softball bat business

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i recently bought a few bats off ebay after looking at all of the local sports stores( central ohio) and was able to save $70- $85 on them. Im wondering if it would be worth starting a softball bat business in central ohio? any suggestions or comments would be appreciative thank you

 

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What kind of business? Sales & Resales or actual manufacturing? If manufacturing, you need DEEP POCKETS and knowledge. The process in making bats is extensive (materials,heat treating,welding, machining,anodizing,silk screening) not to mention marketing and is extremly competitive. It's similar to Golf equipment, if you have a hot product great, if not your bankrupt.

 

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uh? it would be sales only !! when dick's sporting goods has a bat at 189.00 and you can get same bat at some of these wholesalers for half that amount , im wondering if there isnt a profit to be made there??

 

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I'm sure there is a huge margin on bats here in the Columbus area. I went to a store in a northeastern part of Columbus to look at a couple Easton bats. They wanted $300 for the Synergy & $160 for the Havoc. I found the same exact bats at justbats.com for much less. $240 & $120 respectivly. (also no sales tax & free shipping) That's a huge difference! Imho, what would set someone apart from the other retailers would be a place where the salespeople are knowledgable about the products they are selling and actually carry more than 10 softball bats! (compared to the 100+ baseball bats on the racks beside the 1 for fastpitch bats) None of the 3 people working at this store knew anything about softball bats. I've been to some of the larger sporting good chains & their selection was not very good either. They had quite a few choices for high end slowpitch bats, but very limited fastpitch. Pretty disappointing for Columbus.

 

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You can't go to the retailers for fastpitch equipment. You pretty much need to order off the Internet or from catalogs, or maybe through a place that supplies uniforms like Home Field Advantage or something like that.

Some of the indoor facilities offer decent stuff. Big League baseball has some nice gloves, although most are too small for softball.

 

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A weird surprize for me was the selection at some of the Play-It-Again sports stores. A few of them have a nice fastpitch section. They also carry some last-year bats (still in the wrapper w/warrant) usually about a hundred dollars cheaper than the sporting goods stores in the area.