Play It Again Sports had sports equipment that was in rougher shape and for much higher prices then I was used to.
I am quite an avid user of my local Craigslist here in Atlanta, Georgia. I found all kinds of sports equipment that I use both for myself and for my team as I’m an assistant coach for the wrestling and football teams at the local high school. But one day I happened to be driving through a shopping center and I saw a Play It Again Sports store.
I had heard of the stores before through magazines like Entrepreneur and others, but had never actually been in one. Play It Again Sports is kind of like a pawn shop almost of sports equipment. You don’t actually pawn stuff, though, instead they only buy and sell used sports equipment. So I went inside to check it out and they did have a good selection of various things from workout benches and weight sets to punching bags, boxing gloves, in-line skates and more.
So I looked around and I have a fair idea of what things should cost as I’ve been buying sportswomen both new and used for several years. From what I saw their prices were high (75% to 90% of new retail). So that means, for instance, that if a certain punching bag retails for $100 at a store like Dick’s Sporting Goods or The Sports Authority, then at Play It Again Sports you would probably pay $80 or so for it.
Create a review or complaint that millions of consumers will read here on ReportYourComplaint.com!
Now in my state I believe the current sales tax is around 8%. So that means if you buy the punching bag for $80 you would end up paying about $86.40. So is that a good deal? If it were in newer condition it probably would be okay, but it’s definitely not a great deal by any means. Now when I look through the store I noticed a lot of the equipment in the store was in fairly rough shape.
There were a few punching bags there and they were pretty rough looking. One had silver duct tape wrapped around the middle of it and it was seriously dented in on the side with the most tape. It was heavily used and probably had been broken and someone used duct tape to fix it. A large punching bag that rips and is fixed with duct tape will not last long at all.
The other punching bags look kind of rough too and one had one of the loops the chain goes through torn. That means he would never hang right and there would be too much weight on the other loops so it would soon break or fall down. None of these looked like a good deal at all. After looking through the store I knew that I could always find a far better deal on sports equipment on the local Craigslist here in Atlanta.
Generally, I can find sports equipment on craigslist for 20% to 30% of its retail value. And I can look at the ads and the pictures and rule out those that are in bad condition or that I don’t want. If a listing does not have pictures I just go on to the next listing (so for those of you out there posting stuff on Craigslist you need to post pictures with your listing – if you don’t your probably losing 90% or more of your possible customers).
And right now on the Atlantic craigslist I see a really nice Everlast punching bag for $25. From the pictures it looks to be in great shape and have nothing wrong with it. It looks almost new. That’s a far better deal than what I saw at Play It Again Sports. That’s why I compared Play It Again Sports to a pawn shop. Pawn shops have lots of overvalued and overpriced crap.
In my opinion, skip right on past Play It Again Sports and just go and get online and use your local Craigslist. If you can’t find what you want there then look at eBay and Amazon.com. They are sure to have what you’re looking for and at a better price and in better condition.
Both have their place, i tried to buy some softball bats from Craigslist and when I showed up to buy the bats I noticed they all had cracks in them, so wasted time and the private seller was knowingly trying to sell damaged merchadise that is unsafe. I went to Play it Again and got a good discount on a used bat that was in good shape. So that is the difference, Craigslist you will spend $s on gas and lots of time and may be buying something that is damaged, yes Play it Again will cost you a little more but it won’t be damaged and they know what they are doing.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0