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Canadian GolfTown buys Golfsmith

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ddxu

ddxu

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Headline says it all,
 
Sweet! More lefty gear perhaps? lol, not likely.
 
wonder if they will cancel orders as much as golfsmith does
 
interesting. Looking forward to more details
 
Interesting. Will the GolfSmith-GolfTec relationship remain sound?
 
mikedean441 said:
wonder if they will cancel orders as much as golfsmith does
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Yes, but instead of saying it's backordered, they will now say it's "OOOT of stock" and all shipping will be given new estimates of "ABOOOT 5 to 7 days"
 
I am not surprised, as I heard rumors of this being possible way back during the Boccieri Heavy driver testing period last year. Should've bought the stock then... :angry:
 
Interesting. I saw this on Twitter earlier. I wonder if Golfsmith will change at all.
 
mikedean441 said:
wonder if they will cancel orders as much as golfsmith does
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Or they can just have fewer pricing errors on their site or have stricter inventory policies
 
Interested to see what changes will take place.
 
This is interesting because Golf Town only recently brought stores into the USA, and all of them are around the Boston metro area. The main one that I go to is 15 minutes away, and I'm really impressed by their selection. Example: they have irons from companies that are sometimes hard to find in the other big-box golf stores, such as Bridgestone and Fourteen. They only have 2 main hitting areas in the store, but I usually go at times that aren't busy, and the sales guys are always willing to let me hit anything that I want.

I wonder if Golf Town will keep that name on its stores in Canada, and keep the Golfsmith name on the stores in the USA instead of changing all of the Golfsmith stores to Golf Town in the USA. I haven't dealt with Golf Town in terms of online sales, but if the people behind Golf Town are smart, they have been reading forums like this and hearing about the stories of bad online experiences from Golfsmith.
 
Wow a Canadian based Golf shop buys an American one I find that rather odd! But good on Golf Town, I can't wait for ours to finally open their doors here.
 
I read that story and what is really startling to me is how low their margins are. Less than a million net from $380m+ in sales?
 
Really hoping this means there will be more major golf stores closer to me.
 
I love my local GolfTown, and for those wondering, I'm actually annoyed by how much lefty stuff there is lol. Though this may be (as per an article I read recently-can't remember where) that Canadian golfers are 5x more likely than Americans to be lefthanded golfing. Would be curious to know why. Maybe b/c there are so many hockey players and most are lefty so they just go that way when they pick up golfing. As for online presence, I have bought a good amount of stuff (no clubs though, I insist on trying things out) and it always ships fast and well, plus if it's wrong you can return to a store instead of paying to ship it back. I've never been in an American golf shop, so can't compare.
 
Let's hope the prices in Canada get more in line with the prices in the US! Gotta admit it's unusual for a Canadian company to buy out an American outfit, especially a golf one! It does make sense a bit considering Golf Town does own the market in Canada.
 
Hope this doesn't do anythign to the new Golfsmith store they just opened last weekend around the corner from me
 
I'd have thought this would be the other way around...isn't Golfsmith larger? I'll be interested to see if GolfTown expands to include all the clubmaking materials or if that becomes part of the online presence only. I'd imagine this gives the new entity some serious buying clout, if nothing else.
 
Golf Town in Canada, quite honestly, is the best ! LOL

Seriously, I frequently travel to North Dakota, in hopes of finding good golf gear, at good prices. Quite honestly, everything I have found in ND is more expensive than it is in GolfTown in Manitoba.

Golf Town has a great return policy, its either 30 or 60 days, if you don't like it, return it. I once bought a "demo" Cobra driver from Golftown online. It shows up, no markings on it (the notes had said it may be stamped as a demo), entire club still wrapped in plastic. Cost to me $140. Ordered it in Stiff, and after a couple days, ended up ordering a 2nd one in regular and a different head loft just to try combinations. Unfortunately the 2nd driver came with a 3w shaft in it. By this time I had pretty much determined that the club just wasn't for me, a combination of a huge triangle head, and a tinny sound turned me off. No problem, 3 weeks later I returned both of them (mind you after I had tested/played them for that time) for a full refund.

They are great to deal with in-store, I have never had an issue with being able to try any club off the racks in the simulators. Largest selection I have seen in any of the golf stores I have been to. Sometimes there might be a wait of a couple minutes for a simulator, but its never anything to really complain about.

Become a member of their "LeaderBoard" program, and you get advance notice on all their sales, deals that are sometimes only available for their members, and you used to get a $10 off coupon for your first purchase.... needless to say I signed up 2 or 3 times... the coupons come in handy ;).

Their re-grip events in the spring have some wicked deals on grips as well.
 
I live in South Orange County in California and in my area Golfsmith is getting killed - absolutely slaughtered by Roger Dunn. GS built a "Golfsmith Extreme" store in my area, it's huge, the size of a Target, and I go in there and it's got more employees than customers on a Sunday. Roger Dunn on the other hand, has a superstore in Santa Ana, they've got a custom fitting area for each brand they call "performance centers"....the TM center is the most amazing thing I've ever seen, and this place is packed. There is a line to get in when they open on Sunday morning. They have a very aggressive 90-playability that can be used three times. You can buy a new driver, bring it back for another one, bring that back for another one, and then bring it back for a 3rd switch, and each time you can get a brand new club. Plus, their trade-in values are about 30% higher than Golfsmith. They have a bi-annual tent sale that has amazing deals on used stuff.

Golfsmith versus Roger Dunn is not even a fair fight.....Since golf is not growing organically, companies are forced to buy other companies in order to grow....Adidas/TM bought Adams, I have a feeling that Callaway will be next, probably bought by Acushnet. I think this would be a perfect fit, Acushnet could kill Callaway's clothing, ball, shoe, and rangefinder business, and keep the core game improvement clubs and they would then be the dominate player in terms of high end players clubs and have a huge piece of the game improvement market. I think the brands would really compliment each other...

FB
 
Gamma said:
I read that story and what is really startling to me is how low their margins are. Less than a million net from $380m+ in sales?
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their profit margin on clubs are very low. they make money on accessories.
 
nicedivot said:
their profit margin on clubs are very low. they make money on accessories.
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Soft goods is where the money is for retailers. Clothes, hats, socks, shoes, etc. MSRP is usually 150%-200% of cost to the store.
 
ddxu said:
Soft goods is where the money is for retailers. Clothes, hats, socks, shoes, etc. MSRP is usually 150%-200% of cost to the store.
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Easily, I picked up a bunch of Puma clothes on clearance at GS, 75-80$ pieces for 20-25$, doubt they were losing much/any money.
 
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