I'm wanting to find out the relative popularity of the various strings. For example, 70% of your customers request 65ti , 10% use Nanogy 98 and the remaining 20% use a variety of others . I would like to establish regional trends (if any ) and the degree by which the numbers are influenced by the personal recommendation of the stringer. It's not that I'm nosey or anything , but it would help me to know what strings I should or shouldn't be stocking , and enable me to give customers a more accurate guide to ' what's popular ?' when they ask. So I would really appreciate your experience . Thanks.
Would it be more relevant to informally survey the people around you and ask what strings they have? That way, it would be more applicable to your local area needs.
It's because I have surveyed the local clubs that I ask the question ! Club no.1 for the over 50's has folk playing on no-name thick strings from the Cold War era, some of them are actually gut..... Club no.2 contains mainly league players who are shy of anything that doesn't have 65ti stamped on it. Club no.3 is a high end league outfit awash with the sickly yellow of BG80. I get the impression that I'm seeing the results of previous recommendations from stringers and/or players , and clearly this is varying wildly.What I'd like is an overview , compiled from the observations of different people in different places . Does anyone care to share what they have observed ?
Why bother? We know that Yonex have the lions share of the market with bg80 and 65ti so how about offering an alternative to their go to string. For example, a player walks into your shop and asks for good ol' bg80. You could suggest to the customer to experiment with a different string like VS850. This gets them interested in trying different strings and more likely to come back to your shop.
[TABLE="width: 182"] [TR] [TD]2012 String[/TD] [TD]Restrings[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Zymax67[/TD] [TD]30[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Zymax65[/TD] [TD]5[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Zymax62[/TD] [TD]6[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]BG65[/TD] [TD]19[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]BG65ti[/TD] [TD]9[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]BG68ti[/TD] [TD]7[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]BG80[/TD] [TD]1[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]NBG95[/TD] [TD]13[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]NBG98[/TD] [TD]21[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] 2013 String Restrings Zymax67 0 Zymax65 12 Zymax62 1 BG65 15 BG65ti 1 BG68ti 3 BG80 4 NBG95 8 NBG98 6 I personally used zm67 in 2012 and pushed it to a few friends. I've transisitioned to zm65 now
Agree. I would stick to carrying BG65Ti, BG80 and then the strings you use yourself. Then carry a few packets of other types strings for the players who are a 'bit curious'. I think players are likely to experiment with racquets more than strings. To be honest, if I was a stringer, I'd rather order other packets 'on demand' or get the customer to bring their own strings for the less common requests.
kingzzz - thanks for the detailed reply, this is exactly what I was after. And thanks for explaining the differences between this year and last .
Alex82- thank you for your reply, I think you will impress many people with those wonderful pie charts. Do you have an explanation for the differences between the two charts ? Any more stringers care to contribute ?
