Ok, I recently bought an mp77 and strangely enough, the store owner deliberately showed me invoices and racquet strining manuals from Yonex. He did this after I bought the racquet but still I don't understand his motives. According to him, he orders Yonex racquets from Japan and the papers show that he placed his orders on the month of April and only receive the merchandise on October (a 6 month gap). He also showed me papers indicating that Yonex is selling him the mp77 for $130 canadian and the mp100 for $190 while suggesting a retail price of $29 more for each racquet. However, he, himself, adds $49 more not the suggested $29 as his pricing on the mp77 is $179 and $239 for the mp100. The papers look legitimate and I'm pretty sure they are but what I don't understand is why he would show them to a customer. Do these prices even sound right?
Maybe he show them to you to let you know that his racquets are legitimate yonex racquets and not some fake ones.
Try to convience u that he gave u a good deal??? I am not sure about that. Maybe u can compare deal with some other Yonex dealers' in CAN. Then, u will have a better idea to understand whether u really get a good deal or not.
The price you got is somewhat standard of how much those racquets cost here in N. America so there is nothing to worry about.
badminton warehouse sells the MP77 for US$148. You might have paid too much for yours. I think the store owner was trying to impress you how precious the MP77 is because of the ordering lead time and the price. Do you feel that you have a wonderful racquet knowing it is so difficult to get? Ben
Benfok, it was $179 Canadian, not US so that actually makes it cheaper than badminton warehouse. Also, it never occurred to me that the mp77 is a difficult racquet to acquire and I still don't think that it is, I mean I've seen it at sports stores like Sports Experts and many small racquet sport stores. I think my previous hiqua pro 3500 is harder to acquire and not because it's so good and in great demand but the opposite. And although I paid much less than what I would've had I bought the mp77 at Sports Experts, but because he showed me that he's earning $50 on each racquet, I actually felt ripped off or at least it made me feel like I should've haggled with him first.
Haggling does sounds good if you can do so. Maybe he's telling you that he ONLY makes $50 on the racquet, and that suppose to mean something, not sure. As long as you like the racquet, there is no need for you to go through buyer's remorse right now. btw, how is the HiQua 3500 pro? care to give a review on it?
So, since he orders the racquets directly from Japan, are the racquets the JP designated models or the CD models? It would be very strange that he can do that because there is Yonex Canada which should be handling all orders from retailers in Canada. Am doubtful about the invoices, etc. The profit margin is just too small to justify carrying the racquets. Just think of how many racquets he would have to sell each month to pay for the rent, utilities, wages, etc. Only reason that I can think of is that he wants you to think that the price is the way it is as he is not making too much of a profit.
That's the thing though, he orders them straight from Japan but the racquet is designated as CD. He showed me the box that they were packaged in from Japan and he only has 3 of each mp racquet, g2, g3 and g4 grip sizes, the rest on the bottom of the box is filled with the cheaper carbonex racquets. The invoice states that he is paying them $3000+ Canadian for the whole box. And yes, he did say that he doesn't earn a lot on racquets, but he mostly lives on racquet stringing jobs which could be true considering how he's always in the process of stringing a badminton or tennis racquet whenever I come to the store. He runs the store alone by the way, he says that he use to have an assistant but he had to let him go after the tennis craze apparently went down. And he's supposedly been doing this for 18 years. The store is quite small, about the size of a living room. He did say that he has to order from Yonex Canada sometimes but that they usually don't carry a lot for high-end racquets either considering how not that many people buy them and new models come out all the time making the old ones harder to sell.
By the way, I don't know how things are so I didn't think that $50 Canadian profit per racquet is too little, I actually thought that that was a lot.
If this helps, I bought my MP77 2u G4 CD model for $170 including taxes here in Manitoba. With Yonex 65Ti string, comes to C$190 grand total. Hard to get? I only waited for 4 days, but I was told that to get a 3U model will have to wait for 2 months. Hope this gives you an idea.
Wow, that's cheap, I paid $230 Canadian total for the racquet, taxes and stringing cost (BG70 pro). Québec charges twice as much tax. But you had to wait 4 days? You mean you had to order the racquet? In my case, the store had it in stock, I got the racquet 5 days after due to stringing and Thanksgiving Holiday.
Yes, I had to order the racquet as this person works from home and doesn't carry many high end racquets. Maybe his overhead is not high and that's why he can give me a better price. I had to wait for 4 days which is not that long because everything was ready to go on the 4th day. Does anyone here owns or has tried both a 2U and 3U MP77? If so, is there any weight difference that you can feel? The MP77 says on the shaft that is is well balanced, unlike MP88 which says head heavy. When I swing the racquet just to feel, I personally thought it was the other way around. Any comments?
