Why are the Nittaku 3 star premium 40+ poly balls are never in stock?

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Why are the Nittaku 3 star premium(made in japan) 40+ poly balls are never in stock? These have been introduced since last year and supposedly the best polyball out there. And why is Nittaku introducing these new 2 star premium polyballs when there are no 3 star premium to be found. Somebody explain why Nittaku isn't making a bucket load of profits from us EJ Table Tennis addicts....just frustrated :(
 
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JHB

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I'm not sure how likely it is that adopting the glass navel approach will have the predicted effect, nor how this answers the OP's question. Anyway we don't know what is going on with Nittaku, but the strong probability has to be that they are finding it difficult to produce the required numbers of plastic balls while maintaining their quality standards. Only the Xushaofa factory seems to be able to make large amounts of high-quality plastic balls at the moment. Unless of course someone here knows different ?
 
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Most of what I buy is mail order but there is an interesting mix of very few mail order and bricks and mortar all over the USA, with the latter being very old stores/clubs. I Ejed a lot so I always looked for cheap stuff so the low-service, low cost foreign vendors like timitts.be and ttnpp.com were my thing. I do occasionally order from paddlepalace.com in the USA (which is probably the only site the OP looked at before lodging his complaint), but PP is committed to stocking major US tournaments with NP40+ balls as a priority. PP I believe also has a monopoly on distributing Nittaku products in the USA so if you are going to wait on them for the NP 40+, good luck with that. It's a global economy these days and ttnopp ships the NP40+ pretty quickly. If you want the ball, just order there.
 
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Most of what I buy is mail order but there is an interesting mix of very few mail order and bricks and mortar all over the USA, with the latter being very old stores/clubs. I Ejed a lot so I always looked for cheap stuff so the low-service, low cost foreign vendors like timitts.be and ttnpp.com were my thing. I do occasionally order from paddlepalace.com in the USA (which is probably the only site the OP looked at before lodging his complaint), but PP is committed to stocking major US tournaments with NP40+ balls as a priority. PP I believe also has a monopoly on distributing Nittaku products in the USA so if you are going to wait on them for the NP 40+, good luck with that. It's a global economy these days and ttnopp ships the NP40+ pretty quickly. If you want the ball, just order there.


Yeah, i do agree paddlepalace and megaspin should carry it here locally. I have ordered from ttnpp before and its a hit or miss when it comes to shipping times. I will have to agree with Nextel that i should just have to order from ttnpp and see how long it takes to get to the states. Still does not explain why only 1 online retailer has it and nowhere else.....Still no explanation....One of the great mysteries of life...:D
 
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Yeah, i do agree paddlepalace and megaspin should carry it here locally. I have ordered from ttnpp before and its a hit or miss when it comes to shipping times. I will have to agree with Nextel that i should just have to order from ttnpp and see how long it takes to get to the states. Still does not explain why only 1 online retailer has it and nowhere else.....Still no explanation....One of the great mysteries of life...:D

Megaspin is not an independent vendor - they just aggregate what other vendors offer and take a cut. So if no US Vendor is offering what you are looking for on megaspin, it will not be offered by megaspin. If PaddlePalace sells anything on megaspin, it definitely isn't their Nittaku stuff. I also don't see Tibhar stuff on megaspin either.

There are other online retailers that have it in foreign countries. Egghead listed one (ping pong kingdom or something like that). In general, TT gear is a specialist small market so we should really be happy that we are in a time where we have access to a global market. Otherwise, you would be paying through the nose for this stuff.

In general, people should understand the structure of the TT market in the USA - I don't understand it that well, but my knowledge of it helps me not waste time when I am looking for stuff that isn't available.
 
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The only places I have been able to buy them are iruiru.com and tt-japan, always with several months of wait.
 
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Why are the Nittaku 3 star premium(made in japan) 40+ poly balls are never in stock? These have been introduced since last year and supposedly the best polyball out there. And why is Nittaku introducing these new 2 star premium polyballs when there are no 3 star premium to be found. Somebody explain why Nittaku isn't making a bucket load of profits from us EJ Table Tennis addicts....just frustrated :(
Have been looking for it too from online and local market but can't find any. So instead i bought Xushaofa 3 star 40+ and it gives me and my pp buddies satisfaction so far. But Im still on a hunt for Nittaku 3 star premium.

Sent from my MI PAD using Tapatalk
 

JHB

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The NP+ is still available at ttnpp. I've had 4 boxes arrive this week.

As to why they are in short supply - they're the best ball IMO. I guess that they just can't keep up with demand.

They had no problem keeping up with demand for their premium celluloid balls. I think there is a danger that by the time Nittaku get their act together in Europe the bird will have flown and many clubs and individuals will happily be using Xushaofa, especially given the price differential. Losing market share is a lot easier than winning it !
 
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They had no problem keeping up with demand for their premium celluloid balls. I think there is a danger that by the time Nittaku get their act together in Europe the bird will have flown and many clubs and individuals will happily be using Xushaofa, especially given the price differential. Losing market share is a lot easier than winning it !

This is an unusual time in the sport - rather than a constant demand month-after-month of an established product from an existing production line, we have a glut of players/clubs replacing their ball stocks at the same time, in bulk if possible. And it's a new product, using new materials, and possibly new machinery (hard to stay for sure - Nittaku could be re-using their old line for this, but let's not forget that the ball is bigger now), so rejection rates could be higher. And even if you buy other seamless balls from brands, they fall to pieces after a few hours use, so you're back on the market to buy more sooner than with cell, so market demand is higher on average than the cell years due to durability alone.

But yes, the NP+ may miss the boat. I don't really blame Nittaku for this - the situation the ITTF brought in is madness, and it's not just a case of buying the best ball on the market. Clubs have to consider how they will secure enough stock of the ball they choose. Players have to consider which balls their opposition teams will choose - should they go with the most popular ball to reduce variation over the season, rather than going for the ball they feel is the best? And which balls will your club's better players be using when they go to tournaments or national competition? Should you go with that ball to reduce their discomfort, because you want to keep your best players happy, right?

It's a crying shame. IMO, the NP+ is the answer, but who will be using it? Probably not even me - my club has gone with XSF as the safe option, and that's the only decision to make right now. As long as it's not the DHS or DF seamed ball then I'm happy enough.

This is the ITTF's fault. If the technical specs are so loose that they allow such a wide variety of playing characteristics, then it's on them. If the specs also don't take durability into account, then that's on them too.
 
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This is an unusual time in the sport - rather than a constant demand month-after-month of an established product from an existing production line, we have a glut of players/clubs replacing their ball stocks at the same time, in bulk if possible.

I agree with most of this. But I do think there most be some complications with the production process. Why? Why, after this long a time are there NO yellow balls out yet? I could be wrong. It is just my feeling. I think all the plants are having some problems with production to some extent. Clearly the DHS and Double Fish plants are having trouble with figuring out how to make a ball that bounces consistently and doesn't break instantly. Hopefully they figure it all out. And I 100% agree that all of the problems that are going on, are on ITTF's lack of foresight.
 
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I agree with most of this. But I do think there most be some complications with the production process. Why? Why, after this long a time are there NO yellow balls out yet? I could be wrong. It is just my feeling. I think all the plants are having some problems with production to some extent. Clearly the DHS and Double Fish plants are having trouble with figuring out how to make a ball that bounces consistently and doesn't break instantly. Hopefully they figure it all out. And I 100% agree that all of the problems that are going on, are on ITTF's lack of foresight.

I think you could well be right. It's hard to say without access to someone on the inside, and there are at least 3 different production methods being used with plastic right now - Chinese seamed (imagine that DHS and DF are pretty much the same), Chinese Seamless, Japanese Seamed - so they could all be facing different issues.

As for the orange balls - this drives me absolutely crazy too. The ITTF could have mandated that orange balls were required rather than leaving it up to the manufacturers to decide if/when they should be produced, but they didn't. There could be some technical reason why the plastic can't be coloured (but I can't think of any reason myself). It could be that you can't do an orange production run without staining the equipment in some way, so you have to have a different line for orange balls using different equipment (total guesswork, sounds stupid to me). I know that an orange ball has to go through the ITTF's registration process separately to a white ball, so there could be some time/effort/cost problems in getting that done. Or it could be that no one can make enough white balls anyway and there just isn't time to sort orange out, in which case we're moving too quickly and we shouldn't be forcing adoption of plastic yet.

My big fear is that DHS will produce the first orange plastic ball, which gives clubs a real dilemma. Use a horrible orange ball, or a reasonable white one? Arrrgh. Please XSF/Nittaku - beat them to market.
 
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I think you could well be right. It's hard to say without access to someone on the inside, and there are at least 3 different production methods being used with plastic right now - Chinese seamed (imagine that DHS and DF are pretty much the same), Chinese Seamless, Japanese Seamed - so they could all be facing different issues.

As for the orange balls - this drives me absolutely crazy too. The ITTF could have mandated that orange balls were required rather than leaving it up to the manufacturers to decide if/when they should be produced, but they didn't. There could be some technical reason why the plastic can't be coloured (but I can't think of any reason myself). It could be that you can't do an orange production run without staining the equipment in some way, so you have to have a different line for orange balls using different equipment (total guesswork, sounds stupid to me). I know that an orange ball has to go through the ITTF's registration process separately to a white ball, so there could be some time/effort/cost problems in getting that done. Or it could be that no one can make enough white balls anyway and there just isn't time to sort orange out, in which case we're moving too quickly and we shouldn't be forcing adoption of plastic yet.

My big fear is that DHS will produce the first orange plastic ball, which gives clubs a real dilemma. Use a horrible orange ball, or a reasonable white one? Arrrgh. Please XSF/Nittaku - beat them to market.

Spot on.

One thing. I know when I tried the Nittaku Premium was several months ago and why I liked it so much was because it felt so much closer to a celluloid ball than all the others. At some point a friend of mine said he liked the XSF balls better than celluloid balls because they were more solid. I realized that you can really dig into the XSF balls better than a celluloid because of the extra weight and solidity. After he said it and I played, I realized that I agree with him. In some ways I like the XSF better than a celluloid ball because it is not similar to one. So I am not 100% sure I would still like the Nittaku Premium the best. And the XSF balls are super durable, more durable than celluloid.

So I would be okay with just seamless.
 
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So I would be okay with just seamless.

Yup, me too. Consistent bounce is the most important thing to me, and both seamless and NP+ have this. I prefer NP+ because it needs the least adjustment from me, and the ball feel is hard and direct, but these are minor personal things.

I will say that the high bounce of the seamless ball does favor some styles. I know one short pips hitter who won't play with anything else now.
 
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