It seems that new tennis stores are popping up all over the internet. You’ve got the big dogs like tennis-warehouse.com that have been around the internet since the dawn of time. You’ve also got hot and new companies online like Tennis Plaza that seem hungry and want to revolutionize the world of tennis (beein in sizzling Miami, FL since 1990, online only a few years). You’ve got companies like Tennis Express that are using flickr in a whole new way for SEO and to conserve bandwidth to their own servers by pulling from the flickr servers.
You also have companies like Midwest Sports Outlets, Golfsmith (which knows Golf but NOT tennis), & TennisBoom (designed in 1998 and still the same website??). Their are some companies that have no idea of what the internet is for like Players Choice Tennis. These guys just use it as a business card for their website. This means it is almost pointless. My Tennis Store focuses on 40+ ladies fashions in the tennis world. The Tennis Company seems like most of them.
What really makes all of these online tennis stores unique.
#1 is their reputatation
#2 is their price (which with minimum advertising pricing is hard to differentiate)
#3 is their product selection (none of these stores carry the same online selection, tennis-warehouse has the largest)
#4 is the involvement in the tennis world (Tennis Plaza sponsors the Sony Ericsson Open and many local tennis programs throughout the country)
#5 is their customer service (open 7 days a week? Do they have access to your entire profile of orders across internet, phone, & web – Tennis Plaza does)
#6 is their language (need native Spainish, Tennis Plaza is the way to go)
#7 free shipping – Tennis Plaza is free even for a $1.99 item. Nobody else does this.
You can go to website like resellerratings.com, bizrate.com, pricegrabber.com do get an idea of the reputation of an online company. Even search blogs for company names to see what others have to say about them. Hope this helps you find the best suited tennis store for your needs.
Other Resources:
Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Tennis Plaza, Tennis-Warehouse, TennisExpress, MidwestSportsOutlet.
Tennis Noise 