What's a fair scrip deal for vendors and hosts?

[JTacoma03]

Well #1 it is sketchy and generally frowned upon. You never want to build your reputation as a shady business.

#2, you would not be included in the actual tournament payout, and while you would indeed keep your normal profit margins, you would not move near as much plastic when players are wanting to spend payout, not cash.

I agree with the notion that vendors pay a flat rate per square footage of space. Then they redeem the "tourney bucks" they receive from players for cash from the TD for an agreed upon rate. This rate should not do anything but help the TD cover expenses or whatnot and therefore should not be anything too extreme.

However, this whole "scam" business is why I am for the trophy only movement. Am tournaments should be about the camaraderie and competition, round ratings, a players pack, lunch, etc. If you want to receive cash or prizes for playing disc golf, play pro. When I won my adult league basketball tournament last year, we didn't each win 5 basketballs and a 3 pairs of shoes.

I'm with you on the flat vendor rate, but personally I don't care what the TD uses it for or what he/she charges. That would be dictated by demand, I feel like free market would dictate fair value on fees vs. potential profit. I actually think that's a legit way that a TD can grow the event value.

Also totally 100% with you on AM tournaments being trophy only - but only once the Open generates its own purse. Too many TD's fire back by saying "oh but the retail value on your players pack is yadda yadda over entry" which is a thin argument. For my money, make it an experience...I don't need the same 5 useless disc golf items every tournament.

When the PDGA standards state 100% payout, the intention behind that is at retail value. It doesn't matter how much that prize actually cost the TD. We could choose which discs to hand out directly as payout and then the issue is moot, but players prefer picking their prize, so we give them that option by using scrip. My vendor also likes giving players a good deal and rather than haggling over the price of the discs at each transaction when players are paying cash, he posts a discount that he is willing to give. With scrip he doesn't have the room in his margin to haggle or offer discounts.

Our events regularly payout Ams at 130-140% retail value. I take great offense at calling my events a scam. I am not cheating anyone out of anything and our events are generally considered the best value in the area. I will take action if you proceed with this libel.

I don't much care what you take great offense at, nobody was targeting you anyway. My post was speaking to the general nature of an agreement/system.

 

[Glide]

We have vended at a lot of events over the past several years.

Questions we often ask beforehand...

How much script will be paid out? Even a ballpark range is better than nothing.

How many players are expected? Amateurs, pros, etc. More players (even pros)...greater opportunity for cash sales.

Spectators? Casual players who come out to watch a final 9 or skins match are potential customers.

How many other vendors? 1...2...3 Who are they? Know your competition.

We received everything from $0.70 to $1.00 for every dollar of script we received. Based on a number of factors, we generally feel that $0.80 is fair.

I hope this helps.

 

[elnino]

See i just like to see the math and how this entire thing unfolds.

In the volleyball world you play open(you win you get all the cash minus entry fee of second place team)

the lower levels win stuff that is crap and pretty much valued at around 20 dollars so even if you win you get your money back but basically it is just a trophy in the form of a shirt or something. now vb has moved into giving cash for all the different levels just a smaller percentage. so opne gets all their money. AA gets 75% A gets 50% so running tourney gets maybe two different levels and it pays to play up.

130% payout how does that even work? you would lose money! is that why TDs are always losing money?

 

[scarpfish]

I think half of you in this damned thread don't have a clue what the OP is talking about. He's going to be a guest vendor at a tournament, not a player.

 

[JTacoma03]

I think half of you in this damned thread don't have a clue what the OP is talking about. He's going to be a guest vendor at a tournament, not a player.

I think you walked into the wrong house thinking it was yours.

We're all on the same page...this random dude krupka comes into a thread where nobody is talking about him and gets offended, lol.

 

[WhipItGood]

If regular sales are good, I won't be too stung by a slightly imbalanced scrip deal. Still, I think I'm going to price everything a buck more than usual (still under retail) and then list a 1$ discount for cash purchases, just so I'm not giving away scrip merch. for almost nothing. I guess I'll return and report, if anyone's interested.

 

[BgWvDave]

If regular sales are good, I won't be too stung by a slightly imbalanced scrip deal. Still, I think I'm going to price everything a buck more than usual (still under retail) and then list a 1$ discount for cash purchases, just so I'm not giving away scrip merch. for almost nothing. I guess I'll return and report, if anyone's interested.

Whip,
i have nothing against what you or any other vendor is doing at a tournament. but i would like to know why in the world you are not charging retail?

Is it because there will be more than one vendor there and you are trying to gain more business by being cheaper?

fingers crossed i didn't miss spell something or have a tpyo. i hate being shamed on the internet

 

[Dave242]

MSRP is almost always much higher than the standard retail price (online especially). I do not know how all the DG manufacturers work, but Innova has (or at least used to have) a reseller agreement that sets the lower limit of what their product can be sold for. If they catch retailers selling below that, they reserve the right to stop supplying product. It is illegal for a manufacturer to set an upper limit for a retailer....or set/fix pricing.

I assume the tournament could set resales for retailers vending at their events (it would be wise to).....on discs at least (maybe not other DG-related items). But if they set them too high, many potential customers would not buy anything since they could save money by buying elsewhere.

I assume DG vendors do best at tournaments if there are not a lot of brick and mortar stores with good selection in the area.

 

[BgWvDave]

It is illegal for a manufacturer to set an upper limit for a retailer....or set/fix pricing.

Dave,
Thanks for the input. But i have to take exception with this sentence. This is absolutely not true. in a fair market economy companies can and do set retail prices for thier product's. MAP (Manufacturers Accepted Price) pricing is the term, that addresses your retail discount argument above. This is the price the manufacturer of any good sets as an acceptable discount on the MSRP. I deal with MANY brands that do not have a MAP pricing structure as they expect the retail partners they deal with to adhere to the MSRP to the penny.

You are correct that if a retail partner of a certain product does not adhere the the Manufacturer pricing strategy the only option the manu. has is to not sell to them anymore. This happens often in my industry.

But the question still stands as to why Whip is so adament about selling below retail. Prizes awarded at the tournaments i play in NC are all priced at retail. the discs i award at the event i run every year are priced at retail. just wondering what is different here. No biggie either way just curious.

 

[BgWvDave]

MSRP is always much higher than online pricing

This is a whole other discussion and i think thread worthy.

 

[ScottyLove]

Interesting topic altogether. Here in the SW Missouri region, I don't believe we the organizers of our tournaments ever get anything back from the vendors. We buy the player's back disc from them at discounted rates and amateurs receiving vouchers as payout walk into the trailer and pay retail prices... even add cash to it to make up the difference if needed.

NOTHING comes back to our club. Maybe we're just bad negotiators, but everyone love the payouts and has no problem with the system that I've heard. Mainly because we don't subtract the player pack fee that we pay the vendor from the payouts... we get sponsors to cover those costs... so a C-Tier is always 85% payout without anything deducted and usually more because of added cash.

Should be be getting a kickback??

 

[BgWvDave]

Interesting topic altogether. Here in the SW Missouri region, I don't believe we the organizers of our tournaments ever get anything back from the vendors. We buy the player's back disc from them at discounted rates and amateurs receiving vouchers as payout walk into the trailer and pay retail prices... even add cash to it to make up the difference if needed.

NOTHING comes back to our club. Maybe we're just bad negotiators, but everyone love the payouts and has no problem with the system that I've heard. Mainly because we don't subtract the player pack fee that we pay the vendor from the payouts... we get sponsors to cover those costs... so a C-Tier is always 85% payout without anything deducted and usually more because of added cash.

Should be be getting a kickback??

You know this is a great topic as well. It really depends on if the club wants/needs to make money off the event or not. The club i run is luckily financially solvent so we try our best to run our event and $0 profit. But we do not use an outside vendor. We work with a manufacturer to make sure we have enough plastic on hand for the ams to spend their prize scipt on. We use to sell lunch a the event and we kept teh profit on that as a way to make a little money on the event. 2013 was the first year we hired outside food vendors to take care of lunch for us. we did not ask for a kick back on the lunch sales as it was worth it to us just to not have to worry about serving food. This was out first year using food vendors. btu looking towards next year i am not sure if we will ask for a % of sales on food or not.

 

[Dave242]

It is illegal for a manufacturer to set an upper limit for a retailer....or set/fix pricing.

i have to take exception with this sentence. This is absolutely not true. in a fair market economy companies can and do set retail prices for thier product's. MAP (Manufacturers Accepted Price) pricing is the term, that addresses your retail discount argument above. This is the price the manufacturer of any good sets as an acceptable discount on the MSRP.

You are surely much more of a retail expert than I am - I am in the industrial sales side of things. But, MAP actually stands for Minimum Advertised Price......which is exactly what I was talking about: it is about the minimum allowable advertised resale price rather than the maximum (you cannot limit a reseller from making all the profit they can - except in the case of civil emergencies). And, retailers can indeed sell items below MAP price....they just can't advertise that they are doing that.

I deal with MANY brands that do not have a MAP pricing structure as they expect the retail partners they deal with to adhere to the MSRP to the penny.

What recourse would be taken when these retail partners sell above MSRP?

 

[BgWvDave]

You are surely much more of a retail expert than I am - I am in the industrial sales side of things. But, MAP actually stands for Minimum Advertised Price......which is exactly what I was talking about: it is about the minimum allowable advertised resale price rather than the maximum (you cannot limit a reseller from making all the profit they can - except in the case of civil emergencies). And, retailers can indeed sell items below MAP price....they just can't advertise that they are doing that.



What recourse would be taken when these retail partners sell above MSRP?

Dave,
Correct on MAP. But advertised does not have to be the traditional term, i.e. in a news paper, magazine add, etc. if a retailer puts a prcie tag on an item that is considered advertised. It is up to the manufacturer to determine how they want their products sold. Honestly MILLIONS of Manu's. don't really care what price their items are sold at. But some do. and it is usually niche markets that are very concerend over retail price. Disc Golf i don't think is one of them (yet). But in my industry there are brands that take pricing very seriously. The go to such lengths as making retialer sign contracts to carry their products. In those contracts are points that discuss what the retailer is to pric their product at, what is an acceptable MAP discount price and even as far as to tell them when they are allowed to discount the item if at all. i.e. not items are allowed to be discounted in the calander year 20XX etc.

What recourse would be taken when these retail partners sell above MSRP?

As for this i can not think of any circumstance where a manufacturer would be upset at someone selling over MSRP. if they want to charge more and can actually sell the items...more power to them. The Manu. sold the items to the retailer thus should have been paid for the goods sold. If the retailer at that point wants to mark the product up over MSRP awesome.

 

[BgWvDave]

It is illegal for a manufacturer to set an upper limit for a retailer....or set/fix pricing.

re-reading yor post i am once again way wrong. you clearly state here UPPER limit as in the retailer can charge over retail if they so chose. you are 100% correct. Most of the times i am on this board i am at work and doing more than one thing at a time. i really need to work on my reading comprehension. Sorry Dave.

 

[ChrisKramer]

Interesting topic altogether. Here in the SW Missouri region, I don't believe we the organizers of our tournaments ever get anything back from the vendors. We buy the player's back disc from them at discounted rates and amateurs receiving vouchers as payout walk into the trailer and pay retail prices... even add cash to it to make up the difference if needed.

NOTHING comes back to our club. Maybe we're just bad negotiators, but everyone love the payouts and has no problem with the system that I've heard. Mainly because we don't subtract the player pack fee that we pay the vendor from the payouts... we get sponsors to cover those costs... so a C-Tier is always 85% payout without anything deducted and usually more because of added cash.

Should be be getting a kickback??

Yes, especially if you are consistently filling your fields. Vendors will pay for the privilege of having a captive customer base for the day.

 

[ScottyLove]

Yes, especially if you are consistently filling your fields. Vendors will pay for the privilege of having a captive customer base for the day.

I mentioned this to our preferred vendor before yesterday's C-Tier tournament. He had no problem with negotiating a percentage, but then he wouldn't just come on his own dime then. We'd have to pay for gas and potentially a hotel room which he does on his own now. So there is give and take it sounds like. I'd have to figure up which way yields the most dough.

We filled up with 100 players by adding 2 extra holes and 1st place in Rec netted a $147 voucher and paid all the way down to 14th place. I'd have to check out the entire payout to figure out if taking 10% of the vouchers is better than paying for gas and hotel... but something tells me YES!!