Custom Bats Cricket Forum
Equipment => Your Kit => Topic started by: tim2000s on September 06, 2014, 09:34:43 AM
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This area of GMs business has generated a lot of discussion and merits its own thread.
Given that no retailer sees all the stock when they go, what is the benefit of having a retailer that handpicks their stock from the factory versus one who selects something from their stock (provided by the wholesaler) to your specs?
Does a retailer understand what about a bat makes it pick up in such a way that it will be ideal for you?
Should we really care?
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Yet to see a retailer advertise an ugly bat at top dollar. They seem to be the better looking bats in any given grade, so the advantage seems to be your unlikely to get the ugly bats by them being hand picked
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Tim,
Really good question. For me it comes down to trust and time. Like many on the forum, I have a busy life and thus time is at a premium. When I go shopping, particularly for something as important as a bat I need to feel that I am making good use of my time to get a quality product. Now whether this is to go and have something made bespoke or to buy an off the shelf the next choice for me is focused on trust.
The last bat I purchased came from Asad at Uzi. I know I will be slated by some, but it was an MC LE Spartan that was advertised on here. I know he went to the warehouse to hand pick the bat and I know he went through the (majority of the) warehouse's stock to find that tranche of bats for his store. I appreciate the warehouse is only a snapshot of the total Spartan range and that Asad's hand selection has further reduced my total customer choice. However, from what I have seen on here and how he has dealt with me personally... he has my total trust.
What does this mean, I know his hand selection reduced my available options but balanced against my time available, I believe he has helped save me significant time by conducting the initial weeding out process to focus on quality products. Though I freely admit this is a subjective assessment. I am sure other shops offer a similar service but I have trust in Asad and his handpicking process has given me great confidence in the product.
Is this relevant for a brand like GM? Possibly not, if you truly believe an item like a cricket bat offers uniformity but it does, in my mind, create the concern of shot gun supply chain with an element of the personal touch removed. However, I think GM is a first class brand and have happily used their bats in the past. When I purchased, rightly or wrongly, the MC LE did I get the best one in the UK? Almost certainly not but I gained confidence from Asad's selection, personal service and then my fumbled waving of willow and tapping up in his first class store.
In conclusion, if you have faith in the person doing the hand selection (this might be misplaced but certainly helps my batting confidence in relation to a product - surely this can only help your game) then it can save you precious time and lead to a good buying experience.
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So coming back to the original question, if Sports Direct offered a hand picking service from the stock in their warehouse, would you use it and why have you made that choice?
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With sports direct prices (when they have genuine reductions) people are happy buying blind so a hand picking service will be welcomed.
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Shorter answer :-[
For me no, it would be quick but I need to know and trust the person hand picking for me.
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The amount of bats sold on after a few uses on this forum suggests somewhere it's going wrong
The most important thing to a proper batsman is the feel of the handle and the pick up, this is very personal and can not be judged by hand selecting.
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To be honest, I'd back the sponsors who hand pick the bats to pick out a better one than I could. I'd back the knowledge of someone who has seen 1000's of bats over my own.
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The amount of bats sold on after a few uses on this forum suggests somewhere it's going wrong
The most important thing to a proper batsman is the feel of the handle and the pick up, this is very personal and can not be judged by hand selecting.
Thanks Garrett, I was hoping someone might say this.
All that hand picking proves for us forumites and amateurs is that looks and bounce off a mallet are the most important thing for us, unless we are getting a new version of something we have had before, and even then pick up isn't guaranteed.
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How do you sell bats Garrett? I thought a lot of your sales are international.
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I think it also depends on who is doing the picking. Some people I might trust and others I wouldn't. It isn't simply about nice grains, pickup of a specific bat vary from person to person. Hand picking can weed out the rubbish but it won't be a guarantee of the right bat.
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I am rubbish at picking bats.
I know what feel, weight and pick up I like in a bat, but using a mallet, most bats feel the same to me, unless they are astounding or shocking!
so in answer to the question it comes down to who you trust. the retailer to recommend something or the reputation of the batmaker.
I have had some excellent bats from different sources and tested loads.
if someone is custom making a bat for you, what if you don't like it when it has been made exactly as you asked?
I think hand picking from the manufacturor only works if te person picking knows what you are looking for.
someone very tall picking a bat for someone short would also be a challenge as the geometry is all different.
Romida and fordham don't hand pick bats, but seem to sell plenty
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I am rubbish at picking bats.
I know what feel, weight and pick up I like in a bat, but using a mallet, most bats feel the same to me, unless they are astounding or shocking!
me too ;)
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The only thing you know with a handpicked bat is that you're going to get something pretty. When a brand imports/sells 20,000 bats a year and has them in their warehouse, there's no way any retailer is going to go through hitting each and every bat with a mallet to find the 5 best performing bats to put on their shelves.
You have no idea how it will perform, how it will pick up, how it will feel. Your ideal bat may actually be sat in Sports Direct. If you buy online you can 'hand-pick' yourself by ringing up a few retailers and asking them to send a photo, or describe their best looking bats in your preferred price point.
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How do you sell bats Garrett? I thought a lot of your sales are international.
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The international ones are people I know or people who have seen a previous bat and I keep a detailed record on each bat.
In uk I try to meet people in person and take along every bat I have and let them choose it and don't tell them the weights until they have narrowed them down to a top 3. If it is an internet sale I pick a bat I think is suitable with the guarantee I'll pay to send it back if they don't like the feel of it.
If I went to a handpicking retailer and the bat turned out to be a plank I'd be annoyed and want a different bat free if charge ... They claim to be experts and hand picked the best of the best and use it as their USP so should get it right. Personally I think they are setting themselves up to fail as performance can not be judged unless a bat is used in a match.
I hand picked 20 clefts after inspecting over 1000 grade 1s individually with the help of two forum members, I can guarantee they all look amazing and I can guarantee that some play a lot better than others.
I used Ben stokes' old puma the other week, felt strange to me and didn't look great. The worst bat I have ever used was given to me by shiv chanderpaul. I literally couldn't get the ball off the square no matter how hard I hit it. To me that proves a bat is very personal and hand picking for performance is nonsense.
Picking on looks the hand picking method is perfect, after all most retailers just want a shop full of bats with nice grains as that's what usually makes them sell.
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So if a retailer can't get it right what makes a manufacturer like GM any better. I mean it's like you said, it is all a matter of opinion. Wrong or right I feel more comfortable with someone I have built a relationship with.
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So if a retailer can't get it right what makes a manufacturer like GM any better. I mean it's like you said, it is all a matter of opinion. Wrong or right I feel more comfortable with someone I have built a relationship with.
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Only seeing the three YouTube videos on GMs uk factory I may be way off, but I think the manufacturer is in the box seat. They have a relatively small number of trained staff handling a large number of the same model of bats at different weights. GM also knock in the edges by hand, so it's not too hard to pickup which bats are sounding the goods and which should be downgraded. It's a good quality assurance process to incorporate in the business model.
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That's a fair comment sarg but didn't someone recently posted that they tapped up a player's edition and it was a plank.
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Handpicking has always been just a selling fad plain and simple.
Sorry but when i mentioned it last time i was so called insulting to the people who want handpicking!!!!
Your telling me a bat performance is totally off a mallet as Tom says it was always looks.
I understand business techniques and this was one why not use passion and integrity first...
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Once again procricket how do GM test there bats?
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I make no apologies for repeating what I said in the original thread:
I think that one point worthy of consideration is that retailers who hand pick might actually have different criteria in their selection process, not least because they would have some idea of the numbers of bats at different price points that they want to stock. Some may go for blades with maximum grains, others may not, and so on. There would also be reliance on the retailer's judgement of pick up, which might be different to the customer's. It's the same when we buy a bat from the retailer/maker, we all have different ideas of what we want. Somewhere out there is our ideal bat, which is why we constantly search, but let's face it, it's damned elusive!
Bottom line is that the specialist cricket retailer needs to pick bats which will have a good chance of selling. They aren't stack 'em high and sell 'em cheap. If they can stock what experience tells them will sell, they are doing their job by their business.
Apart from that there's always that element of 'hidden treasure' too. For example, who wouldn't have liked to have been in Chris Soulman's shoes when his visit to H4L saw him stumble across a pro reject bat that he just had to have?
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Once again procricket how do GM test there bats?
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Would not know and to be honest by looks i guess like the handpick blokes too on looks..
Bats are not complicated people talk rubbish and complicate the whole thing..
Got another question when i see people bouncing balls on bats does that mean there 2nd hand as they do get marked....
If you think it the best therefore it plays the best malarky...
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Bats are not complicated people talk rubbish and complicate the whole thing..
Thats perfectly true - there has been too much talk of edge height, spine height, concaving etc etc. This simply complicates the whole bat selection process and very often results in certain bats being overlooked, because they don't have the right "measurements".
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Thats perfectly true - there has been too much talk of edge height, spine height, concaving etc etc. This simply complicates the whole bat selection process and very often results in certain bats being overlooked, because they don't have the right "measurements".
I like the pick up of a bat don't mind about looks or anything. Love the feeling when a bat just feels right in your hands.
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I like the pick up of a bat don't mind about looks or anything. Love the feeling when a bat just feels right in your hands.
...and ultimately thats the bat you will play the best with.
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That's a fair comment sarg but didn't someone recently posted that they tapped up a player's edition and it was a plank.
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Fair, but I was just guessing that the bat maker would know their product better.
A mate came over the other day for a beer and tapped up all my bats. He picked out my best bat as the Newbery players bin Uzi he hand selected with Tim Keeley five or six years ago. It's the one Bat can't get off the square. I watched him tap it up and noted what sounds he was listening for and how hard he cracked it and sure enough it sounds amazing. Bounce a ball on it and it's still pinging, but get it out in a match and it plays like rubbish. Mind you it has since it was rehandled. Luck of the draw I guess and you never know how it will play until you take a swing at a ball.
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Handpicking is certainly not the be all and end all of bat buying, I think that much is absolutely clear; there are always going to be questions about the person doing the hand picking, whether they are looking for the same things as you yourself would be looking for etc, so its certainly not a panacea.
Having said that, there are definite benefits if you feel you can trust the company doing the hand picking. Lets say Company X has 1000 bats in stock when the picking occurs, and that they are looking to take one to two percent of those. Will they select the very best 20 bats? Almost certainly not - they're unlikely to take a detailed look at them all, and might well discard some very good bats on wholly arbitrary criteria along the way. But what they will do is filter out the outliers in both directions - picking up the lower grades that look much better than they should or that really perform to take, and the good looking bats that don't quite have it or which might have been "generously" graded to avoid. I doubt anyone would credibly argue that the chances of getting a plank are massively reduced if the retailer handpicks their sticks, even if the percentage of planks in those 1000 bats was always pretty small.
A personal example. Most people who have commented on here have expressed the opinion that Kookaburra's new Bubbles have been pretty disappointing - that comment was made repeatedly at the CBF game down at Stone as well, and the four lads at my club who bought them this year have all either stopped using them or stuck them on eBay already. Yet the one I have that was, coincidentally, handpicked appears to be the exception to the rule - the pick up is great and it absolutely flies. The retailer has managed to find one really (really) exceptional one in what would otherwise be a disappointing pile.
Going back to Tim's original post behind his (somewhat aggressively phrased) title - when I reacted with surprise to GM refusing to allow handpicking, I did so because I was surprised at the message that sent out. Although others take a different view, nothing I have read has yet convinced me that I should not have been so surprised. Nobody would claim miracles would have resulted, but one more layer of consumer confidence would have been created. It follows that I don't agree that handpicking is a fad or a marketing trick - if nothing else, the travel would be time consuming and expensive for the marketing benefits provided. Instead, it is a way of adding to everyone's confidence in what can be a tricky process.
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Now I see the reason for the thread, it was not obvious and I didn't know about GM refusing retailers.
I think handpicking is a great service retailers for the consumer who, like me before I joined the forum, would not know what makes a good bat and what to avoid. Testimony of people in this thread confirm this.
That said the majority of cricketers will just buy to their budget on appearance and pickup and therefore it makes sense the retailer to make sure they also look good and are not just picked on performance.
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The single most important thing in choosing a bat is how it feels in your hands.
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As I've said before, despite claims made by others, it is impossible to go through every single bat in a large warehouse when on a Handpicking visit (Indeed GN actually store many bats away from Robertsbridge) especially if you are 'testing for performance' - these warehouses carry thousands of bats and there simply aren't enough hours in the day.
So in reality when Handpicking you aren't getting the 'best' bats, you are getting what you deem to be the best from the small selection actually look at. In this regard it doesn't matter if you get to go to a certain warehouse first or not, there are plenty of bats to go around. It's a nice feeling for me personally to be the first to open a box of shiny new willow, but it's not the end of the world if I don't.
Handpicking is very much an exercise centred around aesthetics, I fully admit that, unlike others. Classic example is the mid range bat that looks like an absolute dogs dinner but flies when you tap a ball up or hit it with a mallet. You won't see it it on the shelves of any retailer who handpicks, even the ones who claim to pick only on performance.........
Do I hit bats with a mallet/tap a ball up with them? Absolutely, because if I pick out a nice looking bat but it feels dead/unimpressive then back into the box it goes.
The main advantages of Handpicking?
I can filter out the higher end bats that don't look absolutely spot on (many people want something that looks perfect when spending £300)
I can hope (but not expect) to pick up some nice looking bats at the lower end of the range, I'll try not to take any planky ones but ultimately if you are spending sub £100 on a bat there is only so much you can expect, I always try my best though, haven't had any complaints thus far.
Any ropey looking or poorly performing (it's quick and easy to pick up on a bat that will be a dud in most cases.) bats can be avoided.
Form our point of view it's a good day out, nice to meet the people at the brands, chat cricket, view the facilities etc. in the case of GN we normally arrange for Chris or Alex to make a nice bat for our own kit bags too :)
Once all the bats are in the shop and a customer walks in, very rarely do I plonk a single bat in front of them, unless they come in with a specific model and weight in mind and are unwilling to deviate. Normally I ask for a few things to help narrow things down, then I start to lay out a few bats (anywhere from 5-20 is the norm I suppose, depending on the info they give on what they want) in front of them and encourage them to pick the bats up, have a swing tap a ball up and come to their own conclusion, I of course provide advice/input but the decision must be yours, you are the one who will be using it after all.
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I see hand picking as a luxury not a necessity, a bat that had been hand picked and is an example of the best a company had in stock is always nice to have and gives the buyer confidence, however there will always been good performing bats from every brand even if not hand picked, and at the end of a bad one mans idea of a good bat could be completely different to another.
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This comment isn't aimed at anyone at all but more for debate really....
Does owning or working in a cricket shop make you a bat expert? Wouldn't someone who makes bats be deemed as an expert?
I guess retailers see/pick up/test more bats from different manufacturers and you'd expect anyone spending enough time around bats to pick up a few trade secrets or experience.
Personally I think it's all about trust. If you trust the retailer who's hand picking then go for it. For me I still like to have a feel of a bat, if I buy it and don't like it or isn't quite right for me I'll move it on. In my opinion it's what I really like in B3's offering. Once you have a shape with them you like I guess they can repeat it within a greater degree of accuracy. I guess the weight/pickup would be affected by the quality/density of willow though. With a b3 bat (and other custom made bats like my Salix) I just picked a cleft and those two bats have worked out fine for me
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Does owning or working in a cricket shop make you a bat expert? Wouldn't someone who makes bats be deemed as an expert?
Maybe not, but it is an added layer of filtering to the product you're considering buying. The manufacturer could try to sell you a plank, handpicking should significantly reduce the chances of that happening.
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Retailer handpicking merchandise would benefit buyers who do not have access to shops/stores and cannot actually see the product for themselves. In essence, they would be acting like an agent for the buyer. Now this approach would work if and only if the retailer would pick exactly to the spec of the buyer. In non-cricket playing countries like the states, access to gear/merchandise is painfully limited. You have to rely on retailers or online stores for your needs. I think it is a great service to the consumers if somebody like I JC team can actually go to the GN factory and pick up a bat that matches consumer's requirements. Returns are a pain so anything that can minimize the chance for a "return" is a benefit to a consumer like myself.
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Buy from the batmaker instead of retail outlets.
b3, Aldred, h4l or rob pack can all handpick a bat with better precision than a retailer.
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Handpicking will give you better looking bats on the whole, if you compared a batch of 20 in two different retailers, one handpicking and one not.
It is impossible to tell much about the performance of a bat without knocking it in and using it for a significant period of time.
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Isn't this a bit of an obvious question/answer? Handpicking is just an extra layer of quality control - not an ultimate barometer of a bats performance, though nonetheless it weighs the chances of a better bat (and more importantly removes the 'plank' risk) in your favour.
You could stretch it to say the person hand picking indicates a less of a 'blind-churny-mail-order-y impersonal retailer that could be selling bats with the same consideration to that given to their tennis racquets'.
And stretch it even further to indicate that the people not picking are (therefore) at a disadvantage because they get sent what's not picked or get targeted by the retailers as not as choosy as HandPicked Ltd, and ergo a good destination for the lesser models in a given grade.
You have a guy picking bats versus the guy not picking. Surely it's inarguable, in that specific paradigm that the handpicked person will have the advantage of selecting better bats?
The question is how material is that factor.
And how likely is it that the BlindChurnMailOrder guy has a better relationship with the manufacturer (owing to scales and 'ease' of business) and who's the more lucrative channel and as such gets sent the better stuff to keep the relationship 'sweet'?
Have said it before though, and am in total agreement with Buzz - a good performing bat is accurately detectable, (in a rawish un-knocked in state) by many fewer people than we appreciate.
However I disagree slightly that a bat has a great 'feel' (lets all do that 'shadow ground tap'!) in certain hands and less others: Pick-up preference is pretty much universal IMO/E
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Buy from the batmaker instead of retail outlets.
b3, Aldred, h4l or rob pack can all handpick a bat with better precision than a retailer.
To extend that logic, no batmaker has ever made a bad bat, surely?!
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I just think they aren't operating on a mass produced scale so they will understand their own bats better than any retailer, their reputations and livelihood is on the line of a few of their g1+ turn out to be a plank.
You will get the odd plank no matter what.
They can easily tell you if they have a good performer on their hands as they will have tested each bat a few times during the making
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And here's the thing. I bought a custom made bat from a batmaker that he thought would knock in well. After 6 hours with a mallet and many nets it was a plank. He used it and agreed... Tells you all you need to know really.
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Did they swap it for nothing?
Without using a bat you cant tell performance so all of this hand picking and performance willow stuff is just marketing
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I just think they aren't operating on a mass produced scale so they will understand their own bats better than any retailer, their reputations and livelihood is on the line of a few of their g1+ turn out to be a plank.
You will get the odd plank no matter what.
They can easily tell you if they have a good performer on their hands as they will have tested each bat a few times during the making
Vs The impact of the factor that they're responsible for the whole supply chain and therefore less likely to 'own up' to the poor performer.
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Possibly Dan W but is hope the bat makers I mentioned wouldn't do that and I certainly wouldn't think they would.
Ironically the best bat I've ever had was bought blind off the internet and recommended by the retailer :)
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Did they swap it for nothing?
Without using a bat you cant tell performance so all of this hand picking and performance willow stuff is just marketing
What's (your understanding of the term) performance willow?
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G2/3 willow that is being sold for g1 price because it sounds nice off a mallet
If it g2 or g3 it should be priced as such irrespective of performance
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I'm going to use a 6 grain g2/3 bat next year, it's massive and feels nice all over the face when tapping a ball. Priced as a g2/3 at £150
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Garret, yes they did.
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And that's the safety net you have by going to the batmaker, they can not afford not to replace it. A shop usually won't if it's been used, only once damaged.
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(http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/09/08/zu2ese3a.jpg)
My 7 grain G2/G3 match bat, used it twice and it's performance is the best I've experienced.
Paid a touch more than £150 but in my eyes is still a massive bargain due to the sheet size of the beast
Just to add, I did buy this blind from b3, had used Dave's butterfly finch but requested an ounce or two heavier for this - couldn't be happier
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G2/3 willow that is being sold for g1 price because it sounds nice off a mallet
If it g2 or g3 it should be priced as such irrespective of performance
I think it's actually valid, though I've be super wary of the individuals claiming the 'upgrade'.
Isn't that a batmakers move though?! A retailer doesn't resticker an 808 to an Original LE?
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7 grains?
On those pictures it looks humongous.
As I'm sure most know, grains is not a sure fire way to assess performance so why hand pick 15 plus grain bats?
I do it because they look good
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I think it's actually valid, though I've be super wary of the individuals claiming the 'upgrade'.
Isn't that a batmakers move though?! A retailer doesn't resticker an 808 to an Original LE?
I thought grading and pricing is done purely on looks as it's the only thing you can reliably measure on an unused bat apart from the weight and dimensions
I've only ever heard performance willow mentioned on this forum, never anywhere else
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Hand picking isn't necessary, this was a 404 from a brand that doesn't allow hand picking and it's a beaut!
(http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/bb450/CPye061194/53D42632-B928-435F-8C78-E5CF9535DF0F_zps14yoerd0.jpg) (http://s1206.photobucket.com/user/CPye061194/media/53D42632-B928-435F-8C78-E5CF9535DF0F_zps14yoerd0.jpg.html)
(http://i1206.photobucket.com/albums/bb450/CPye061194/78444885-7082-4B00-9DB0-3F07E19C355F_zpsicxsntmb.jpg) (http://s1206.photobucket.com/user/CPye061194/media/78444885-7082-4B00-9DB0-3F07E19C355F_zpsicxsntmb.jpg.html)
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Ooops 7 - I missed the one on the edge. The bat is humongous and if it did have 15 perfectly spaces straight grains it would've been twice the price - but would it have performed as well as this does?
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And that's the safety net you have by going to the batmaker, they can not afford not to replace it. A shop usually won't if it's been used, only once damaged.
And the safety net of a retailer is a wider range to select. It's swings and roundabouts and a question of what's has more of an impact.
Again, though, what to the batmakers do with their planks? Or do they no exist for batmakers (I'd agree they would be rarer though - a BM may (genuinely) have better turd-polishing abilities)
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Give them to IJC that's why he's pissed off!
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Nice bat that walkingwicket
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Give them to IJC that's why he's pissed off!
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Where's he pissed off? And with who? Have I missed something?!