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Total Fishing Gear Free-flow centrepin and Recommended Retail Prices

D

David Clewer

Senior Member & Supporter
This reel has a stated rrp of £330, yet is currently being sold by Fishtec for just £69.99 with free delivery! Two questions.

1. Is it any good? The blurb makes it sound brilliant but that can't be trusted so has anyone used one? I know that the TFG Classic (rrp £234.99, selling for £59.99) got mixed reviews, so just wondering what the verdict is on this 'superior' reel?

2. Can rrps be trusted? How can anything that is new and allegedly costs over £300 be on sale for less than a quarter of its recommended price? Are the mark ups on fishing tackle that huge?

I will be interested to hear your views.


Dave
 
They are £62,99 on ebay delivered from the same company,(with two reviews)just looked.The tfg classic is a great reel for the money, I got one for £20,in a local tackle auction,but supposedly the spring steel ratchet tensioner is a bit fragile. Rrp with Fishtech is always unrealistic the two prices at the same time show how silly they are.
 
I have one but haven't used it yet, seems ok for what I want to use it for, RRP is ridiculous but then it is on a lot of things, one known fault is the weak ratchet spring so I got a couple of spares just in case, I wont be trotting with mine cant stand up but I have read reports that others use them for this with no bother.
 
I've got one (the Freeflow) and I'm very happy with it, been mainly using it for Grayling fishing up to now.

RRPs are fantasy prices for lots of fishing tackle and it's about time the practice was clamped down on, I believe a complaint to trading standards would succeed based on what items are commonly sold for.
 
With the free Flo selling from Fishtec on Ebay for £62.99 after paying selling fees and paypal fees they must be selling them for about £50 delivered.I would be tempted to ring them,explain fees and offer them £55 if you wanted one.But get ready to click buy it now on Ebay if they say no.
 
You know what they say lads, "If it sounds too good to be true, it generally is"
If you want a quality pin these are not for you, but if you want a budget, usable pin then don't hesitate;)
 
David

For a bit less money you could get a perfectly serviceable Trudex, Rapidex or Speedia, all of which will have been better made and will, probably, last a lot longer than the TFG pin.

If you're really in the market for a new good quality pin that doesn't break the bank, though, I can recommend the Grey's Bewick (which is a true pin) and the Okuma Aventa.

Having said that, I also own (and use) an Ikonix (which cost me the princely sum of £19.99 when it was on half price sale last year), which is just a re-badged TFG X-Pin, which itself was just a re-badged Marco Cortesi, and that is absolutely fine and seems to be reasonably well built - it survived falling out of my car doing 40mph (back door not shut properly) and still works without issue...
 
Steve,

I wasn't necessarily looking to buy one just wanting to know how it compared with centrepins that are actually priced at over £300. I have a modest collection already, including an Avon Royal Supreme that I have had for nigh on 40 years and some of the modern 'bargain' reels including both versions of the Marco Cortesi.

I guess my real beef (excuse the pun!) is with RRPs. These should provide some indication of quality - I've never seen a brand new Rolls-Royce selling for 20 - 25% of its retail price! - but in the case of fishing tackle we seem to have some suppliers quoting rrps that are just fantasy. Perhaps it should be referred to trading standards. Bit like those furniture shops that have permanent sales and never seem to offer any of their goods at the stated retail price....


Dave
 
Ahhh right, gotcha.

Well, yeah, I guess the manufacturers/selling agents of these 'pins probably look to your (new) Youngs and Hardys and think "that's the same as ours", and then dream up some unlikely Real Rip-off Price, so it's all just BS to draw people in and make them think they're getting a top-end boutique hand-made reel for peanuts, when in reality they're getting a mass-made thing from an automated factory in China which then get re-badged depending on where in the world they go and who buys them.

I've always been a very mobile angler, not being too afraid of getting into difficult swims, and also typically walking several miles in a single session, so all of my equipment gets a bit of a battering. Also, I'm not a collector. Those things being the case, I've never even considered buying anything like a Youngs or a Hardy, or a vintage Aerial, because I know the hardships it all goes through. The most I've ever spent on a 'pin is for an Okuma Sheffield that I purchased from Mike Window on here, but even that is considered as being at the cheaper end of the market. Otherwise, all of my pins have cost me £40 to £50. So I've never used any of the real high-end reels. What I will say, however, is that the Ikonix (the only cheap modern 'pin I've used) does the job without any problem whatsoever and, so far (in the one season I've been using it at least), it has performed as well as any of my other 'pins.

Don't get me wrong - you CAN tell the difference between the Ikonix and the Okuma just by handling it, similarly to how you can tell the difference between an Okuma Sheffield and Aventa just by holding them, so I daresay you would be able to tell the difference between this TFG reel and a Youngs or whatever. But, as with the Aventa, in use the Ikonix performs more than admirably at its typical price (£50), let alone the £20 that I got it for.

The thing to do is ignore the marketing and just take it for what it is.
 
Like TFG, JW young rods have always had a very high Rrp and then they state a heavy discount the price. Not saying these are the only companies that do the same but unless they can prove that for 30 days in the past that they sold at the Rrp or they could be in deep Do Do by the trading commission and probably committing fraud. So how can they discount a new item straight away as it's hitting the shelve at a discounted price with a high Rrp ?.
Anyway ive owned a few centre pins and fly reels from TFG before and found them well made for the money. All lasted well before i sold them on
 
Free-Flow RRP

This rrp lark does seem a nonsense Dave.
I see that particular reel has been advertised with a rrp of 399.99 and offered at a ' giveaway ' 129.99 on some sites.
RRP just seems meaningless, ...a product will ultimately find its correct worth or it just won't sell in this internet age no matter how hard some retailers try to pull the wool over a punter's eyes.
 
I've got both Okumas and recently got a TFG Free flow. I love it, lighter than the Sheffield, just as well made with better bearings. Can operate the check with the rod hand too.
I'm told they're made in the same factory as the Okumas.
What's not to like?
 
For me, a rrp of £330 discounted to about £70, probably means a retail price of about £50 :) The size of the discount is also a little bit insulting, if you know what i mean. I very well could be wrong though.

Stephen
 
Iain Tutt said:
Like TFG, JW young rods have always had a very high Rrp and then they state a heavy discount the price. Not saying these are the only companies that do the same but unless they can prove that for 30 days in the past that they sold at the Rrp or they could be in deep Do Do by the trading commission and probably committing fraud. So how can they discount a new item straight away as it's hitting the shelve at a discounted price with a high Rrp ?.
Anyway ive owned a few centre pins and fly reels from TFG before and found them well made for the money. All lasted well before i sold them on
Click to expand...
r


Not sure about now but a product only had to be advertised in one shop at an inflated price for that price to become the pre discounted price, it was a favourite trick in the furniture industry
 
Stephen Whyte said:
For me, a rrp of £330 discounted to about £70, probably means a retail price of about £50 :) The size of the discount is also a little bit insulting, if you know what i mean. I very well could be wrong though.

Stephen
Click to expand...

I would never feel insulted if I could get that % as a genuine discount Stephen :)
 
TKmaxx/Homesense have come under pressure recently for made up RRPs. I do wonder how DragonCarp get away with it, but then isn't it owned by the highly controversial Mike Ashley aka mr sports direct?
 
As others have mentioned inflating the rrp is a common practice in many industries. Other tricks include price matches for model numbers that are exclusive to that retailer, ie not sold anywhere else - favoured by the electronics retailers.

In all seriousness though, surely common sense would prevail when faced with a rrp. of £200+ reduced to £50? Also it's TFG, so not exactly a high end manufacturer which the rrp would seem to suggest.
 
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