  That's $75 difference...now for the interesting part

  WGT listens to player A's request to make clubs transferrable

  Player A buys new driver A for pro advancement, new driver B for master advancement, new 3 wood, new irons, wedges, putter (from other players) total est revenue $20 (plus that for new balls too)

  WGT ignores player A's request: player A decides never to spend on the game Revenue $0

  Now for the second interesting part:

  • Customer satisfaction drops further
  • 10% of previously paying customers decide never to spend again
  • 20% of previously paying customers decide to pay only if they need a new driver
  • 20% decide to buy clubs as and when, but never to buy balls (WGTs "regular" revenue)
  • 50% of non-paying customers drop out of the game completely. 
  • Their investors see the numbers going down, investigate into why. Investment stops
  • New investment opportunities drop

  I like your way of thinking Andy, as its how my mind used to work. However, your model was looking at the short term (immediate sales) rather than the long term (potential sales).

  I'm not saying WGT will make more money within one month if they incorporate this, but I am saying that WGT will have happier customers, not a hugely reduced income, and a huge amount of potential income

  Rob

• andyson 6,415 Posts

  Sat, Feb 12 2011 6:01 PM

  Noobingalltheway:

  I'm not saying WGT will make more money within one month if they incorporate this, but I am saying that WGT will have happier customers, not a hugely reduced income, and a huge amount of potential income

  This will sound cynical..........If WGT really cared about how happy their customers are they would fix the meter, do something about quitting and multiple accounts, fix the velcro fringe, release more courses and do it faster, and keep the customers informed about whats going on.  Don't treat us like mushrooms by keeping us in the dark and feeding us BS.

  I don't buy that because WGT customers are unhappy sales numbers decline and investment stops.  There seems to be 3 or 4 standing in line to replace anyone who leaves.  P.T. Barnum was right.  With all the complaints around here site visitors have increased more than 3 fold and visits almost 5 fold since January 2010.  That's significant growth. Here's the source.

  All that being said, I wouldn't rule out individual re-sale in the future at WGT, it might not be free market as we assume, it might be regulated or even taxed.

  I would think if customer satisfaction at WGT were very good, then they would get many more visitors and visits.. And much more revenue as a result.   I'll agree with you on that point.

  But today a friend lost 2 balls OB because his wind showed right to left and us other two players showed left to right wind.  Left to right was correct.  He was pissed big time at the game glitch!

   

• viago 44 Posts

  Mon, Apr 23 2012 7:41 PM

  you may well be correct but wgt do still need to look closely towards customer satisfaction. second life found their revenue stream slashed when some bright spark tried to squeeze the players for more cash.

  analysis showed that there was an increase in the number of people joining but the number of daily log-ins from long term customers fell away. the new members also quit logging on after 3-5 weeks.

  it obviously must take big bucks to run the servers and develop the game (and i would like to see their margins) but their revenue can only be increased by both satisfying their current customers and doing a lot more to suck in new members into upgrading their kit. they need to give credits along with their pointless award system. private trading would massively increase a persons willingness to purchase goodies. trading communities always prosper if ran well;- look at runescape where accounts sell for hundreds of pounds.

• piztaker 5,743 Posts

  Tue, Apr 24 2012 12:08 AM

  The free movement of credits would ruin the game. Simple as that.

• viago 44 Posts

  Wed, Jun 20 2012 7:02 PM

  how so??

  if wgt built into clubs a set deterioration rate say decreasing to standard club level over 2 years then they could ensure that new clubs would always be in demand regardless of future growth of the game. perhaps an 18 month old set of clubs would fetch relitively little in a free market, whereas a 2 month old set may fetch 80% of the new price, thereby allowing the ambitious players to constantly upgrade with new kit.

  the whole economy within the game would serve to encourage players both to continue participating and to purchase other degradables such as balls to go with their, new to them, clubs.