I bought the Voltric Tour 5500 (Made in Japan) racket from a shop in Bangalore, India in February 2019, although it doesn't seem to be on the official Yonex website. The owner of the shop said it's a new model, and he received the shipment only in Jan 2019. After I contacted him again after realizing the issue, he checked himself and confirmed it was not in the website, he also added that some other new rackets such as ASTROX 68, ASTROX 69, NANORAY TOUR 9900, VOLTRIC TOUR 8800 were not on the website either. I am hoping someone can shed some light on the above. Link of a website selling the Voltric Tour 5500 (India) https://www.sportsuncle.com/yonex-v...ket.html?search=voltric tour&description=true
Seems like those "tour" rackets are only for certain markets requiring cheaper price for a 'made in japan' products.
Appreciate the reply SSSSNT, but this kind of marketing doesn't make any sense. Why would you manufacture a moderately high end racket from Japan and sell it at less? Anyway, I will post some images of the racket tomorrow.
I don't think it is high end at all. The material they used for these "tour" rackets seems to be the same as their very low end range. But the fact you think it's moderately high end, perhaps because of "made in Japan", may indicate that their marketing works.
Using low end material to manufacture a racket in 'expensive labour & resource' oriented Japan, just to tag it 'Made in Japan' doesn't look like a ploy high reputed brand YONEX would use. Anyway, I am hoping a Yonex representative from the Asian region can give some insight into this. Some images of the racket attached. https://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/index.php?media/albums/yonex-voltric-tour-5500.187/
Yet it is what they did. Just check the material. And if the ploy worked on you, I'd speculate that it works on millions of other Indians. The market ask for it, and Yonex delivers. Nothing wrong with that.
Firstly, I'm not Indian. I was travelling to Bangalore and purchased the racket from a reputed shop, and the owner knew what he was talking about when it came to rackets, level of play, style of play & budgets. As I speak, he has just messaged me saying an advance level player in Bangalore has just tested the racket and has given a thumbs up, and said it played better than his Arcsaber 7. I am probably an intermediate player, and will be testing the racket from today. Hopefully, a positive feedback will follow.
Yesterday, I went to Authorised Exclusive Yonex Seller in Kochi, India. He was also showing me all these special "Tour" rackets that are made in Japan. He is a genuine seller of Yonex products. So, I am pretty much confident about special "Tour" rackets and Astrox X8s, X8d, X9 rackets being marketed in India being genuine products. Sent from my Moto G (5S) Plus using Tapatalk
I'm not saying it's a bad racket. It's probably an excellent racket. Just the material they used for these "tour" rackets seems to be the same as their low end range therefore your assumption that it is high end is wrong.
Till you can confirm that the material used in these rackets are low end, you cannot be certain that it is, cause these racket's are not actually cheap, the MRP in Indian rupees is equivalent to US$100. Therefore, like you said, they are probably only for specific markets, with a higher buying capacity so that they can compensate the reduced price of Japanese made rackets on the basis of sheer sales volume.
Where do you buy your Rackets from? And to put some pricing into perspective, what is the racket you use and how much did you buy it for? Sent from my POCOPHONE F1 using Tapatalk
From a reputable shop close to where I live (not exactly close, but that's semantics). Anyway, it's in Europe so it's probably not very interesting either.
Several rackets, several prices. But to keep things in perspective: MRP of your racket: 100 $ MRP of Z-Force II: 250 $ (quick search, cmiiw)
Available in India Z Force II @ $150 So clearly, you guys are paying premium prices for rackets. By the way, my racket MRP was $100 but got it for $74 Sent from my POCOPHONE F1 using Tapatalk
Nobody's paying MRPs or RRPs or whatever it is called in your respective part of the world. 150 $ for a ZF II ist not a special bargain, it's the standard street price you'd pay everywhere, fresh stringing included. 74 $ for your racket is a little more than you would expect. But it's not a total rip-off. And if you got it with a new string, it's an absolutely acceptable price.
I got it for $84, strung with BG80 Power & a grip. Anyway, we waived off the actual subject of this thread, which was getting the detailed specification of this racket.
Big companies, Yonex included, use all sorts of tactics to please bigger retailers, who are forced to respect minimum advertised prices on all of their main line products to allow smaller companies to compete. This includes making racquets specifically for certain retailers so that they can sell them to you at whatever price they wish and tell you it's worth whatever they want. This is why these racquets are almost always discounted, it creates a sense of urgency and bargain for people who refuse to buy anything at regular price. Most of the time, these products are not worth their original price, but their discounted price. So if you were to buy a regular priced racquet at the same price, you'd likely end up with a product of the same quality or better, or even just the same racquet but repainted.
150$ USD is pretty much the cost of an unstrung ZFII for retailers in North America and Europe. The selling price is 229$ USD. So no, 150$ is not a standard street price everywhere.
