Steiners Sports ?

[larry bourget]

Re: Steiners Sports ?

I recently heard that the Steiner/Yankees partnership is over, that the Yankees were not real happy with Steiners marketing strategy. I wonder if that explains Steiner's most recent YANKEES BIG BLOW OUT Auctions, they were letting jersey's go for as little as $25., pants $10. Anyone know anything factual.

Are the Yankees ready to market their own game used items.

Any Steiner reps want to respond.

regards,
larry.bourget@sympatico.ca

[BULBUS]

Re: Steiners Sports ?

I recently heard that the Steiner/Yankees partnership is over, that the Yankees were not real happy with Steiners marketing strategy. I wonder if that explains Steiner's most recent YANKEES BIG BLOW OUT Auctions, they were letting jersey's go for as little as $25., pants $10. Anyone know anything factual.

Are the Yankees ready to market their own game used items.

Any Steiner reps want to respond.

regards,
larry.bourget@sympatico.ca

They did let alot of stuff go cheap and they don't have much listed on their website. But then again, maybe they are making room for the new stuff about to come in?? With all the "last year in Yankee Stadium hype", I'm sure stuff is going to be priced through the roof.

[kingjammy24]

Re: Steiners Sports ?

this may give some insight into steiner's pricing logic:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2063234

"Steiner's commission on this deal was almost 10 times the norm."

anyway, re: steiner
unlike some dealers, i don't think steiner's a fraud shop. i think they're just woefully mismanaged. they secure an exclusive deal with the most storied team in american history and they rollout without any way to id and track individual jerseys. in the world of gross mismanagement, the fact that an entire roster of suits couldn't figure out the basics of their flagship product really takes first prize. hundreds of yankees jerseys make it out before steiner finally clues in over a year later. then they hire mears to help them devise a plan, thereby admitting their own in-house staff lacks the talent and skills needed.

approx 2 yrs after taking receipt of the yankees stock, they still didn't have all of the stuff unpacked and categorized. meigray deals with a similar amount of inventory and i don't see them weeping about the sheer quantity or making nearly the same amount of errors. steiner charges bentley prices and operates like a lada dealership.

sometime in mid-07, i was looking specifically for a 1992 roberto kelly BP gamer. i emailed malandro. he told me tons of BPs were still packed in boxes and he lacked the time to go through it all. it's been 2 yrs since they signed the yankees deal and the stuff is STILL in boxes?! either hire the damn people you need to get the job done right or don't do the job at all. this dog-n-pony show is getting tiresome. so i waited a few months and the jersey i wanted finally made it's way out of storage and onto a steiner auction. i won it and the transaction was fine. funny thing about the auction is that it seemed to be the work of someone who managed to ID half the jerseys via rosters but eventually got tired and gave up completely, leaving the other half unidentified. as i went through them, i found most were easily identifiable via baseballalmanac.com. it seems steiner simply didn't want to do the work when they could just leave it up to the collector. not exactly sure what my "buyer's premium" was for. steiner owns the shirt outright and if they sell it via one section of their website there's no premium but if they sell it via another section of their website there is a premium. bravo.

they came out with pricing so ludicrous that they were forced to have firesales and their pricing integrity flew out the window. don't feel like paying $10k for that jeter jersey on the steiner website? wait a few months and it'll end up at GFC or ebay for half the price or even less.

to this day, they're still misidentifying items left, right and center. give me a pad of pink slips and i'd whip that place into shape.

rudy.

[TNTtoys]

Re: Steiners Sports ?

Guys,

I need to come to Steiner's defense here. I have dealt with them on many thousands of dollars worth of Mets merchandise over the years and not once have I ever had any "trouble." Their sales folks have been helpful, informative and always go the extra mile to help me out. They also run fantastic clearances throughout the year for their preferred buyers and I never cease to find a bargain during these times. I also have been their guest at Mets games, private functions, player signings, etc. all for maintaining a good relationship with them. Companies like this within our hobby are few and far between.

On one single occasion, the wording on 1 LOA was incorrect, and they took the entire package back at their cost, re-authenticated it, and sent it back to me. Again, I don't consider this a "problem" -- just an example of them taking care of their customer.

Nick

[kingjammy24]

Re: Steiners Sports ?

hey nick,

i don't doubt that many people have had wonderful experiences with steiner. clearly though, others have had less-than-wonderful experiences. the latter tend to be more vocal.

personally, i steiner's missed the boat on several issues, despite the fact that they've satisfied many customers. i've heard people praise malandro for helping them find an item and i'm sure their praise was well-deserved. unfortunately for me, malandro wasn't as helpful. apparently my jersey was buried amongst a ton of boxes and noone was going to find it anytime soon. i just completely fail to understand how it can take so long to unpack inventory. hire 200 temps if you need to but get the stuff unpacked asap. who wants to wait 2 yrs for a jersey to make its way from the warehouse to market?

as good as steiner is, i think there's significant room for improvement. the system they have now should've been there since day 1. meigray had a similar system prior to the steiner/yankees deal so why didn't steiner do a competitive assessment? as i type this there are knoblauch retail bats sitting on the steiner site being sold as "game issued". again, kudos to steiner for all of their happy customers, but there's still a ton of room for improvement.

rudy.

[the3lads]

Re: Steiners Sports ?

Well here is my recent experience with Steiner:

Won an ALCS 2009 game 3 lineup card and a week or so after the auction I received a phone call saying that the "card could not be found."

Anyway, I explained that I wanted the ALCS card (Championship season, blah, blah....) and I was first offered a 2012 lineup card and then a 2012 ALDS base. We chatted for a while and the rep just asked me "what can we do to make it right?"

I asked for a Game 6 ALCS base and that is what I got. Not bad, but should have asked for a World Series base!

[Vincent]

Re: Steiners Sports ?

Well here is my recent experience with Steiner:

Won an ALCS 2009 game 3 lineup card and a week or so after the auction I received a phone call saying that the "card could not be found."

Anyway, I explained that I wanted the ALCS card (Championship season, blah, blah....) and I was first offered a 2012 lineup card and then a 2012 ALDS base. We chatted for a while and the rep just asked me "what can we do to make it right?"

I asked for a Game 6 ALCS base and that is what I got. Not bad, but should have asked for a World Series base!

2 stories. This first one was from 4 years ago.
Steiner had a 3 for 99 special and accidentally put up Frank THomas baseballs as part of it( had some inscription), so I jumped on it literally 5 minutes after it was put up, and got a call 2 days later asking me what I would like instead of the Thomas balls from the promotion. They started offering me a bunch of crap, so I said that I want a player close of stature to Frank, otherwise I would just wait for them to do another Frank Thomas signing. Then right as I was about to cut off conversation with them and wait for the Thomas baseballs, they offered me 3 Robin Yount signed baseballs with the hits inscription. Needless to say, I was able to make a killing selling those. Made around $500 on all 3 baseballs.

Second story about a year ago.
I bought a John Axeford notre dame jersey for $150, I then asked for a return and they sent me a label to ship it back. It took them 2 or 3 weeks to find the jersey once it got shipped back. The tracking even said that it had arrived to steiner, but for some reason they couldnt find it for the longest time. 3 weeks later, I got the refund.

I have not dealt with Steiner since, and I will have to think twice about it even before I do.

[yanks12025]

Re: Steiners Sports ?

I've always had good dealings with them.

[64SHEA]

Re: Steiners Sports ?

I have never really had any problems with them, except for the prices which are insane. I mostly stick to their auction site.

[pjbmd]

Re: Steiners Sports ?

I too had a mishap with the recent steiner auction
A few phone call with Barry from the auction side of things and my rep jj molesso resulted in swift resolution with my complete satisfaction
JJ has been a great rep for the past few years
Cheers
PJB

[mbenga28]

Re: Steiners Sports ?

I don't know where to put this, but I got a good laugh seeing this for sale on Steiner.

http://www.steinersports.com/2014-belmont-stakes-betting-ticket.html