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Recommended Cricket Stores

Are Assports.com legit? Been quoted $95.50 including freight for an AS G200 (g1, old model; my favourite looking bat :razzaq), should I pay or ask for a photo?
 
Poison brah post da link here, this aint joke anymore! ;-)

Sorry nitrous bhai didn't see your post, I think email is uzaisports@googlemail.com but check on the website they have it there.

I believe there annual sales are less than £50,000-£70,000 hence they don't do VAT extemption
 
Of course AS Sports is legit it is factory and they won't screw you up :)

Many PPers have bought bats directly from AS Sports and they were very happy buyers!

You sure it is G1 model mate?
 
He mailed me and said it's still available in G1 Premium ... so I will tend to believe him :)) I asked for a photo though, lets see what happens ... also need to get finances in order :akhtar
 
owzat and uzisports are the best. if you need little things like mallets, clothes, bat tape, bat covers, i like to go to wisden of hastings - ebay store. also great service and very cheap.
 
nitrous said:
Really, even for export purposes, why would VAT be included?

Would you know his email Cover Drive?

Thanks
Click to expand...

We have recently become VAT registered and can only offer VAT off on certain items, mainly those which have been bought after getting registered, mainly GN, Kooks, some Newbery. As the new stock comes in from other suppliers we are happy to knock off the VAT.
Email me if you have any questions and I'll be happy to answer
Regards

Asad
uzisports.co.uk@googlemail.com
 
Quick Single said:
Asad bhai! I never knew you were on this forum.

Anyway, I just wanted to say a big thank you for the pads that I bought of you. They are going exceptionally well alhamdulilah and I am also scoring a lot of runs as well mashallah, so jazakallahkhair.

Here is the review of what I bought off you: http://www.pakpassion.net/ppforum/showthread.php?t=123610
Click to expand...
thank you for all u guys support, which i appreciate. I don't get much time to be on the forum but will happily reply to any emails sent to my email address.
Today is a day off so got some time hence i was browsing through some forums and it is great to read comments about Pak brand equipment.
I spent 3-4 hours getting my bats made by Tim(Newbery).
Regards

Asad
 
Uzi_Sports said:
thank you for all u guys support, which i appreciate. I don't get much time to be on the forum but will happily reply to any emails sent to my email address.
Today is a day off so got some time hence i was browsing through some forums and it is great to read comments about Pak brand equipment.
I spent 3-4 hours getting my bats made by Tim(Newbery).
Regards

Asad
Click to expand...

Asad, I have emailed you via your website contact us section :)

Thanks
 
Update on my bat repair from Jason at cricketstoreonline:

It has been 4 weeks; I was promised that the bat will be shipped after repairs last week. It so seems that it will take some more time. But he also e-mailed saying that the repairs will be free of charge as this delay is because of no fault of mine. I just hope things work out soon as I have been waiting for a long time now.

At this point I am in a fix as to whether to like this store. The owner is friendly and I know it is a hard business to keep smiling about. The video reviews are honest and at time useful. The e-mail replies have left a lot to be desired though but Jason looks like someone you might want to deal with. The actual inference will be drawn by the end of this week.
 
I am pretty sure he doesn't do these repairs on his own or someone local. His reliance is totally on people in NY. So basically he is a middle-man and when you do that you can't really promise any customers and if you do that its bad business.... He is a nice guy no doubt but business is business.
 
It is Reebok Skipper G1 English Willow; turned out to be a really great bat more because of the fact that I never actually had a very high opinion of Reebok before that. The handle had gone to the moon so had requested a replacement handle.
 
Ah okay keep us posted on his service and how it turns out to be, I hope you get your bat back.
 
I haven't bought anything from there but I don't recommend Ali Baba because there seem to be more spammers than honest sellers but thats my opinion.
 
Steer clear of Alibaba unless you are absolutely familiar with the particular company you want to deal with; in fact some of these companies can be found in ebay as well. Ebay is safer as you pay with Paypal most of the times and if anything goes wrong you can get your money back through your credit card company and/or Paypal.
 
more than half the ppl on Alibaba are scammers....local ebay is usually great. Ebay UAE and pak sellers are hit or miss as well.
 
Cricketismylife said:
more than half the ppl on Alibaba are scammers....local ebay is usually great. Ebay UAE and pak sellers are hit or miss as well.
Click to expand...

Yes but because of Paypal there is a chance that you might get your money back even if you are duped.
 
Yes you can open a dispute; or you can get your money back directly from your credit card company who will then open a dispute/discussion with paypal to get their own money back from them. It happened to me: after getting so much good reviews of onlinestockist here , I decided to purchase a bat from them. When the bat was never shipped after waiting for more than a month I just asked American Express to credit my account and they did it in a week. I had paid through paypal.
 
Pay Pal is good! Its good in the fact that everything can be traced even though you cant see the other person's personnel details. If I buy something say over ebay via paypal they cant see my details as its kept private.
 
Been away for a while; we need to revive this thread again. Feel free to continue posting your experiences with different cricket stores and I will start editing the list again.
 
I recommended a friend of mine to buy bat from uzisports.

He told me he was satisfied with the service he received, and the bat he got (Newbery krakatoa) is one of the best i have seen.

Will use Uzisports in future..
 
Just to share some good news with you guys.
From next Monday we will offer zero VAT for outside UK orders.

Regards

Asad
 
Uzi_Sports said:
Just to share some good news with you guys.
From next Monday we will offer zero VAT for outside UK orders.

Regards

Asad
Click to expand...



Asad bhai could you please confirm whether the above statement has come into effect yet? I was looking at your website but could not determine it. Thanks.
 
I will soon be getting a bat from Jason at cricketstoreonline; will post the reviews here in this thread. I am sure everyone wants to see the performance part in the marketing hype. I have a feeling we will not be disappointed.
 
I'd recommend these top 4 online cricket stores, onlinestockist.com for best Indian branded gear at cheapest prices online, cricmall.com and batsandmore.com have Pakistani branded gear at low competitive prices. Shop at Mapperley sports if your looking to buy GM or English branded gear, they have the best hand picked bats and a huge selection to choose from.
 
zeusky said:
I will soon be getting a bat from Jason at cricketstoreonline; will post the reviews here in this thread. I am sure everyone wants to see the performance part in the marketing hype. I have a feeling we will not be disappointed.
Click to expand...

Yaar I asked him for Powerbow and he never replied to my question :facepalm:

But keep updated, is that bat you had sent for refurbing?
 
He is a bit slow with his e-mails; should I call him for you?

No it is another bat; I am just elated after this morning's news (I had PM-ed you) so thought maybe should reward myself :p

The refurb went quite well actually and he did it free as it took such a long time.
 
zeusky said:
He is a bit slow with his e-mails; should I call him for you?

No it is another bat; I am just elated after this morning's news (I had PM-ed you) so thought maybe should reward myself :p

The refurb went quite well actually and he did it free as it took such a long time.
Click to expand...

Thanks yaar, I appreciate it but not right now as you know SC is first priority right now :)

Haha which bat is it? [You can PM me if you wish to]

Thats great of Jason.
 
I am more interested to know the kind of knowledge he displays in his selection and the attention he pays to his customers' requirements; his online marketing ploys are a big hit with the public but the reviews of his items have been far from favorable so far. So people among us in this forum would probably go for someone like Asadbhai or Basharatbhai as they have displayed the proper acumen for knowing the intricacies of the stuff they have in their collection. Just want to see where Jason measures up in that category now that he has had sometime to improve his own knowledge on the stuff he sells. One thing for sure though, his youtube reviews are honest albeit a bit lacking in the proper discussion of the finer aspects of cricket bat making and playing.
 
You have nailed it there, as I might said it before that one of my team mate [ExtraCoverDrive on PP] ordered Blade 950 and he was shown a very good looking Blade 950 but the one he received was completely different and a glorified dud really.
 
Yes-- we talk about that one near the beginning of this thread; but that was quite some time back. the burning question is has he improved? I was hoping we would have had more reviews in this thread about some of the items people have bought from some of the other shops we have apart from the regular reliable UK shops.
 
Yaar it never improved whatsoever, then my friend sold it for $150 after buying it for $550!!

After that instance no one from my club dares to invest money in Jason's shop :))
 
Wow!! That is a huge loss; what was the problem with the bat? Overweight? Lack of response? I mean you really need to be hugely irritated with a bat to suffer a 400 dollar loss :eek:
 
Yaar weight was like 2.6/2.7 it was just a dud, it never pinged! I played with it and I even banged mallet and seriously I couldn't find the middle it just didn't respond from any part.

My freaking Pakistan Willow which I used to buy 10 years ago pings better than it really :))
 
Cover Drive said:
Yaar I asked him for Powerbow and he never replied to my question :facepalm:

But keep updated, is that bat you had sent for refurbing?
Click to expand...

When I was getting my Newbery (long time ago) I sent him mails, posted on his FB wall the same question ... Jason never came back to me. He replied back to me so late that I had already started playing with my Newbery :)

I really can’t say that I had bad experience with Jason, since I never ordered anything … but for sure I won’t be ordering from him, I would prefer Uzi sports, top customer support & Newbery from Asad Bhai !
 
zeusky said:
Oh No!! I am sure your SC will be much better :D
Click to expand...

It should and better be :D

KashifJ said:
When I was getting my Newbery (long time ago) I sent him mails, posted on his FB wall the same question ... Jason never came back to me. He replied back to me so late that I had already started playing with my Newbery :)

I really can’t say that I had bad experience with Jason, since I never ordered anything … but for sure I won’t be ordering from him, I would prefer Uzi sports, top customer support & Newbery from Asad Bhai !
Click to expand...

Haha, I don't know what takes him so long to reply back..
 
Alright guys; it seems Jason has taken the pains to read through this entire thread and had requested me to send this note to you all. I have copied the note in its entirety except near the end where he writes his mobile number as we do not want his note to turn into an advertisement. Feel free to post your comments. Any positive/negative vibes should be directed at him and not this forum or me or CD as these are not our words.


Good morning Pakpassion forum members.

My name is Jason Mellet and i am the owner of www.cricketstoreonline.com. I am saddened to read some of the comments in this forum but also happy to see i do have some fans out there. The cricket world is a big place and i see news spreads quickly. I want to thank every body for their kind words as well as the people who have had criticism about my store. Ive never stated i am perfect and neither is my store. I do humbly apologise to the people who have had a bad experience in my store. I do hope one day that i can make everybody happy. There are some limitations however to the cricket industry in the USA and im going to attempt to explain some of them to you here today.

One of the limitations is that we have a very small cricket playing community which means there is very limited amount of people who are buying products. My wife and i decided two years ago that one of us should open our own business so that one day we might actually be able to say goodbye to the rat race and maybe have the possibility to do our own thing. Luckily for us my wife makes enough money to support both of us and our 2 year old daughter. because of our financial situation i am able to do this full time and can also take phone calls and answer emails etc all day long. I am one of the few people that can offer this sort of service. Arul over at cricmart has 2 restaurants and also runs a software consulting business on top of his cricket store. Im sure many of the cricket stores in the USA are in the same type of situation as Arul.

just to give you a little bit of information on how the industry works here in the USA. If you call Gray nicolls in the UK they tell you to contact Bedessee for goods. Thats the same for CA, Kookaburra, GM and SS to name a few. There are a few companies that will sell goods to us directly like newbery etc. Problem is that our profit margins on cricket gear here in the USA is very low. I currently average about a 30% markup. which if you know anything about retail, that is average to low. basically for every $1000 business i do, i make about $300 to pay all my bills, not to mention write myself a pay check. but we will get to that later. Now don't get me wrong either, bedessee offers a great service. I don't have to worry about buying $50 000 worth of stock, i can just get from him small amounts of gear at a time and also just stuff that i think will sell. When he buys a container of goods from kookaburra, he doesn't have the same freedom. he has to buy every piece of gear they have in their range, so he gets the good stuff as well as the crap stuff that probably wont sell. I then come along and pick up all his cool stuff like kahuna range which sells well.

Now out of that $300 you have to pay things like website fees, google adwords fees, paypal fees, credit card fees, packaging for postage, expenses like paper, telephone bill, internet, ups and fedex, msn expenses, ebay fees, taxes, merchant fees etc etc etc. sometimes it seems like it doesn't end. Then add on the odd chargeback ( probably at least once every 3 months, you are the victim of online fraud- generally about $400 - $800 ) Not to mention buying new gear.

Now to tell you a little about the day to day running of my business in the usa is pretty much march to august. That is peak period. Some mornings i will wake up with about 80-100 emails to get through, another 20-25 voicemails as well. Then the phone will ring about 10 times every hour and on top of that you have to do things like update the website, keep control of all your stock, package and mail off orders. And then someone wants you to take pics of a product and send it to them. So for those few months the cricket industry gets crazy and we are very very busy. It is very easy to miss peoples phone calls, emails and messages etc. Once again i do apologise if you were one of those. Well you might say, well jason why don't you just hire someone. Well that comes back to the low markups on products. I just cant afford it. And its not the fault of the customer its so low, its the fault of the small little garage cricket stores here in america. They all give their friends and team mates huge discounts on products and then they expect you to do the same. Every time i give a discount to someone that means basically that my daughter could possible go hungry that day as ive not made any profit on that order. What would you do if someone called you up and told you another store will give them the discount. well you give it to them even though you know you are not making any money on that order, and you hope they will come back and buy again.

I saw another note about a person being upset about money being taken out of their credit card as soon as they purchased the product and i was out of stock. I apologise about that. problem is we do get some products from bedessee. Nothing i can do about that and i only get stock updates from bedessee once a month.( as do all cricket stores ) there is no way i can keep all product stock levels up to date as i have no control over this and the fact that he was upset the credit card was charged , im sorry but thats how the credit card companies work. there is no way for me to set the system so it only charges when the order is confirmed or whatever.

Then what happens to the cricket industry for the rest of the year. well simply put it basically dies. You need to save every cent you possible can. you have to cut all your expenses, cancel all you advertising streams and basically hope you don't go to badly into the red during the winter. Basically you don't make enough money to pay all your bills. this comes back to how much it hurts to tell people, you are sorry, but you cant give them a discount or give them free shipping.

In saying that, good luck to anyone who wants to open their own store, contact bedessee and go for it. Its actually a lot of hard work, many hours behind the computer programming, may phone calls and emails, fighting with suppliers who are out of stock of stuff their stock sheets says they have etc etc. not to mention ive been doing this now for 2 years and to date have not written myself one pay check.

I also heard a comment about people who said i didnt know much about cricket and my video reviews were boring. Its partially true, i don't know everything there is to know about cricket bats and gear, but im learning. also if i watched all 250 of my video reviews on youtube i would also get bored. Also look at the new range of SS cricket bats. they're basically all identical. the only difference really is the stickers and quality of willow. Their profiles are all very similar. But the idea was never for you to sit and watch my videos for 5 hours. they are not for entertainment value. they are there for the 1 day when you are interested in a new bat, or set of gloves or bag. search for the name of the product and just maybe i will have a review up there and you get to see a little more about the bag and you can make an educated choice.

Im certainly not trying to take advantage of anyone, im just trying to make an honest living. Trust me before this i came to this country hoping for a new start. i was working commercial construction here in texas. try 110 degree heat in the summer and 10 degrees in the winter. yes, all working outside. I would much rather be doing this, working in the industry of cricket, the sport i grew up with and trying to live my dream.

On the Facebook issues where people have complained about their posts or complaints being deleted. The reason i don't like people posting negative stuff on my page, whether i am to blame or not is that i have had the situation where i have had to ban 3 or 4 people. The reason is they come onto my page, post a negative comment and then when i dig deeper they actually ended up buying their gear from a different store and got confused with my store. Now im not saying this goes for everybody, thats just why i don't like people posting bad reviews on there. Im trying to keep the Facebook page positive and clean. it is also during the winter one of my most important ( and free ) forms of advertising for my company. at times during the summer i spend about $3-$5000 a month on things like google. so FB is very important to me.

I also had one of those guys on Facebook send me over 100 emails ( i actually counted them )asking me for pics of bats, reviews on products. each week it seemed to be a different bat he was interested in. each time taking up my time i could of been spending with people who actually wanted to buy products. He ended up not buying one item from me. IN all fairness, im here to make money. then he thought he was an admin of my store or something. he started responding to people comments before i had the chance to. at the end of the day he never spent 1 cent with me and wasted many many hours of my time. Thats why i cringe every time people ask me for pics

So i think its time to wrap this thing up.

Once again im sorry if i have in some way upset you over the last 2 years. All my gear is original and official products, indirectly or directly coming from the actual manufacturers. I strain to provide the best possible service and products possible every single day of the year and hope one day i have the opportunity to.

I hope that the year 2012 ( my 3rd year in the industry ) is going to be a profitable year, and i can start paying off my credit card. all indications so far are looking good and with rumours that stores like cricworld are closing down that means a little more business will be coming my way.

I hope you all have a good day and feel free to call me directly on my cell phone on XXXXXXXXXX. Thats in the USA of course. thanks again for starting this forum. i will keep checking back from time to time.
 
glad he put that up - actually changed my perception about the store.
 
Don't you think this is the same story for every store? What is special about him? I have to ask these questions though I must add I have been a very big fan of his marketing tactics and the effort that he has shown to reach out to his customers.
 
Glad I saw that tbh.

However, I have one question for him, can he explain the fake 'Kevin Peterson' bats he was trying to sell on FB for $300?
 
Warning:

Steer clear of www.crictech.com; no contact address or number; dubious data; avoid spending your money on them unless you get evidence of a much clearer picture. If that is the case, then please feel free to share your input with us.
 
Just found some more respect for Jason after reading that. It's not easy to make money these days and you've got to feel for the guy who's trying to do it in a legitimate way.
 
OK GUYS:

Here are the results of the investigation on crictech and vindico cricket that I did with a little help from a friend in a very respected organization:

Crictech claims to be based in the UK but their domain activities originate from a place near Brea, California, just a little distance away from Anaheim.

Vindico e-mailed me saying that they are base in Springfield Illinois, and are made up of full time servicemen who have turned their passion for cricket into boutique batmaking; on being pressed further they stated that BAS and RNS make their bats in India. Now after some investigation we found their domain to be located in Houston, TX but it might be a proxy domain.

Please feel free to share your views here.
 
zeusky said:
Don't you think this is the same story for every store? What is special about him? I have to ask these questions though I must add I have been a very big fan of his marketing tactics and the effort that he has shown to reach out to his customers.
Click to expand...


this is true - and customer service goes along way in retaining customers. i'd still never purchase anything from jason's store. hence why i keep going back to uzisports or owzat for things.
 
So cricworld is going out of business? They had some good prices though I never dealt with them.
 
Yeah, their low prices is the reason they are going out of business. I tried price matching their stuff a few times and had to take a loss on the order just to get it with the hope that the person would come back and order again from me.
 
Hi Jason,

Welcome to PakPassion. As CD would say, I hope you enjoy your stay here.

One question we have : who are these crictech guys? And where do they make their bats?
 
Last edited:
I don't know who they are but can confirm their roots to the USA. This is where the sheets are made. I've got nothing to do with them and have no idea about their bat side of the business. I'm not planning on having anything to do with the bats. I'm merely interested in potentially selling the sheets as a possible training aid. I used the sheets the other day in the nets and found they don't work with the juggs balls, you need something harder like a cricket ball. But can confirm they work well with the cricket ball and cricket ball imprints show up immediately.

When I contacted them, I found the guy who answered my email was actually here in the states on business and had the sheets forwarded to me from here within the states. Not sure if he is here permanently or was just visiting.

Hope that answers your questions. Maybe I can dig a little deeper and try and find something out about the bats,


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Last edited:
KashifJ said:
oh boy :facepalm:
Click to expand...

Yes I can explain. I got the bats from a reliable source. However due to the bad reviews people have given who do not even have the bats I decided to concentrate on my main brands and no longer mess with the adidas brand. It's caused to many headaches. As u will see I have taken them of my site and sent the remaining gear back to the supplier. I have also removed all YouTube videos and Facebook photos so as no longer to advertise the gear.

I am rather only dealing direct with suppliers or respectable agents.

I hope that clears this up for you.

I will close with saying, I only ever had one complaint about the bats. One of them broke which can happen to anyone's bat, I sent these bats all over the world and never got one complaint.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Cricketstoreonline said:
Yes I can explain. I got the bats from a reliable source. However due to the bad reviews people have given who do not even have the bats I decided to concentrate on my main brands and no longer mess with the adidas brand. It's caused to many headaches. As u will see I have taken them of my site and sent the remaining gear back to the supplier. I have also removed all YouTube videos and Facebook photos so as no longer to advertise the gear.

I am rather only dealing direct with suppliers or respectable agents.

I hope that clears this up for you.

I will close with saying, I only ever had one complaint about the bats. One of them broke which can happen to anyone's bat, I sent these bats all over the world and never got one complaint.
Click to expand...

Again, well done Jason. This is the right approach to customer service and I hope your honesty benefits you down the road. :)
 
Cricketstoreonline said:
Yes I can explain. I got the bats from a reliable source. However due to the bad reviews people have given who do not even have the bats I decided to concentrate on my main brands and no longer mess with the adidas brand. It's caused to many headaches. As u will see I have taken them of my site and sent the remaining gear back to the supplier. I have also removed all YouTube videos and Facebook photos so as no longer to advertise the gear.

I am rather only dealing direct with suppliers or respectable agents.

I hope that clears this up for you.

I will close with saying, I only ever had one complaint about the bats. One of them broke which can happen to anyone's bat, I sent these bats all over the world and never got one complaint.
Click to expand...

Mate, the question isn't whether the ADIDAS bats were good or bad quality.

Thing is they are fake (both the Sachin and pietersen model)- and I am 110% sure about that (grip, toeguard, shape etc). I am just surprised and worried how someone like you got conned into buying fakes like that.

You mind telling us which place this source was from?
 
Last edited:
Update on Vindico:

I spoke with Vindico guy last week; he comes across as a cricket enthusiast. Of course I have been requested by him to not reveal his identity and contact information but he sounds legit. Please feel free to share your review of the bats when you get the chance; they look quite enticing indeed :)
 
Update, I get my crictech bat next week from the uk. I'm also getting my Zafar bat ( mr bat bat ) hopefully on Wednesday. I will let you know how they go.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Here is my experience from the following stores:
1) CricketDirect - great prices, good service, high shipping for me in USA (approx 40$)
2) CricketStoreOnline - good prices, great service, free shipping in USA, great end of season sale, the addidas duplicate did bite me 2 but all purchases after that have been genuine
 
Welcome to PakPassion, i12breakfree! Hope you enjoy your stay here :).

Mind posting pictures/review of which bats you got :)?

$40 shipping is really not too bad from UK to North America really :)
 
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