Check us out at www.3balls.com!
3balls
has been in business since 1998, but if you want the whole
story, you've got to go back a ways, 24 years back to be
specific.
In
1981 two very good friends, Joe Ricci and Leigh Bader arrived
at a run down 9 hole golf course in South Easton, MA. The
pro shop was an unimpressive 290 square feet (about the
size
of a large living room).
Determined
to make their dream of golf course ownership a reality,
the
two pitched in their savings of $2,000 each, bought a little
inventory, hung an "open" sign and with those
humble beginnings, Joe & Leigh's Discount Golf Pro
Shop at the Pine Oaks Golf Course was born.
Thinking of the pro shop as a toy store and the golf course
as an amusement park helped them grow the business (to say
the least). Today, Joe & Leigh's is an 8,000 square foot
pro shop that has been honored to win numerous national
awards,
including making the list of Golf Digest's GolfWorld Business
Top 100 Pro Shops in America TEN times over! And Leigh's
been
named the PGA of America National Merchandiser of the Year
2002 an impressive career second! He was honored in 1995
as
well.
The goal of Joe & Leigh's has always been to "make
a friend, not a sale" that means building lifelong relationships.
With a strong focus on customer service, it never occurred
to Joe or Leigh to do anything other than take trades. One
of the most highly visited areas of the shop is the space
dedicated to used equipment, where customers spend countless
hours looking for that "diamond in the rough".
As
the Swap Shop got busier and busier, a longtime
sales associate and PGA Golf Professional for Joe & Leigh's, Alan Sullivan,
suggested we post some of the slower moving inventory on
a
new marketplace called eBay (this was in 1998). Before long
the entire Swap Shop was nearly emptied. Suspecting we might
be onto something (??) we began to aggressively procure the
Finest Used and Like New Branded Golf equipment and started
working on our own web site.
After a year of rapid fire growth, 3balls was officially
incorporated in January 2000. Passionate about serving golf
and growing
the game, 3balls is committed to maintaining the highest
integrity, offering outstanding values, preserving manufacturer
brand
experience and above all, providing a fun experience for
our customers. (That explains the original monthly comic
strip
on our web site and the straight talk you'll find in our
auction listings.)
Our enthusiasm for eBay has grown even stronger. (It remains
our number one sales channel.) Our daily auction postings
and eBay Store demonstrate our commitment to the eBay community
and serving its 95 million registered users. Here are some
more tid
bits
about
the relationship.
• 99% Positive Feedback Rating
• Red Shooting Star Powerseller (reserved for
sellers with over 200,000 feedbacks)
• Item Postings in the Thousands Daily
• One of the Largest Golf
Equipment Sellers on eBay
3balls headquarters is a large mixed-use facility in West Bridgewater,
MA, where our growing staff handles all order processing,
fulfillment
and customer service to support 3balls sales (whether through
our own website or on eBay). In addition to the warehouse
fulfillment facility, visitors will find the core 3balls
management team, (see bios in cast
of charaters) in-house, creative, and a one of a kind
retail/ showroom/ gallery experience.
Ok, so what about the name?
Well
if you look carefully at the Joe & Leigh's Swap Shop
sign near the top of the page, you'll see in the corner
there are
3 glass globes hanging behind the vintage golfer. Those 3
balls (get it?) are the universal symbol of traditional
pawn
shops and the inspiration for 3balls.com. That's the inside
story! If you want to see some inside pictures, take
a peek
at this
illustration of the 3balls logo design process. |
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