Category: Disc Data

Disc Brand Sales Comparison During The Summer of Covid-19

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We thought it would be interesting to take a look at how the different major disc brands would stack up in terms of sales during the months of April 2020 through October 2020. This year was crazy in terms of the growth of disc golf despite the Covid-19 pandemic and it definitely took a toll on disc supply. Most major brands faced growing pains and struggled to keep up with the demand for discs. Here at Infinite Discs we had to deal with the challenge of keeping popular models in stock, and there were definitely dry spells with brands like Discraft that sold out almost every time we restocked.

NUMBER OF DISCS SOLD

To keep things simple, we tallied the number of discs sold each month from each brand. We combined Dynamic Discs with Latitude 64 and Westside since they are manufactured in the same factory and sold in partnership. We also combined sales of MVP, Axiom, and Streamline since they are technically the same company with three brand names. Keep in mind, this is based entirely on sales through Infinite Discs which only represents a piece of the entire market. Here are those sales charted against one another.

While Innova (blue line) kept a steady increase in number of discs sold through the focus period, you can see that Discraft took some dips as supply ran out, only getting another lift with the new releases in October. This could be an indication that Innova simply had a deeper supply of discs stored in their warehouse to help them meet demand. However, new disc production eventually needs to meet the demand while stored product eventually runs out.

The Trilogy brands (Dynamic, Latitude 64, and Westside) saw a slight decline in sales at Infinite Discs  during the period. A possible reason is that we saw some of the most popular molds, including hot selling putters, run out of stock and vanish from restock order forms. But we fully expect production to catch up and for sales to grow steadily with the surge in disc golf players.

Discmania, Prodigy, and MVP held surprisingly steady through the period, through Discmania has  started to decline more recently with the absence of staples like the P2, PD2, etc. and their move of some signature disc releases away from other retailers to exclusivity on their own website.

Here is a closer look at the five brands that fell beneath the much higher Innova and Discraft numbers:

Note, the line colors changed on this focus chart. Blue is now showing the Trilogy pattern, with the green showing MVP and the orange showing Infinite Discs.  Discmania is he red line and yellow shows Prodigy holding fairly steady.

As the holidays approach it will be interesting to continue watching the battle of supply vs demand. It will also be very interesting heading into the 2021 season to see how manufacturers adapt. Will they get the change to catch up? Or will manufacturing approaches have to change and focus higher quantities on a smaller number of molds in order to at least keep the most popular discs in the hands of players? We will watch and see!

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below. 

Best Selling MVP, Axiom, & Streamline Discs – October 2020 Edition

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Best Selling MVP, Axiom, & Streamline

It’s time again to look at the best selling disc golf discs from MVP, Axiom, and Streamline! All three of these brands are made at the same location, under the general brand of MVP. On the chart, each disc will be color coded to its brand, and each bar represents the sales of that disc.

Disclaimer: All data is from October 27, 2019 to October 27, 2020 from InfiniteDiscs.com sales figures. Due to rules and regulations, we cannot show exact numbers, but can show the comparison in sales between all molds.

The Top Sellers

For the third year in a row (since doing these charts), the Envy takes the #1 spot! Not only did it take the cake, it sold nearly double the amount of the #2 spot, the Wave. The next couple of spots where close: the Pilot took #3, the Atom took #4, and the Proxy followed up with #5.

It is great to see that each of the top 3 spots where taken by a different sub-brand. Each sub-brand was also spread out throughout the chart, showing that each brand has some strong selling molds.

Discontinued Molds

All of these discontinued molds were announced in August of 2019, but we have been selling the remainders of them for the past year. The MVP Axis and Amp are the highest ranking discontinued molds, taking the #16 and #17 spots respectively. We have had a lot of the Axis and Amp in stock over the past year, but soon they will be gone for good.

Your Bag?

Let us know what you are throwing? Where do your discs fall in on the chart? Do you prefer the lesser-known discs or the ultra-popular ones? We’d love to hear from you!

Disc Golf Sales Data: Zone, Harp, Envy, Pig

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Zone vs. Harp vs. Envy vs. Pig

Today we are looking at sales data for the Zone, Harp, Envy, and Pig! We are going to look at data from September 2017 to August 2020. Let’s see how it all panned out:

Axiom ENVY

The Envy (yellow line) started off strong, with a big surge during 2017’s Black Friday sale. MVP / Axiom always get a huge surge on Black Friday, with everybody buying new limited edition stamps and discounted discs. The Envy is a big seller every Black Friday, as seen by bumps in the line just before each “January” marker.

The Envy has always been a consistent seller; it is a go-to disc in most MVP/Axiom bags. It has sold well for years, and when Covid-19 hit, it took a rise in sales (along with every other disc golf disc).

Westside HARP

The Harp (blue line) was a staple in many peoples’ bags for years. Ricky Wysocki threw the Harp until 2019, helping the sales stay high. From the chart, we can see that the Harp started to decline in sales in early 2018, with not much recovery until early 2019. The recovery didn’t last long and Harp sales stayed lower, but consistent, compared to the other approach discs.

Discraft ZONE

The Zone (red line), has been around for years- selling well, but not amazingly well. When Paul McBeth switched to Discraft in January, 2019, sales exploded for nearly every Discraft mold. Zone sales, especially, went through the roof as McBeth added it to his bag. The Zone became a Paul McBeth Signature Disc, which made it very popular, and consequently, harder to purchase.

While the Zone popularity was surging, Covid-19 and Brody Smith came along and added fuel to the fire. Disc Golf sales in general surged, and factory shut downs caused major supply chain issues. The Zone was suddenly a harder commodity to purchase. We would get them in stock and they would sell out the next day. Luckily, we kept a fairly steady trickle of them in stock, making the Zone a steady best-seller on the chart in 2020. There are some dips and rises, as the stock went out and in.

If there was a clear winner on this chart, it would have to be the Zone. While it mingled with the rest of the Approach Discs early on, in 2020 it has separated itself from the pack.

Innova PIG

The Pig stayed silent for years… barely making the sales charts until the summer of 2019. Why 2019? The answer is Ricky Wysocki. The same Pro who may have contributed to the Harp’s demise, was now bringing the Pig to light. Wysocki chose the Pig as his Harp replacement when he switched to Innova, causing Innova fans to take a second look at the disc. It started off slow, but the Pig made it’s way into the mix by mid-2019.

We also released some special Pig Stamps in 2019 and 2020, causing some small spikes in sales. While the Pig may not be the Zone league yet, it has improved vastly from 2017 and 2018.

That’s it! Do you notice any other takeaways from the chart? Let us know in the comments below!

Discraft Top Selling Discs – September 2020 Edition

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Top Selling Discraft Discs

It’s time to look at the past year of Discraft Sales and see what the top selling Discraft discs are! We’ve included every mold that sold at least once over the past year (Sept 2019 – Sept 2020). We have also included a few other statistics on the chart. Let’s take a look and then discuss!

graphs showing top selling discraft discs

The Top Sellers

The top five molds are no surprise- the Buzzz takes first place as it usually does, while the Luna comes in at a close second. The Luna had some stock issues throughout the year, leaving us wondering if it could have taken the first place spot, had it been in stock more often. In third place, we find the Zone. In fourth and fifth place we find the Undertaker and Zeus respectively.

The Heat claimed the 6th place spot, as it has become a very popular choice for an understable driver over the past year. Do any of these positions surprise you? Let us know below in the comments!

Buzzz Sales by Plastic

We broke down the Buzzz sales by plastic type, to see which plastic sells the most. As you can see in the chart above, ESP took the cake with Z Line in close pursuit. These have always been the most widely available Discraft plastics, but ESP has been looking better and better every year, which may make it more appealing than Z Line.

Big Z, Z FLX, and Titanium plastic are other staple plastics in the Discraft quiver, and they claimed the next three spots.

 

Sales by Disc Type

The next pie graph down shows us the percentage of sales of each disc type (putter, control driver, distance driver, and midrange). Discraft is a little unique in this aspect, as most brands sell putters and/or distance drivers the best. Midrange discs usually come in last place, but not with Discraft.

Discraft starts off with Putt & Approach discs at 32.2% of sales – the Luna and Zone accounting for most of those sales. Midrange discs come in second place at 26.6%, followed by control and distance drivers.

 

Signature Discs vs Stock Discs

Finally, we compared the sales of the Paul McBeth and Paige Pierce signature molds against the rest of Discraft’s molds. We only included the unique pro molds, not stock discs with a signature on them. This includes the Anax, Hades, Luna, Malta, and Zeus for McBeth, and just the Fierce for Pierce.

It turns out that 22.5% of all of our Discraft sales are attributed to Paul McBeth Molds, and 2.6% are Paige Pierce Fierces. Combining these, we find that just over a quarter of all Discraft sales are from these six Signature Molds.

 

Let us know what else you find interesting in the comments below!

Tracking Distance Driver Sales for Destroyer, Wraith, & Zeus

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We recently took a look at putter sales over the past couple of years. Now, it’s time to compare the sales of the top three distance drivers. For this data, we picked the top three selling distance drivers from 2019 and 2020 (so far). These turned out to be the Innova Destroyer, Innova Wraith, and Discraft Zeus.

In the chart below, we’ll look at sales from Jan 1, 2019 to August 31, 2020. We will see the impact that Covid-19 had on sales, as well as some supply chain issues.

Here is the chart showing the sales from Infinite Discs:

Analysis:

The Destroyer (blue line) has a long history of being the top selling distance driver. For the past two years, this is no different. The Destroyer did lose some momentum right at start of 2019 when the Zeus (Kong, at the time) was released. It then had steady sales with some minor ups and downs. With all three discs, we see a sharp uptick when the pandemic started to take hold.

The Wraith (red line) has always had steady sales; it’s a popular staple in a lot of players’ bags. However, towards the middle of 2020, it really started to take off. In August of 2020, the Wraith overtook the Destroyer in sales. The release of the “Solar Wraith” stamp definitely gave the Wraith a large boost in August 2020.

The Zeus (yellow line) had a strong start in March of 2019. There were many times when we ran out of stock of Zeus, due to popular demand, causing the sales to drop in some months. The Big Z Zeus was released in August of 2019, causing another massive spike. The pandemic did cause Zeus sales to rise, along with every other disc, but due to supply issues, it never reached it’s full sales potential. Even now, the Zeus is out of stock. (Hopefully we get more soon!)

Supply Chain Issues

The pandemic has admittedly helped the growth of disc golf. Every mold went up in sales, the popular molds sold out, and starter sets became very hard to find. You can see on the graph, that the start of the pandemic in March/April of 2020 caused the sales of all three molds to begin to climb. However, in mid-2020, the supply chain started to slow down, and discs became hard to get in stock. Now, in August 2020, we have began to restock many needed molds.

Let us know your thoughts, and/or which discs you’d like to see compared next!

Tracking Putter Sales for the Luna, Aviar, and P2

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A lot of people in the disc golf market have called 2020 “The Year of the Putter.” The Covid-19 outbreak gave an unexpected boost to putter sales because of the surge in backyard putting. Plus there was additional interest in disc golf as an ideal sport for outdoor, socially distant play.

With that in mind, we thought it would be interesting to track three of the top-selling putters from April 2019 (typically when the spring season lures players back onto the courses) through August 12th, 2020.  We don’t only want to see how the sales compare putter against putter, but also how the supply-and-demand issues in the market have caused sales to fluctuate.

Here is a chart showing those sales as tallied by Infinite Discs.

The LUNA by Discraft (blue line) has seen the biggest swings and spikes. As the signature putter by professional player, Paul McBeth, it gets plenty of time in the spotlight. Availability is always an issue– the putter sells well when it is in stock, but then drops sharply whenever the supply diminishes.

The AVIAR by Innova (red line) has the most steady trend as the supply has typically followed the demand without too many dips. It also followed the sharp spike that coincides with the pandemic outbreak.

The P2 by Discmania (yellow line) also saw growth during the pandemic but saw a sharp decline in the summer months as the supply of the putters completely dried up.

We’ll continue to watch the sales on these popular putters and other discs and will continue to report on this blog from time to time. We hope that you find this data interesting. There’s no doubt that the pandemic has made an impact on the sport and on disc sales, possibly more on putters than other discs.

Let us know your thoughts and perceptions in the comments below.

Best Selling Disc Golf Discs – Top 50 – First Half of 2020

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Top 50 Disc Golf Discs

It’s been a while since we have posted a data article! It’s the perfect time to reflect upon the best selling disc golf discs of 2020.

As many of you know, Disc Golf has experienced immense growth this year! With a pandemic on hand, many people are looking for ways to get out and recreate! A lot of new  people wanting to purchase all kinds of discs, starter sets, and baskets. This, mixed with the fact that some major manufacturers were required to shut down operations for many weeks, cause for a shortage in certain disc golf molds.

Many molds sold better than ever before while many molds sold out for weeks at a time, causing their sales numbers to drop. When you take in the data, remember that half the battle of these molds was simply staying in stock.

This data will show exactly which molds sold the most in the first half of 2020. Ready? (Unfortunately we cannot show exact sales figures, just relative data to show which discs sold better.)

top 50 disc golf discs chart

The best selling disc golf discs during the first half of 2020.

The Results

The Discraft Buzzz took first prize, while the Innova Destroyer and  Discraft Luna took second and third. We definitely struggled to keep these molds in stock, but their sheer popularity took them to the top 3.

The Judge, Hades, and Mako3 were just some of the molds that could have made it much higher on the list, but our low stock issues kept them further down. That’s just how 2020 has played out!

Best Sellers by Disc Type

Let’s take a quick look at which type of disc sold best:

best sellers by disc type

Yep, so far it has been the year of the putter! We saw a crazy run on putters during the early stages of the pandemic. Many people were staying at home and needed putters to practice putting with. For some people, it was the only way to enjoy the sport they love!

Distance Drivers took second, as always popular molds. Everybody wants to throw further! Control Drivers took third, while Mid-Ranges took last place– even though the Buzzz took first place in the overall Top 50.

What do you think? Did your favorite discs make the Top 50? Was there a disc that should have made it, but didn’t? Let us know!

STATE OF DISC GOLF 2020 – How Many Discs We Own

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Every year we enjoy asking disc golfers questions about their disc purchasing habits and preferences. As a retailer, this is a subject that always interests us at Infinite Discs. We help customers at all different levels, from the novice who wants to know the best beginner discs to the hard-core collector who buys the hottest new releases. It’s time to share the data collected from the survey participants on the subject of how many discs we own and what motivates us to purchase more.

HOW MANY DISCS DO YOU OWN?

Many of us remember when we were new to the game of disc golf. The first time we see another player carrying a backpack loaded with discs is usually a shocker. Why could the possibly need so many discs? It doesn’t take long to learn why multiple discs are necessary as you become a more serious player. But some of us dive much deeper into the sea of plastic than others. Here’s a look at how many discs survey participants claim to own.

Of course, those who would take the time to participate in a State of Disc Golf survey are typically more serious players. Thus, the number of participants who claimed to own less than 10 discs was very low. The highest column on the chart is the one representing players who own 41-60 discs. That means that the sweet spot is somewhere around 50 discs. However, as the quantities go higher, the number of responses doesn’t drop much. The final quantity of 200+ discs is the 2nd highest on the chart. In fact, just over 14% of those surveyed own more than 200 discs! 

HOW MANY DISCS DID YOU BUY?

Perhaps you are a player who thinks deeply about what you want in a disc, weighing the pros and cons of each purchase before pulling the trigger. But there are plenty of other players and collectors who have a fast trigger finger when it comes to disc buying habits. Some players only purchase a disc when they lose a favorite. Others purchase a disc in the hopes that it will improve their game. Others purchase discs to hang on the wall. In the end, how many discs did the survey participants purchase in 2019? Here are the results.

A good number of survey participants claimed not to have purchased any discs in 2019, but the vast majority made disc purchases. The largest column is the one that represents 10-14 discs purchased. That’s an average of about a disc per month, which sounds pretty reasonable for an avid player. You may find it interesting that 58 people claimed to have purchased more than 200 discs in 2019.

HOW MANY DISCS DID YOU BUY TO COLLECT?

Let’s take a moment to measure how many discs were purchased solely for the purpose of collecting. When asked how many discs survey participants purchased only to collect, these were the results:

About 46% of those surveyed said that they purchased absolutely no discs for collection purposes. Another Another 24% said that they only purchased 1-3 discs in 2019 to collect. That makes about 70% who are probably not serious collectors. However, there are a good number of people who purchased large numbers of discs and who primarily purchased those discs for collections.

WHERE DID YOU BUY YOUR DISCS?

There is one more piece of data we’ll look at in this run-down, and that answers the question of where the survey participants acquired all of their discs in 2019. Was it at a local pro shop? Was it online? Was it at a tournament? Here’s the results.

Survey participants could choose as many answers are applied to their situation. So most people picked several sources. The most common answer was “Local Disc Golf Shop” which means that the pro shops and individual disc golf stores out there are still a vital part of the market. It is hard to compare online shopping with the feeling you get when you walk into a store, hold the disc in your hand, and thumb through a pile of plastic.

Online shoppers are still plentiful with 4127 people saying that they’d purchased a disc from Infinite Discs. That might be expected since we hosted the survey. But the 3799 survey respondents also said that they’d purchased from other online retailers as well, like Disc Golf Center, Marshall Street, etc.).

There were 1319 people who claimed to have purchased from Amazon.com and a smaller number at 972 from EBay. Those larger online retailers are important, no doubt, but in this case did not look as popular as other specialized local and online stores.

COMING UP LATER…

In a future blog post, we’ll take a look at the responses to the survey which indicate what factors are most important to players when they make their disc purchasing choices. Is it rarity, stamp design, brand, or something else? Stay tuned, and feel free to leave your comments below.

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