What is different about Prodigy to vendors?

[seedlings]

Local Dynamic Discs Kansas City store does not sell Prodigy. Has Innova, Discraft, Discmania, MVP/Axiom/Streamline, Gateway, and of course Trilogy. (Maybe another brand or two... Millenium?)

Is there any relationship/handshake between some manufacturers so a retailer wouldn't stock Prodigy?

Granted, there are dozens of other brands they don't stock, and maybe had to draw the line somewhere, but in other retailers I see big brands (Innova, Discraft, Trilogy) now and then, but never Prodigy.

 

[kevdiv48]

Perhaps because they don't sell.

 

[ru4por]

Perhaps because they don't sell.

Yep. I don't see any retailer cutting their nose to spite their face. If it sells, they should want stock.

Prodigy is a somewhat popular brand in this area, but I am willing to bet it is fairly regional. They did reach out to our club recently, very interested in tournament sponsorship, especially our A Tier. With Discraft unable to fulfill our tournament needs, we found the proposal enticing. I don't think we went with it, given a couple other companies were making some very competitive proposals. Mint and MVP being local was also part of the equation for sales and popularity in this area.

 

[seedlings]

Ok. Didn't know if there was an Acme Disc Golf Vendors that made you purchase 200 units of 4 brands with each order. Or an exclusivity clause with Prodigy.

 

[biscoe]

Perhaps because they don't sell.

Probably true in the Midwest. Here I would say we sell more Prodigy than anything other than Innova, Discraft, and Trilogy. I can't remember seeing a Gateway disc in a store in Virginia although I am sure there are some somewhere.

 

[Horsman]

We stopped doing business with Prodigy after selling their discs for less then a year I believe. Prodigy discs werent selling and when Prodigy reached out to us to reorder from them we told them that. They then told us the reason why they arent selling is because our salesmen (including myself) werent good at sales and that their discs arent the problem but the issue is with us.

Its been a glorious few years without having to deal with them. Id advise any DG business not to do business with Prodigy for the reason above.

 

[kevdiv48]

Probably true in the Midwest. Here I would say we sell more Prodigy than anything other than Innova, Discraft, and Trilogy. I can't remember seeing a Gateway disc in a store in Virginia although I am sure there are some somewhere.

Case in point, Gateway is out of the midwest. Some of the brands are small enough that their popularity doesn't reach far from their home region.

 

[seedlings]

We stopped doing business with Prodigy after selling their discs for less then a year I believe. Prodigy discs werent selling and when Prodigy reached out to us to reorder from them we told them that. They then told us the reason why they arent selling is because our salesmen (including myself) werent good at sales and that their discs arent the problem but the issue is with us.

Its been a glorious few years without having to deal with them. Id advise any DG business not to do business with Prodigy for the reason above.

Yikes.:thmbdown:

 

[autocrosscrx]

Prodigy is wildly popular here. Schusterick is from here and Heather Young and Chris Dickerson live near by and play our locals when they aren't on tour.

With that said, it is hard to get a read on how many have been selling in the last year because the Prodigy rack has been mostly empty, other than some Ace Line discs and some of the pricier Core Team signature discs.

 

[@CD-]

Retailers may choose to not stock a certain brand because:

• they are not popular/in demand enough to fill a full order. Dealer pricing (discount off MSRP) may only be offered with bigger orders. If they did take a full order, risk of it not selling quickly and gather dust/sell at a discount.
• established bigger brands move more discs
• not enough shelf space
• for big box stores (Academy/Dick's sporting goods/PIAS), the logistics and scale of production needs to be consistent and big enough to fill a small number of huge orders a year compared to a smaller dedicated disc golf retailer.

TDs are cautious to taking in newer brands to stock for vending as well for similar reasons

Manufacturers may be more cautious in expanding their offerings to dealers based on what amount of product they can guarantee.

Part of this kind of manufacturer expansion is sponsoring tournaments & local 'street team' type players. If you are interested in a brand not regularly offered in their area probably reach out to see if a 'street team' type partnership is offered or get one of those pre-boxed tournaments (like a Trilogy Challenge) to run and gauge demand.

 

[Jay Dub]

We stopped doing business with Prodigy after selling their discs for less then a year I believe. Prodigy discs werent selling and when Prodigy reached out to us to reorder from them we told them that. They then told us the reason why they arent selling is because our salesmen (including myself) werent good at sales and that their discs arent the problem but the issue is with us.

Its been a glorious few years without having to deal with them. Id advise any DG business not to do business with Prodigy for the reason above.

lol I bet I know who said it or told them to say it.
One of the founders of Prodigy had the nickname "Hollywood" back in the day. Likes himself very much.

 

[biscoe]

We stopped doing business with Prodigy after selling their discs for less then a year I believe. Prodigy discs werent selling and when Prodigy reached out to us to reorder from them we told them that. They then told us the reason why they arent selling is because our salesmen (including myself) werent good at sales and that their discs arent the problem but the issue is with us.

Its been a glorious few years without having to deal with them. Id advise any DG business not to do business with Prodigy for the reason above.

You would find dealing with them currently to be far different.

 

[DiscFifty]

Seems it's more of a word of mouth market for Prodigy due to limited brand recognition. In the DFW area they were basically non existent, but once they sponsored a few local pros who are active in clubs, things took off a bit.

 

[Horsman]

You would find dealing with them currently to be far different.

yea, Will has apologized to us in the mean time but the damage has been done and Prodigys reputation will never come back for me.

 

[seedlings]

yea, Will has apologized to us in the mean time but the damage has been done and Prodigys reputation will never come back for me.

Only you know how things went down, for sure. An apology goes a long way with me though. Appreciate you mentioning this.

 

[konza_kid]

Local Dynamic Discs Kansas City store does not sell Prodigy. Has Innova, Discraft, Discmania, MVP/Axiom/Streamline, Gateway, and of course Trilogy. (Maybe another brand or two... Millenium?)

Is there any relationship/handshake between some manufacturers so a retailer wouldn't stock Prodigy?

Granted, there are dozens of other brands they don't stock, and maybe had to draw the line somewhere, but in other retailers I see big brands (Innova, Discraft, Trilogy) now and then, but never Prodigy.

I've asked Josh, the stores owner, this directly before when all the prodigy was on the clearance rack. He said that it just didn't sell so they weren't going to re-order.

 

[Horsman]

Only you know how things went down, for sure. An apology goes a long way with me though. Appreciate you mentioning this.

NP, it sounds like we werent the only ones to have this happen to.

 

[Moose33]

Around here Prodigy is everywhere, they are close and they have a pretty big street team that promote them in a big way. Also many courses are going in with their basket due to proximity and pricing.

Tons of tournaments in this area have Prodigy players packs and I have to say it's very split on how locals view them. Seems to be a love/hate thing. I don't buy many of their discs, throwing some M1s right now but I'm not much of a brand loyalist.

 

[Superbford]

I only own three Prodigy discs... but all three are great.... A3, Pa3 and F2....

 

[kw83028]

We stopped doing business with Prodigy after selling their discs for less then a year I believe. Prodigy discs werent selling and when Prodigy reached out to us to reorder from them we told them that. They then told us the reason why they arent selling is because our salesmen (including myself) werent good at sales and that their discs arent the problem but the issue is with us.

This 100%.

I chatted with them near the end of '19 and expressed that I was probably dropping them from my store. I was told I wasn't doing enough for the brand, that I was expected to push their brand "because it's obvious that you aren't", and that it must be a local thing. I told them that 70% of my sales were to 50 states and 17 countries, and 30% were local. No reply to that. I was convinced to buy into the ACE line after that. Figured I'd give it one more shot. Ended up having to sell them below dealer cost just to sell 1. I gave them 6+ years and nothing happened unfortunately.

Overall, I didn't find anything that they were doing different than any other manufacturer. Prices are about the same, minimums are about the same, MSRP's are about the same. It just came down to numbers for me. Their best year of 6+ years here accounted for 4.7% of my overall sales. The last 3 years accounted for 2.5% of my sales. People are just not wanting it. At least from us anyways.