My dealings with Steiner today

[gnishiyama]

these comapnies know that someone is paying the price they ask so they keep doing it. am i the only one that thinks this way?

Steiner is way over priced. I get all of my game used stuff from the members here or on eBay.

The constant bashing of Steiner's pricing is tiring and borderline slander.
Its clear that Steiner caters towards those who want high quality items
and a peace of mind. Not everybody wants to go on these forums and
ask questions and do research or go on Ebay and try and get a steal from
an unknown dealer. Many people work hard or are just wealthy and
want the best for their money and don't want to deal with the BS.
And I am not saying that Steiner never has and never will make errors
in the authenticity of their product so please don't go there.

This is all coming from a full-time sports memorabilia dealer. I sell sports
memorabilia for a living out of my apartment and I can tell you my business
overhead is higher than many of you may think. Do I price it into my items? ..absolutely. Have any of you guys been to Steiner's office? I've been to
their old office once and I can't even imagine with all that space, inventory
and employees how much their overhead is.

You can't compare Steiner's pricing with Mr. Selling Part of My Collection
or Mr. I Got This for Free and Now Want to Sell, etc on Ebay who probably
has another full-time job and has no overheard except for the Ebay fees
and perhaps a little bit of his time and effort.

I say slander because someone new to the hobby may come across this
post and see "overpriced" and automatically think Steiner rips people off.
Steiner did not get this far ripping people off. Believe that.

Now for the OP, its an unfortunate and unacceptable situation by
any means and hope it gets resolved. I'm just venting towards the
people who constantly chirp and cry about pricing. I just wonder if
they cry about prices of Lexus, BMW or Rolex or anything else top
of the line because like it or not Steiner is top of the line in the memorabilia
industry. Its usually the ones who can't afford it that are constantly
crying. Again I will follow up by saying I can't afford to keep most of the
stuff I sell but that does not mean I am ripping people off. It just means
not everything is for everybody.

By the way I am not affiliated with Steiner in any way, shape or form.

Thanks for your time.

Goh Nishiyama

[sportscentury]

The constant bashing of Steiner's pricing is tiring and borderline slander.
Its clear that Steiner caters towards those who want high quality items
and a peace of mind. Not everybody wants to go on these forums and
ask questions and do research or go on Ebay and try and get a steal from
an unknown dealer. Many people work hard or are just wealthy and
want the best for their money and don't want to deal with the BS.
And I am not saying that Steiner never has and never will make errors
in the authenticity of their product so please don't go there.

This is all coming from a full-time sports memorabilia dealer. I sell sports
memorabilia for a living out of my apartment and I can tell you my business
overhead is higher than many of you may think. Do I price it into my items? ..absolutely. Have any of you guys been to Steiner's office? I've been to
their old office once and I can't even imagine with all that space, inventory
and employees how much their overhead is.

You can't compare Steiner's pricing with Mr. Selling Part of My Collection
or Mr. I Got This for Free and Now Want to Sell, etc on Ebay who probably
has another full-time job and has no overheard except for the Ebay fees
and perhaps a little bit of his time and effort.

I say slander because someone new to the hobby may come across this
post and see "overpriced" and automatically think Steiner rips people off.
Steiner did not get this far ripping people off. Believe that.

Now for the OP, its an unfortunate and unacceptable situation by
any means and hope it gets resolved. I'm just venting towards the
people who constantly chirp and cry about pricing. I just wonder if
they cry about prices of Lexus, BMW or Rolex or anything else top
of the line because like it or not Steiner is top of the line in the memorabilia
industry. Its usually the ones who can't afford it that are constantly
crying. Again I will follow up by saying I can't afford to keep most of the
stuff I sell but that does not mean I am ripping people off. It just means
not everything is for everybody.

By the way I am not affiliated with Steiner in any way, shape or form.

Thanks for your time.

Goh Nishiyama

I'm sorry, but all I got out of this is that you don't know what slander means.

[gnishiyama]

Sorry Reid I'm not a lawyer. I'll replace "slander" with "misleading."

I was just talking about how every time a poster talks about
a legitimate gripe with Steiner people use the thread as a platform
to gripe about their pricing which is irrelevant. I guess I'm just as
guilty...

Anyway OP sorry and hope you're situation gets resolved. I'm sure
someone at Steiner has already read your post is doing something
to take care of it.

Goh Nishiyama

[Skizzick]

Sorry Reid I'm not a lawyer. I'll replace "slander" with "misleading."

I was just talking about how every time a poster talks about
a legitimate gripe with Steiner people use the thread as a platform
to gripe about their pricing which is irrelevant. I guess I'm just as
guilty...

Anyway OP sorry and hope you're situation gets resolved. I'm sure
someone at Steiner has already read your post is doing something
to take care of it.

Goh Nishiyama

While I will state my opinion and say that they are overpriced for the real market value of their items, that is Steiner's choice to do so, and the people that choose to pay those prices for Steiner's items do so out of their own obliviousness.
My issue with Steiner is that their customer service only goes as far as to make sure things don't end up in small claims court, and nothing else. They care nothing about customer loyalty, and the only time you can actually get to someone who will take care of your problems is when they are a distributor within the company who is working on commission. If they royally screw up on your order, pull a bait-and-switch, or some other dishonest tactic, their only reaction to your problem is to hand you your money back and say "have a nice day" or try to make you pay a lower price for the item they tricked you into receiving. I have dealt with Steiner on a number of occasions and really only left satisfied once. Whereas, I have dealt with many other companies in memorabilia sales and related services, and every problem has been dealt with customer service that went above and beyond what was needed.
As someone who has worked in retail for eight years, the key is to build a good reputation by helping customers who are not satisfied. That way, they'll keep coming back and WON'T TRASH COMPANIES ON MESSAGE BOARDS!

[emann]

I also expect that Steiner will resolve this issue for Tedw9... I do own numerous Steiner items and would like them to not piss people off if only for the selfish reason of not totally devaluing items I own with their company name attached as other GU companies have done.

I also think it's ridiculous of Steiner to have sent a retail hat in lieu of a gamer unless it was with a note that read: "We're sorry but we sold you something we don't appear to have in stock anymore, accept this with our apologies. Thanks for shopping with Steiner." Were they hoping he wouldn't notice the switch? That's what I would assume OR that by offering him a discount on keeping the retail hat they're just trying to squeeze whatever sale they can out of him, even if it is an item he doesn't want.

I have my own issue with Steiner and it is actually not relating to their prices (which are all over the place to me, some crazy money high, some lower than I'd expect). They're one of the only retail sites on the web I can think of that forces you to enter your email address to enter it and see items for sale. It's not a common thing on the web for a reason, it alienates buyers who don't want to just hand over things like personal email address to view an on-line catalog. As someone who works in a field were marketing comes into play, whoever at Steiner that thought this was a good idea... it's really not.

[shaunharr]

My only question is...

Who's hat did you purchased?

-Shaun

[sportscentury]

Sorry Reid I'm not a lawyer. I'll replace "slander" with "misleading."

I was just talking about how every time a poster talks about
a legitimate gripe with Steiner people use the thread as a platform
to gripe about their pricing which is irrelevant. I guess I'm just as
guilty...

Anyway OP sorry and hope you're situation gets resolved. I'm sure
someone at Steiner has already read your post is doing something
to take care of it.

Goh Nishiyama

Steiner is free to list high prices for their items. Collectors are free to complain about the high prices. That is how it works. Please excuse me for saying this, but I'm not sure how your posts here count any less as "crying" than the other posts in this thread. If folks want to vent their frustrations about Steiner's poor service and high prices on a public opinion board, they should be able to do so. It's just not that big a deal.

[commando]

I have never dealt directly with Steiner, so I can't really give an opinion on their merchandise or customer service. As far as prices go, I agree that their prices would be considered high if their items didn't have good provenance. I think its a situation where they sell as many items they can at the higher prices, and as time goes on, drop prices on the stuff that hasn't moved (most of us also do that when selling our stuff in the classifieds on this site).

So as a seller, especially with lots of overhead, you start with higher prices and work your way down over time on the dead stuff. As a buyer, when we see things hit the market we have to decide whether to pull the trigger now, by paying the full price, or later with a discount.... And hopefully there IS a later.

I'm thinking a lower-level employee at Steiner did the bait-and-switch on the cap, trying to save his butt after some kind on mix-up. I would find it hard to believe that such a large, well-established company would stake their reputation on this kind of switch. Just my opinion.

[philsfan]

I have bought multiple items from Steiner and they have always been helpful in getting me the items that I want from the Yankees.

Here's a good example:

A couple years ago, I bought a Derek Jeter signed "Final Season" baseball from Steiner. It was on sale so I grabbed it. A year later, Mariano and Andy were coming in for a private signing at Steiner. I asked my Steiner rep about the cost of adding them to the ball. I don't remember the exact pricing but it was way too high for Mariano, but Andy wasn't bad. I gave my Jeter ball to the rep and asked him to get it signed by Andy. He laughed and said that I "shouldn't be so cheap" and begged me to add Mariano to one day make it a Core Four ball. I insisted it was too much for me and just get Andy. I was of course thinking I would add Mariano at a public signing for much cheaper in the future.

A couple days later, my rep asked me to come in and get the ball. He gave me a full tour of the Steiner facility which is incredible. Let me swing a bunch of Jeter bats, hold a Mariano jersey, and basically take a look at all of their game used stuff. I was like a kid in a candy store. Just before I left he gave me the ball. I saw Jeter, Andy and one other signature....it was Mariano...on the house. Gave the guy a big hug and was off.

Just so you know, I have spent less than $2000 on Steiner items, I'm not a big spending customer, but that day I felt like one.

Have a nice weekend everyone.

[Skizzick]

I have bought multiple items from Steiner and they have always been helpful in getting me the items that I want from the Yankees.

Here's a good example:

A couple years ago, I bought a Derek Jeter signed "Final Season" baseball from Steiner. It was on sale so I grabbed it. A year later, Mariano and Andy were coming in for a private signing at Steiner. I asked my Steiner rep about the cost of adding them to the ball. I don't remember the exact pricing but it was way too high for Mariano, but Andy wasn't bad. I gave my Jeter ball to the rep and asked him to get it signed by Andy. He laughed and said that I "shouldn't be so cheap" and begged me to add Mariano to one dmay make it a Core Four ball. I insisted it was too much for me and just get Andy. I was of course thinking I would add Mariano at a public signing for much cheaper in the future.

A couple days later, my rep asked me to come in and get the ball. He gave me a full tour of the Steiner facility which is incredible. Let me swing a bunch of Jeter bats, hold a Mariano jersey, and basically take a look at all of their game used stuff. I was like a kid in a candy store. Just before I left he gave me the ball. I saw Jeter, Andy and one other signature....it was Mariano...on the house. Gave the guy a big hug and was off.

Just so you know, I have spent less than $2000 on Steiner items, I'm not a big spending customer, but that day I felt like one.

Have a nice weekend everyone.

Cool story. I hope I can have a similar experience with them. But I have the sneaking suspicion that since you dealt with them in person they weremuch nicer accomodating.