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[Blenheim Cricket]

Blenheim Cricket was founded in 2011 by 3 students at Cambridge University. Two of us have played First-Class cricket for Cambridge in the Varsity Match and played for Cambridge MCCU, while the third has also represented the Blues. In 2011 we provided hand made bats, produced near Cambridge. For the 2012 season we have expanded our range to incorporate pads, gloves, keeping gear and bags.

All of our gear is of the highest quality, we have decided not to offer any second rate (and hence cheaper) soft goods, while our bats are almost exclusively Grade 1 (we can source G2 willow but tend not to).

Please let us know your thoughts on the gear, design, livery etc. The website is only now being updated with bat profile shapes and this should be complete in the next few days, incorporating full details of The Cambridge and The Oxford bats and our 2012 'Custom' bat offering.

We will be seeking to provide forum offers as we look to expand the company's profile, so watch this space!

www.blenheimcricket.co.uk

[legger123]

Bats, and softs look very nice

[Tom]

The gear is nice as is the website.

But there's so so many companies doing the plainish black/silver/white classy look and I don't see why I'd go to Bleinheim above any of those others. It's all a little forgettable.

[S Taylor3]

I echo what Tom said really. No disrespect intended but the 'done thing' of late is for every man and his dog to buy some blank bats, apply stickers and get a few sets of softs made. I think those who have tried it in the last year or so will happily tell you it is very difficult to make a breakthrough in the market unless you have at least one USP. This can range from an innovative product, all the way to offering your bats at half the price of anyone else.

The market is saturated by people with a similar idea to yours, you need look no further than the sponsors section of this forum.

Best of luck though.

[FattusCattus]

Is this Gus?

[harry kovert]

I echo what Tom said really. No disrespect intended but the 'done thing' of late is for every man and his dog to buy some blank bats, apply stickers and get a few sets of softs made.

This has been the "done thing" for decades. Funnily enough a lot of the big boys do it too.

[Tom]

This has been the "done thing" for decades. Funnily enough a lot of the big boys do it too.

Which big boys just buy blank bats and stick stickers on?

To be fair to Blenheim they appear to have a polished product, the bats looks well finished with well designed stickers. But it's not tearing up any trees, and with 24 other advertisers on here competing for business it's a competitive market - where you do have to either price well or do something different.

[harry kovert]

I'd say Kookaburra and Slazenger to name but 2. They aint making the bats themselves, someone else is and they just have their stickers put on. What makes that massively different to the likes of Blenheim, Instinct, Black Cat, Blank Bats etc....nothing other than scale!

[Tom]

I'd say Kookaburra and Slazenger to name but 2. They aint making the bats themselves, someone else is and they just have their stickers put on. What makes that massively different to the likes of Blenheim, Instinct, Black Cat, Blank Bats etc....nothing other than scale!

Slazenger have developed many unique shapes over the past 10 years. Look at the I Blade, V800, V3 for just a few notable examples. They have a dedicated product development team, and their gear is something different from the rest of the market. They don't just stick stickers on a stock FC Sondhi shape.

Kookaburra work closely with their manufacturer and have some of the best soft equipment in the industry. The first to develop Kangaroo leather wicket keeping gloves, the RP Ponting pad has a market leader in terms of quality and protection for almost a decade now. Then you look at their bats, unique shapes which are produced by their manufacturer to Kookaburra's specification. The Bubble, the Graphite bats, the Biggest Kahuna are just some examples of innovation within the last decade in their bats.

Perhaps both of their bats are gimmicky, and perhaps the innovation is purely in the aesthitics department. But it's something different.

If you gave me some of these smaller brand bats from the forum, I probably wouldn't know the difference. As a lot of them are made in the same factory to the same shapes.

[S Taylor3]

This has been the "done thing" for decades. Funnily enough a lot of the big boys do it too.

I don't really know if 'decades' is accurate, certainly not on the scale of the last few years. I reckon if a bright spark had had the foresight to carry out this kind of model as little as 10 or 12 years ago they could have been on to an absolute winner. I still believe that however difficult it could be there is still a way of being highly successful in the market. The problem is thinking up the new and unique item that all cricketers must have. Oh, and slapping international patents on it.

Best of luck

You could argue that brands like Kookaburra, Slazenger and Puma do this only on a larger scale. Yes, perfectly true. But regardless of the product they have an established name which will always give them the edge. Your average village cricketer will buy on brand name primarily. We as a forum are educated well into the realities of brands, we must not assume our team mates are too.

My point is (thought I made it pretty clear but guess not), is even within the relatively small community that is this forum, there have been many many people trying the same idea within the last year or so. As simple and foolproof an idea as 'buy bat for 1 unit cost, apply stickers, sell for 3x unit cost' is, the difficult bit is convincing people to buy your bats rather than from one of the myriad of others offering the same thing. When you look at the price and quality of Asian made bats now you can't blame people for thinking there are pennies to be made.

I applaud anyone who takes the gamble and sets up on their own. I suppose that in their favour there doesn't have to be an enormous outlay to buy lots of stock in and buying half a dozen bats to begin with is a good idea to test the waters.

I read alot of the people say that they have sold lots of kit to their team mate. That is good but you only have a small number of team mates to sell kit to. Friends and team mates represent easy sells. The tricky bit is convincing the stranger that your products are better than those of the next man.

Good luck to all concerned and apologies if I've gone off topic.

[wilkie113]

Love the look of the stickers, very nice indeed.

Welcome to the forum and best of luck

[harry kovert]

Agree with you both but it's hardly a new phenomenon to have bats contract made then stickered up. Bizarre as it sounds some peeps actually buy bats purely on the aesthetics of the stickers. To berate Blenheim for doing what exactly so many others are doing is hardly constructive. They are now a paid up sponsor on the forum, I wish them the best of luck.

[Blenheim Cricket]

Thanks for your thoughts gents. Much of what you say is in fact true. We aren't differentiating ourselves from the much of the cricket market in a huge way, as we haven't yet brought any innovative products to the market place. We are seeking to claim a part of the niche market for high quality and classic looking gear, which plays on the heritage of the great game in England. When we launched we were pretty much unique in this, however over the last little while company's such as Woodstock have targeted a similar market. We have competitors yes, however we still believe that our gears are some of the best looking and best performing around, and what we can offer (and this is where many cricket companies fall down in our experience) is great service.

What I think many of you miss, is that the bulk of cricketers don't in fact make bat purchases having investigated the entire marketplace. Our core target market is to be attracted through word of mouth, and through local players using and reviewing our gears. We aren't seeking to become the forums no.1 brand (although that'd be great!), but rather we are hoping to become a popular brand for cricketers we play with and against.

The reason we've come onto the forum is partly to raise awareness of the brand, but also (and mainly) because we've want to get some reviews from the proper cricket badgers who frequent the CustomBats world! We want to know what our gear is like compared to other small manufacturers, we want to know what points you guys like and don't like about our design etc. Hence the deals on keeping gear and bats that I'm going to post this afternoon.

[S Taylor3]

Agree with you both but it's hardly a new phenomenon to have bats contract made then stickered up. Bizarre as it sounds some peeps actually buy bats purely on the aesthetics of the stickers. To berate Blenheim for doing what exactly so many others are doing is hardly constructive. They are now a paid up sponsor on the forum, I wish them the best of luck.

With respect no one is berating them, not a negative word has been spoken. They asked for opinions and have been given them. It's just that they shouldn't go into this thinking they have a unique idea.

[S Taylor3]

Thanks for your thoughts gents. Much of what you say is in fact true. We aren't differentiating ourselves from the much of the cricket market in a huge way, as we haven't yet brought any innovative products to the market place. We are seeking to claim a part of the niche market for high quality and classic looking gear, which plays on the heritage of the great game in England. When we launched we were pretty much unique in this, however over the last little while company's such as Woodstock have targeted a similar market. We have competitors yes, however we still believe that our gears are some of the best looking and best performing around, and what we can offer (and this is where many cricket companies fall down in our experience) is great service.

What I think many of you miss, is that the bulk of cricketers don't in fact make bat purchases having investigated the entire marketplace. Our core target market is to be attracted through word of mouth, and through local players using and reviewing our gears. We aren't seeking to become the forums no.1 brand (although that'd be great!), but rather we are hoping to become a popular brand for cricketers we play with and against.

The reason we've come onto the forum is partly to raise awareness of the brand, but also (and mainly) because we've want to get some reviews from the proper cricket badgers who frequent the CustomBats world! We want to know what our gear is like compared to other small manufacturers, we want to know what points you guys like and don't like about our design etc. Hence the deals on keeping gear and bats that I'm going to post this afternoon.

Thanks for your thoughts. It is nice to see that you're not expecting to be matching Newbery's sales in the next 12 months!

I suppose you are up against Newbery, salix, Woodstock and a few others in the 'classy looks' catagory. It certainly is a busy one.

Best of luck