Custom Bats Cricket Forum
Equipment => Bats => Topic started by: Buzz on May 10, 2012, 03:23:09 PM
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Taken from the Blenheim thread.
I think there is no doubt that on this forum people care who makes bats, but the vast majority of cricketers don't care. This is exemplified by the bulk of bat sales coming from the major brands who use multiple bat makers/machines.
Thankfully (for us at least!) though, most cricketers aren't big enough badgers to care - perhaps because the majority of individuals just buy a bat on the basis of how it feels and goes. To be entirely honest our target market isn't people who specifically want a bat made by person X. Because if that's what they want they should just go direct to person X. Instead we want to build a brand that provides great quality gear and is renowned for doing so.
Should we care? surely pick up/balance, performance and looks (as well as price) matters.
but what if certain batmakers just make better bats... personally I cannot make up my mind which side of the fence I sit on. In reality I think it has changed since joining the forum - i.e. I have learned a little and thus think I know a lot and therefore want access to the best. fortunately we have in a number of different ways we have access to many of the best here :)
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I think it does matter - most of my bats in one form or another are TK made. This is not to say Tim never makes a stinker, or that noone else makes gems, its just that I feel I have a massively improved chance of a genuinely excellent bat this way.
Likewise, have just taken Matt up on his May offer. Not a huge fan of the H4L branding, though the yellow Hattori stuff is growing on me, but his rep as a batmaker is such that I want to try one out...
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There's probably a reason why in my clearing out of my bats, I have been left with a couple of Lavers, an Instinct a Puma Ballistic 6000, an H4L a couple of mongeese and a Hunts County...
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I think it does matter - most of my bats in one form or another are TK made. This is not to say Tim never makes a stinker, or that noone else makes gems, its just that I feel I have a massively improved chance of a genuinely excellent bat this way.
Likewise, have just taken Matt up on his May offer. Not a huge fan of the H4L branding, though the yellow Hattori stuff is growing on me, but his rep as a batmaker is such that I want to try one out...
How do you know it's a TK made? He can't make every bat that comes out of his workshop
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How do you know it's a TK made? He can't make every bat that comes out of his workshop
This is true, but you figure he puts his reputation to it by it coming from his workshop, don't you?
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I think if you know who the bat maker is then it makes it easy but then again I havent heard of a bat maker who wasn't fantastic. We all have favorites and good reasons for them to be favs.
To me if i am buying a top of the range bat from a known bat maker or a well established brand I expect the bat to perform simply because its a matter of reputation for both the bat maker and brand. You might come across a plank but more like to have the issue resolved with bat maker and/or the brand if you have paid good money for it. All decent brands have some warranty...
Difference is what they do with lower end bats, there are brands out there who'e lower end stuff is not really all that good and that where a good bat maker shines imo..
I have my favs now but before joining the forums i didn't care about who made the bat, it was all about which bat felt good / was in my budget...i have had good bats, great bats and horrible bats before here...
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If I was going to a shop and buying a bat, I wouldn't care who made it if it pinged and picked up, but if I was buying online I would as I would not want to buy a bat unless I know it will do well.
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To the general cricketing world - they dont care, they know very little and they just go by price tag as a gauge of how good something is.
On the other hand on this forum, we all care. We buy from people who we trust. Trust is earnt through reputation, and reputation comes from two ways. 1) We know the bat maker. 2) We have seen many other bats from this brand so trust its quality. Therefore a new brand entering the Market needs to do one of two things. 1) Have an experienced trusted bat maker. 2) Give special offers so that people are interested in the brand so that we begin to see other quality bats.
Personally, I am incredibly unfussy in terms of who makes my bats. However I do know that my next personal bat will come from 1 of three sources. 1) Instinct, 2) BB and 3) SAF.
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I should add that most people in the world seem to suffer from the "truth effect" just because they see it everywhere in advertisments and so on they believe that it is better. They also fall for the sponsership system way to easily. This is especially true with most cricketers.
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How do you know it's a TK made? He can't make every bat that comes out of his workshop
T W Keeley is the company name, which is often abbreviated to TK.
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Que everyone googling T W Keeley ltd lol
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Personally I feel that smaller brands provide a very good product at an affordable price, large manufacturers do make some lovely bats but are very expensive.
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i will go with joe on this. if i am buying online, i will go for a brand with good reviews. still it wont matter to me who actually made the bat.
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I definitely covet some bats made by specific batmakers; would love a millichamp, or a Keeley, or a bat made by Andy at Safbats
And I really wanted a Laver and a CF (which I now own)
However, not knowing the batmaker wouldn't put me off other bats. If I had the cash I'd be happy to buy the H4L Stickered bat that Sam is currently selling, or one of the blenheim bats that have been on show.
And whilst some forum members might well think they know who has made their bats, they might be surprised! I know of one brand that's popular on the forum who established themselves using a renowned batmaker, but then changed to a different supplier, and it didn't seem to effect their reputation.
Also brands such as Laver&Wood and Salix are known to train apprentices - these apprentices have to start making bats at some point, so I expect that some of the bats leaving those workshops are not necessarily made by the head batmaker
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Everyone seems to be missing the point here!
If I go to Laver & Wood to buy a bat I know that it was made by them (either an apprentice or the man himself) If I go to Hawk then I get the same. CF.............the same! Lots of other companies the same.
But what happens when I go to a new company who (possibly for contractual reasons) are unwilling/unable to actually say where they are sourcing their bats from? This company has no track record, I know of no one using their gear and the prices they are asking are 'premium'. That is the ONLY reference I have as to what the bats might actually be like!
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So how do you know if a bats good or not? Can you not tell by the look of the willow? The quality of the finish? The balance? How it feels off a mallet?
Surely there's more to any brand than the reputation of their head batmaker?!
You are starting to sound like the BlankBats thread that was on pakpassion
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So how do you know if a bats good or not? Can you not tell by the look of the willow? The quality of the finish? The balance? How it feels off a mallet?
Surely there's more to any brand than the reputation of their head batmaker?!
You are starting to sound like the BlankBats thread that was on pakpassion
You can't get any of this buying online.
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That's not the question though is it. Regardless of buying online or not, we're talkIng about if it matters who made the bat
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When a new unheard (like Blenheim were 2 weeks ago) of comes on this forum there's nothing to seperate them from the others apart from price and the look of the stickers. They have no reviews, no history, no credibility.
People want to know who the batmaker is to get an idea of the quality of the final product and perceive the value better.
People don't need to know the maker of Kookaburra, Adidas or Gray Nicolls in that same kind of way as they have seen lots of them around the circuit and have an idea about the brand
Give it 12 months and a number of good reviews and people will ask a lot less questions about who makes them, just look at Black Cat and Bulldog for examples of that.
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When a new unheard (like Blenheim were 2 weeks ago) of comes on this forum there's nothing to seperate them from the others apart from price and the look of the stickers. They have no reviews, no history, no credibility.
People want to know who the batmaker is to get an idea of the quality of the final product and perceive the value better.
People don't need to know the maker of Kookaburra, Adidas or Gray Nicolls in that same kind of way as they have seen lots of them around the circuit and have an idea about the brand
Give it 12 months and a number of good reviews and people will ask a lot less questions about who makes them, just look at Black Cat and Bulldog for examples of that.
Thank you Tom! You put it far more eloquently than I could!
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with the big manufacturers, you also know that they have so many bat makers that its hard to distinguish...
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This is a bit of a storm in a tea cup for me. A couple weeks ago the forum mods were saying that 'if a bat is an x, y or z bat then for all intents and purposes, it is an x, y or z bat'. You buy the bat and if it's no good you send it back and give them a bad review, and that company gets bad press. If it's good then vice versa and eventually it doesn't matter who makes the bats because they are 'just good bats'.
The Blenheim argument is a pathetic one because they quite clearly said that they would tell you who makes the bats, just not in public..... which is completely fair enough because a) I doubt the bat maker would be too keen to have that info in the public domain, and b) why would they give people the opportunity to say 'ooooh that bat looks nice, I wonder if I could get the same cheaper from the same batmaker with different stickers'.
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When a new unheard (like Blenheim were 2 weeks ago) of comes on this forum there's nothing to seperate them from the others apart from price and the look of the stickers. They have no reviews, no history, no credibility.
People want to know who the batmaker is to get an idea of the quality of the final product and perceive the value better.
People don't need to know the maker of Kookaburra, Adidas or Gray Nicolls in that same kind of way as they have seen lots of them around the circuit and have an idea about the brand
Give it 12 months and a number of good reviews and people will ask a lot less questions about who makes them, just look at Black Cat and Bulldog for examples of that.
Nailed it!
Completely acquiesce this post.
I really don't understand why some people don't mention the batmaker, I mean it won't make any difference to you if your bats are of top quality which impresses the buyer.
I really liked the way BlankBats did, they weren't reluctant in naming the maker, which was quite good of those guys.
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I really liked the way BlankBats did, they weren't reluctant in naming the maker, which was quite good of those guys.
Blankbats are only able to offer their bats cheap because they are contractually not allowed to name the batmaker. It's a blank bats bat, get over it!
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Coming back to the original point, many companies are contractualy bound to not name who makes their bats. You might ask them nicely and they might tell you, but if they do, they could be breaching confidentiality clauses which may result in a loss of supply, sinking the business.
As most buyers don't know who TK is, they just find that a team mate has a bat that performs, to stay in business is it netter to a) risk your supply line or b) pander to the tiny minority on a forum or two?
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As it was very hard to regconize there batmaker ;) #NoBrainerifyouareonCBF
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Coming back to the original point, many companies are contractualy bound to not name who makes their bats. You might ask them nicely and they might tell you, but if they do, they could be breaching confidentiality clauses which may result in a loss of supply, sinking the business.
As most buyers don't know who TK is, they just find that a team mate has a bat that performs, to stay in business is it netter to a) risk your supply line or b) pander to the tiny minority on a forum or two?
That is my point exactly!!!
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That is my point exactly!!!
What we forumites tend to forget is that as a market place we are a very small wallet. Many of the batmakers on here, the likes of SAF, Nixon, Charlie French and others such as Solitaire, Chase, etc, started off much like Beachy, making bats for friends and people in local teams in the league. As people moved away and went "where did you get that bat from?" their reputations grew and people started to make enquiries. The growth of the brand was entirely about product and direct exposure.
In many ways it hasn't really changed. Yes, the internet gives you the opportunity to share that experience more widely and others to read reviews and yes it allows you (with a good marketing/art direction guy) to appear sexier, but the core buyers tend to be local to you. As they buy and use these bats the reputation spreads, and if they are a member of this forum then it may spread faster.
We do have a tendency to overestimate just how important we are in the grand scheme of a business model...
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But what happens when I go to a new company who (possibly for contractual reasons) are unwilling/unable to actually say where they are sourcing their bats from? This company has no track record, I know of no one using their gear and the prices they are asking are 'premium'. That is the ONLY reference I have as to what the bats might actually be like!
Quite agree - some of them are worth the money but its a big old risk!
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Quite agree - some of them are worth the money but its a big old risk!
But if you weren't on here, then you wouldn't take a risk on any of the smaller bat makers who have built up a reputation through here, like blank bats etc. You wouldn't go to a restraunt and demand to meet the head chef before ordering!
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Your right Nick but the key here is 'built up a reputation' the point being made is that if the company in question has not built up any reputation then what else have you got to go on?
Look at it like this....your interested in a bat that looks lovely in the pictures you've seen. You know of no one who has used the bats before, no one who has even seen one in the flesh. The company selling the bats is new to the market and hasn't had time to build any kind of reputation. You can only buy the bat online as by it's very nature the company deals in very small numbers and is in a different part of the country. Asking questions about where the bats they are selling come from and who is making them would seem to me to be a fairly sensible thing to do! Maybe your just a lot less cynical than me mate! ;)
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Your right Nick but the key here is 'built up a reputation' the point being made is that if the company in question has not built up any reputation then what else have you got to go on?
Look at it like this....your interested in a bat that looks lovely in the pictures you've seen. You know of no one who has used the bats before, no one who has even seen one in the flesh. The company selling the bats is new to the market and hasn't had time to build any kind of reputation. You can only buy the bat online as by it's very nature the company deals in very small numbers and is in a different part of the country. Asking questions about where the bats they are selling come from and who is making them would seem to me to be a fairly sensible thing to do! Maybe your just a lot less cynical than me mate! ;)
Do what you would do in any normal procurement process in a corporate world. Ask for references and follow them up.
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Or take a punt and then send it back if it's rubbish. As long as it's paid for through the right channels you should be fine. The only reason I would worry was if I had to meet them in a supermarket car park and pay cash to pick them up. If that was the case then I would definitely want references and word of mouth.
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Or take a punt and then send it back if it's rubbish. As long as it's paid for through the right channels you should be fine. The only reason I would worry was if I had to meet them in a supermarket car park and pay cash to pick them up. If that was the case then I would definitely want references and word of mouth.
But how do you know they would accept it back? It's your word against theirs and this hypothetical company has no track record at all! It's all about minimising the risk! :D
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But how do you know they would accept it back? It's your word against theirs and this hypothetical company has no track record at all! It's all about minimising the risk! :D
But that's the point. Your hypothetical company doesn't exist. Blankbats came from forum members that some of us knew already and were able to verify their claims, and most small makers make for teammates to start with, who then verify their claims. None of them that I've seen at least (and I am willing to be proved wrong) start with "Here's my website, buy a bat..."
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To be honest, they're going to be pretty big before you hear of them though aren't they? I go back to my original point that the mods made a point that for example a black cat is a black cat and nothing else! You wouldn't buy a bat that looked rubbish, and if it looked good then chances are it will be good as there will be money spent on design, manufacture etc. If you speak to the company owner (which you probably will if its a small company) then you will get a feel for the bloke and the company. will have a return address on the package and you can report them to trading standards (without affecting your statutory rights) .and all will be fine. I wouldn't want to know to be honest, as far as I'm concerned a bat is a bat made by that company.... end of. All of this is irrelevant anyway, because the bloke at Blenheim cricket said that he would tell whoever was seriously interested in one of his bats, who they were made by anyway.