Demarini Prism

Finally got to see the prism in action. Girl I used to coach showed at our tryouts and had one. Dad told me in the parking lot before tryouts that it was a fire stick. She was never a strong power type hitter. We were throwing front toss and her first couple hits weren’t much. Looked like she hitting of the end of the bat. She finally got her timing dialed in and started smashing the ball. It looked effortlessly. I was pretty impressed. Had a unique sound and looked like lots of pop. Wish I could’ve tested it myself. DD is drooling over one now

Anyone know when the Utrip version is going to come out? Not much ASA/USA around here

fuzzy2651 said:

Anyone know when the Utrip version is going to come out? Not much ASA/USA around here

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Hearing conflicting reports on this one. I am hoping for the following scenario that I have heard the most of - a full 5 stamp variety to come out mid November and be in dealerships hands to sale. Luckily, the current Prism online only sales attempt by Demarini has been detrimental to the success of the Prism, just have to hope that it ends up in the Prism coming to the dealers hands right before Black Friday.

Eric F said:

In other words...Wilson helped their big dealers - who only sell at full retail price - ensure that they can keep squeezing every last dollar they can out of the customers by eliminating smaller guys who not only help their customers by offering better pricing, but also provide superior product knowledge and customer service.

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MAP pricing is actually in place to PROTECT the small guy, not the big guy. if MAP pricing wasn't in place, Dick's and Academy would crush the little guy because they could sell those bats at a loss for 4 years and never feel a thing while the little guy wouldn't sell a single bat in that period of time and would get hurt big time.

texasheat said:

MAP pricing is actually in place to PROTECT the small guy, not the big guy. if MAP pricing wasn't in place, Dick's and Academy would crush the little guy because they could sell those bats at a loss for 4 years and never feel a thing while the little guy wouldn't sell a single bat in that period of time and would get hurt big time.

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I think that is correct as this past spring the local training program sold 47 ghosts in 2 weeks at $280 while my local Dicks had 2 Ghosts sit on the shelves at $350.

So when they go off MAP, why doesn’t Dick’s discount?

I see two year old bats languishing in loneliness at full retail just waiting for some uninformed parent to buy because it’s the right color for dd.

Well I think that's the difference between shopping at the big box stores vs the local shops. Dick's is banking on that uninformed consumer to walk in and pay full retail on a two year old bat.

Also keep in mind that Dick's adds in all those coupons to their bottom line. Every month I get coupons for, "20% off any purchase over $200" etc. Bundle a few different coupons and you come out dropping a good 30%+ off the price. That being said, the last time I bought a bat from Dick's I think my DD was 9. At this point the only person I'll buy a new bat from is Core.

DD has had the opportunity to swing both a ghost and prism. Ghost wins hands down.
Her review: the ghost feels better and the ball flys off he bat. The should have spent more time more time working on the bat than making it look pretty - talking about the prism.
Eyeball test: ball flies of the ghost but dies with the prism. Distance isn’t anywhere the same.

Heck - her 2016 Xeno is better.

texasheat said:

MAP pricing is actually in place to PROTECT the small guy, not the big guy. if MAP pricing wasn't in place, Dick's and Academy would crush the little guy because they could sell those bats at a loss for 4 years and never feel a thing while the little guy wouldn't sell a single bat in that period of time and would get hurt big time.

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Not the case anymore...it used to be in place to protect the little guy. But now its such a cluster f**k and while it still helps a little, with social media, its allowing
the huge online stores to do the breaking easier.

The big brick and mortar stores don't care about discounting or following up with price "trends" of bats...its not their main goal. Like Fuzzy said, they prey on the uninformed customers that walk in and drop their cc down and pay whatever and don't know any other way. Big Bricks don't have time, so they just give coupons. They don't
care about running around and changing the price on bats every time mapp drops. Plus, if you look, most big brick and mortar stores don't carry 1000 high end bats. Each one has a couple. That's why you will see a Dick's or whatever have a 2 year old bat for retail still...haha. (depending which store and where).

BUT, now you have huge online bats stores that have "reps" running around on facebook breaking mapp all day because you cant police all these dbags. So they are really using mapp
against the smaller stores, because the smaller guys don't have "reps" and are advertising where the manufacturer tells them. Again, all these started from slowpitch people. Every
slowpitch guy wants to be "the bat guy" at a field and feel important like he knows more, and these stores know this. So they use these guys to move bats. So now we have a thousand
"reps" all over. The best part is, the manufacturers don't do sh!t about it...why? Because its the huge bat stores that are doing it. So they let it slide and don't try to police it.
It would be very easy to stop the facebook "reps". You bust a couple and "their" stores, that ends reps.

So yes, mapp helps but also hurts nowadays. Helps keep the huge brick and mortar stores from killing the price, but the huge online stores
are using it against everybody as well.