What gives with not showing us your item when you claim you have the real deal and someone else doesn't?

[commando]

There's another thread active here on the forum that talks about a guy named Wayne Otto. Wayne was one of the first to deal directly with ballclubs to purchase game used items in bulk. What that meant was Wayne would get the "good, bad and ugly" all together in these deals -- some jerseys might look like they never left the equipment room, while others might be hammered beyond belief. But they all came directly form the team, so that fact was undisputed.

It seems to me like the JO/Bengals situation might be the same. Sure, sometimes equipment is carefully documented on a per-game basis, especially when an item is only worn for one or two games, depending on the team and player. But I have a feeling that the Bengals gave JO a huge cache of the good, bad and ugly, and most if not all of the items had no specific game history attached.

[dplettn]

But I have a feeling that the Bengals gave JO a huge cache of the good, bad and ugly, and most if not all of the items had no specific game history attached.

You very well may be correct. Your position would certainly also work toward explaining the lack of factually accurate text in the marketing detail among some of JO's other Bengals merchandise.

Absent clearly false statements of fact, who would have a problem with that?

However unique JO is to historical memorabilia business models, one can take a contextual approach at looking at a broader array of retailing.

Looking at retail business models, Outlet Malls are an example of places that bundle "this with that" and the buyer needs to look closely at what they are buying. So are used car delearships. Each has a broad array of stock with alternate backgrounds. The difference in the underlying assumptions between those two types of businesses is that we all expect that a salesman (and perhaps also his manager) will try to take advantage of us in a used car dealerships and make statements that may represent fractions of truth.

I'm not saying JO does or doesn't have similarities in sales tactics to a used car dealership. I'm also not saying it does or doesn't have similarities to an Outlet Mall. Outlet Malls sell an array of great inventory along with irregulars. Outlet mall sticker pricing doesn't imply great worth and has anyone ever been lied to at an outlet mall.

We each can understand JO's business however we choose, and each of our assessments represents only that of ourselves. The currently closed thread does not make any analogies either, it merely offers statements of fact as to how an item was marketed, and it offers a further glimpse into how the company handled a situation by placing demands and using other intimidation tactics on the very consumer who'd they previously marketed with factually false statements of photo-matches, and unsavory aggressive sales practices.

The displayed pricing at JO certainly implies great "worth" to the merchandise they sell. I'm surprised how little the actual prices paid get talked about here.

JO is a young business with unique business strategies and business tactics. I don't want to make negative statements about JO, but I will do my best to try and say something positive: there are ways I respect the intellect of its business design.

[legaleagle92481]

high pressure sales tactics are part of the game. alot of companies use them. steiner does also. every car dealer ive ever dealt with has and so do many other businesses. jo has messed up before. i called them out on the jason taylor skins jersey they had attributed to a game he was inactive for. i alerted them as well when i saw on their site a ravens jersey from trevor pryce attributed to a game after he was released and on the jets. they are not perfect, they, me, you and everyone else knows it. they also are very misleading on their team partnerships. if you look at their site you are led to believe that they have deals with the titans, jags, saints, browns and falcons when they dont. i also believe their skins deal is nonexclusive. they must have some sort of deal with the bengals, they have so much stuff and their stuff usually comes with coa from the team at least the broncos, jets and chargers and vikings stuff i bought did. i just felt that your original post came off more like sour grapes then anything else and i think that there is really no way to prove the helmet real or fake. unless you have pic of every game this year and can say for sure nothing was cleaned. also every company makes mistakes. steiner and meigray have, every auction house has. when you have that kind of volume there are bound to be a few now and then.

[solarlottry]

I think that its a very good point about how much difference there is in the list price and the actual price of most of JO's items. The list price is quite expensive whereas the actual price is sometimes 1/5 of the actual price. Most items on their website can be acquired for half (if it is a premier player) to almost 75-80% off the actual price for lesser known players. It is all in the bargaining and how long they have tried to sell a particular shirt. The longer things sit around the cheaper they get.

Paul
garciajones@yahoo.com
Looking for and paying ridiculously well for 49ers gamers!

[dplettn]

high pressure sales tactics are part of the game. alot of companies use them. steiner does also. every car dealer ive ever dealt with has and so do many other businesses. jo has messed up before. i called them out on the jason taylor skins jersey they had attributed to a game he was inactive for. i alerted them as well when i saw on their site a ravens jersey from trevor pryce attributed to a game after he was released and on the jets. they are not perfect, they, me, you and everyone else knows it. they also are very misleading on their team partnerships. if you look at their site you are led to believe that they have deals with the titans, jags, saints, browns and falcons when they dont. i also believe their skins deal is nonexclusive. they must have some sort of deal with the bengals, they have so much stuff and their stuff usually comes with coa from the team at least the broncos, jets and chargers and vikings stuff i bought did. i just felt that your original post came off more like sour grapes then anything else and i think that there is really no way to prove the helmet real or fake. unless you have pic of every game this year and can say for sure nothing was cleaned. also every company makes mistakes. steiner and meigray have, every auction house has. when you have that kind of volume there are bound to be a few now and then.

Nothing you say about JO represent positions for which I'm unable to understand. However, your contention of "sour grapes" paired with the ongoing effort to characterize my position as having anything to do with calling a helmet real or fake suggests that you may not have read the original post in detail. Hopefully, if and when the moderators see fit to reopen the original post (hopefully once JO has had time to get their hands around all issues they do and don't want to speak on) we can discuss the fact pattern that was presented logically, in the context for which we all seem to agree would be appropriate.

I'm confident in looking at the text of the original posts and timeline that you were not responding on the grounds of what was actually presented in that text. That isn't any attack on you, perhaps I covered too broad an array of facts in the thread too quickly. Its merely a hope that if you now accept that I'm not some crazy lunatic, that you re-read the original thread with an open mind and ask yourself whether your first impression of the thread is still the impression you would have after a slow and thorough reading of the actual time-line I presented.