Out of stock...

[n1ceroll]

Hi guys,

I have been away from the game for close to a year due to injury (it sucks), so I basically haven't thought about DG in a while. When the warm weather started back up I started seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for my recovery, and thought about buying some new plastic. One problem...everywhere is out of stock of everything. What's going on?? Is this just COVID related or did something happen when I was gone? I thought I would see more conversations online about it but I didn't, so I created an account on here for the sole purpose of asking about it. Have manufacturers addressed it?

Thanks

 

[brutalbrutus]

Plastic is hard to come by and expensive when it is available.

 

[kw83028]

The disc golf boom is real.

Early Covid times had shut down, or highly restricted manufacturers for a couple months. Discraft and MVP in particular couldn't produce anything for a couple months due to the state shutting everything down. Meanwhile, the amount of new disc golfers in the market went up parabolically. Manufacturers were selling tens of thousands of discs and not, or barely, making any due to restrictions. After the first few months of Covid, most manufacturer's shelves were empty. Hundreds of thousands of discs gone from their supply, while barely any were getting made.

Every company literally got down to 0-1% stock levels, except for Innova, who got down to about 40% stock. Since last summer, the mfgs have added shifts, added injection molding equipment, etc, but have been unable to keep up with the boom. Literally everything they make, they ship out to dealers immediately. Dynamic/Latitude/Westside has been the worst to dealers over the past year. Prior to the past month, they've only had a few popular molds available throughout the whole year. They keep everything for their own store shelves. All of the rest of the mfgs have been putting out tons per month, and immediately selling out. The boom is insane. I don't know how many discs a mfg makes in a week on 3 shifts, but they're all gone as soon as they're made available to dealers, and then gone from the dealer's shelves almost as fast. I can't keep discs on the shelf. We're setting record months every month.

And, to top it off, the supply chain of plastic, stamp foils, and pretty much everything else that the mfgs need, was constrained a lot.

 

[jakebake91]

Hi guys,

I have been away from the game for close to a year due to injury (it sucks), so I basically haven't thought about DG in a while. When the warm weather started back up I started seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for my recovery, and thought about buying some new plastic. One problem...everywhere is out of stock of everything. What's going on?? Is this just COVID related or did something happen when I was gone? I thought I would see more conversations online about it but I didn't, so I created an account on here for the sole purpose of asking about it. Have manufacturers addressed it?

Thanks

Covid is 100% to blame. Between manufacturing slowdowns, supply chain issues, and an enormous explosion in DG popularity, discs became scarce. Levels are rising again though. Have patience.

 

[n1ceroll]

The disc golf boom is real.

Early Covid times had shut down, or highly restricted manufacturers for a couple months. Discraft and MVP in particular couldn't produce anything for a couple months due to the state shutting everything down. Meanwhile, the amount of new disc golfers in the market went up parabolically. Manufacturers were selling tens of thousands of discs and not, or barely, making any due to restrictions. After the first few months of Covid, most manufacturer's shelves were empty. Hundreds of thousands of discs gone from their supply, while barely any were getting made.

Every company literally got down to 0-1% stock levels, except for Innova, who got down to about 40% stock. Since last summer, the mfgs have added shifts, added injection molding equipment, etc, but have been unable to keep up with the boom. Literally everything they make, they ship out to dealers immediately. Dynamic/Latitude/Westside has been the worst to dealers over the past year. Prior to the past month, they've only had a few popular molds available throughout the whole year. They keep everything for their own store shelves. All of the rest of the mfgs have been putting out tons per month, and immediately selling out. The boom is insane. I don't know how many discs a mfg makes in a week on 3 shifts, but they're all gone as soon as they're made available to dealers, and then gone from the dealer's shelves almost as fast. I can't keep discs on the shelf. We're setting record months every month.

And, to top it off, the supply chain of plastic, stamp foils, and pretty much everything else that the mfgs need, was constrained a lot.

Wow, thanks for the response. Makes total sense.

 

[JKieb704]

If you're looking for specific discs, I recommend following some of your favorite suppliers/manufacturers on Twitter. Sometimes they will post before they are about to release a series of discs on their website. You have to be quick about it. It's the only way to get tour-series discs nowadays (without paying double MSRP on Facebook).

 

[BillFleming]

To add to the reasons that discs are in limited supply.....Innova makes discs for other companies, guess who's discs come first when there is a shortage?

((If you have non-Innova discs, look at the bottom and you may see tooling showing it was made by Innova-not all, but some)).

 

[Emoney]

The disc golf boom is real.

Early Covid times had shut down, or highly restricted manufacturers for a couple months. Discraft and MVP in particular couldn't produce anything for a couple months due to the state shutting everything down. Meanwhile, the amount of new disc golfers in the market went up parabolically. Manufacturers were selling tens of thousands of discs and not, or barely, making any due to restrictions. After the first few months of Covid, most manufacturer's shelves were empty. Hundreds of thousands of discs gone from their supply, while barely any were getting made.

Every company literally got down to 0-1% stock levels, except for Innova, who got down to about 40% stock. Since last summer, the mfgs have added shifts, added injection molding equipment, etc, but have been unable to keep up with the boom. Literally everything they make, they ship out to dealers immediately. Dynamic/Latitude/Westside has been the worst to dealers over the past year. Prior to the past month, they've only had a few popular molds available throughout the whole year. They keep everything for their own store shelves. All of the rest of the mfgs have been putting out tons per month, and immediately selling out. The boom is insane. I don't know how many discs a mfg makes in a week on 3 shifts, but they're all gone as soon as they're made available to dealers, and then gone from the dealer's shelves almost as fast. I can't keep discs on the shelf. We're setting record months every month.

And, to top it off, the supply chain of plastic, stamp foils, and pretty much everything else that the mfgs need, was constrained a lot.

This explains it all. The sudden explosion combined with the Covid restrictions. Disc golf WAS a niche game but was one of the few things you could do safely during Covid.

A huge amount of new people are realizing the plastic addiction right now. It has got better this year but it will take time til we have a surplus again...

I think once the bars/clubs/concerts get rolling again it will settle the dg market.

 

[robdeforge]

This update from Discmania at the beginning of this year is informative as well

for example:

2020 is now in the books and what a year it was. In early March, all the plans for the season were thrown into the trash as the pandemic hit. The final nine months of the year were a constant battle against the virus, new regulations, and unexpected twists and turns. On the positive side, the sport of disc golf exploded, and it happened in a way no one was expecting. More people entered the sport than ever before. More discs, bags and apparel were sold than ever. Every manufacturer did their best to keep their machines running and ramped up their production. It might very well be that we will never see such a growth in such a short period of time again. At Discmania, our multi-partner strategy set in 2018 saved our company. Without our three manufacturing partners, we would not have been in the position to offer nearly as much as we did in 2020. Only one partner out of three was able to stay operative the whole time of the pandemic.

...

ORIGINALS
Due to the pandemic, the Originals line faced major challenges. We failed to meet the demand and expectations of our customers. At the same time, the demand for the Originals grew to an all-time high. During the 2020 season, we had to suspend some molds on our Originals lineup and we tried to concentrate on the most important molds.

For 2021, we currently need to suspend more and we expect to offer only four or five molds for our customers. This is far from ideal and we won't stop trying to fix the issues that got us to this point. Unfortunately, a lot of things are not in our hands. As we said before, this is only the current situation. Work continues to get us back to the levels that people like you expect from us.

 

[n1ceroll]

If you're looking for specific discs, I recommend following some of your favorite suppliers/manufacturers on Twitter. Sometimes they will post before they are about to release a series of discs on their website. You have to be quick about it. It's the only way to get tour-series discs nowadays (without paying double MSRP on Facebook).

Thanks for the tip. I've always been a non-run specific, stock stamp kinda guy because they were always what was available. I had just taken for granted over the years that all the online stores had hundreds of everything at all times. Also, I've been away from the game pretty much since COVID began, so I had heard things about the boom, but hadn't realized how big of a boom it was/is.

 

[R-Ogre]

If you throw stock Innova, things are fine AFAICT. I can go on Infinite and find Valkyries and Thunderbirds in pretty much any color, weight, and plastic I want. Local dealers that sell Innova also don't seem be having much trouble getting stock discs. That wasn't true last summer, every time I browsed Infinite all I could find would be like a couple dark blue 150 class DX Valks or something similarly useless.

Discraft stock plastic on the other hand.....

 

[flatflip]

Discraft just put out a video showing the shiny new injection molding machines they just bought.

 

[dmoore1998]

If you throw stock Innova, things are fine AFAICT. I can go on Infinite and find Valkyries and Thunderbirds in pretty much any color, weight, and plastic I want. Local dealers that sell Innova also don't seem be having much trouble getting stock discs. That wasn't true last summer, every time I browsed Infinite all I could find would be like a couple dark blue 150 class DX Valks or something similarly useless.

Discraft stock plastic on the other hand.....

The impression I get (not fact, just impression) is that Innova is focused on making stock discs to feed the demand for plastic, while Discraft is focused on making Ledgestone discs and special editions in plastics that aren't standard for the molds. I have to think there's significant non-productive time involved when instead of cranking out DX Valks, you have to make special edition jawbreaker glow buzzzes that are specific to Ledgestone and not something you've made previously in that exact way.

Not to say that one is better than the other...but it's like a custom homebuilder, and a builder who cranks out the same 5 floor plans in a development...they aren't trying to do the same things and the amount of inventory each can turn out is very different.

I sometimes wonder if Discraft regrets their decision to do pretty much every mold for Ledgestone this year. I'd be curious to know if internally they find it an amazing marketing move in hindsight or a horrific mistake (or somewhere in between).

 

[@CD-]

If you throw stock Innova, things are fine AFAICT. I can go on Infinite and find Valkyries and Thunderbirds in pretty much any color, weight, and plastic I want. Local dealers that sell Innova also don't seem be having much trouble getting stock discs. That wasn't true last summer, every time I browsed Infinite all I could find would be like a couple dark blue 150 class DX Valks or something similarly useless.

Discraft stock plastic on the other hand.....

Infinite is down to just 36k discs in stock, down from ~75k or more. Seems a lot of their recent Innova restocks have included half or more F2 discs and only the stock stamped discs that have been molded up most recently. Popular putter & mid molds are still out of stock or down to a limited selection.

Likely the production demands for Innova are dictated by contracts with big sporting good retailers, tour series/CFR type runs (sponsoring players & events), and the other independent brands they mold for in Infinite/Millennium/Discmania. The sporting goods retailers don't carry the full Innova lineup and those independent brands may only be choosing the most popular molds of their lineups to prioritized runs.

Innova seems a bit behind on restocking the smaller retailers, TDs, & brands and they have limited stock coming up on each month's order forms.

 

[Three Putt]

Ed Headrick actually talked about this, Frisbees were initially toys and the toy market is brutal. You have a product and you have your usual predictions on sales that dictate production. If the toy is a hit, then you are on the "boom and bust" roller coaster where you are losing sales because you don't have the stock to meet the demand, the mad scramble to ramp up production and get the item on shelves, followed by the demand cooling off while you are in ramped-up production mode ending up with a warehouse full of this thing that was such a hot seller a minute ago that you can't sell. The major reason Wham-O started the IFA was to get the Frisbee out of the fickle boom/bust toy market and into the much more consistent and predictable sporting goods market.

Demand for golf discs is crazy right now, but the manufacturers have to be careful and they know it. They can't willy-nilly add machines and ramp up production assuming this is the new normal, because booms almost never are the new normal. Where the bust ends up on the backside will be the new normal.

 

[DannyS]

If you throw stock Innova, things are fine AFAICT. I can go on Infinite and find Valkyries and Thunderbirds in pretty much any color, weight, and plastic I want. Local dealers that sell Innova also don't seem be having much trouble getting stock discs. That wasn't true last summer, every time I browsed Infinite all I could find would be like a couple dark blue 150 class DX Valks or something similarly useless.

Discraft stock plastic on the other hand.....

I have been trying to find an Innova PIG for what seems like a year. I haven't been able to find one in stock anywhere. If anyone knows of a company/website that has them in stock I would greatly appreciate the reference.

 

[InnocentCrook]

I have been trying to find an Innova PIG for what seems like a year. I haven't been able to find one in stock anywhere. If anyone knows of a company/website that has them in stock I would greatly appreciate the reference.

My favorite local shop (Disc N Dat in Florence, KY) just got a handful in todays shipment.

Also, I just placed a custom stamp order last week with Innova that included R-Pro Pigs but they were limiting them to no more than 25.

 

[Ahildy13]

I have been trying to find an Innova PIG for what seems like a year. I haven't been able to find one in stock anywhere. If anyone knows of a company/website that has them in stock I would greatly appreciate the reference.

2 red ones
https://discgolfunited.com/r-pro-pig.html

 

[notapro]

Ed Headrick actually talked about this, Frisbees were initially toys and the toy market is brutal. You have a product and you have your usual predictions on sales that dictate production. If the toy is a hit, then you are on the "boom and bust" roller coaster where you are losing sales because you don't have the stock to meet the demand, the mad scramble to ramp up production and get the item on shelves, followed by the demand cooling off while you are in ramped-up production mode ending up with a warehouse full of this thing that was such a hot seller a minute ago that you can't sell. The major reason Wham-O started the IFA was to get the Frisbee out of the fickle boom/bust toy market and into the much more consistent and predictable sporting goods market.

Demand for golf discs is crazy right now, but the manufacturers have to be careful and they know it. They can't willy-nilly add machines and ramp up production assuming this is the new normal, because booms almost never are the new normal. Where the bust ends up on the backside will be the new normal.

That might have been true a few years ago, but disc golf is ready for the big time now. Soon we'll have disc golf go mainstream, possibly even on ESPN!

 

[elmexdela]

Ed Headrick actually talked about this, Frisbees were initially toys and the toy market is brutal. You have a product and you have your usual predictions on sales that dictate production. If the toy is a hit, then you are on the "boom and bust" roller coaster where you are losing sales because you don't have the stock to meet the demand, the mad scramble to ramp up production and get the item on shelves, followed by the demand cooling off while you are in ramped-up production mode ending up with a warehouse full of this thing that was such a hot seller a minute ago that you can't sell. The major reason Wham-O started the IFA was to get the Frisbee out of the fickle boom/bust toy market and into the much more consistent and predictable sporting goods market.

Demand for golf discs is crazy right now, but the manufacturers have to be careful and they know it. They can't willy-nilly add machines and ramp up production assuming this is the new normal, because booms almost never are the new normal. Where the bust ends up on the backside will be the new normal.

ed knew everything about dg