I will not pretend to know what kind of profit margins are in knives, but it can't be to high. And any one selling knives would have to sell a huge number to pay the bills and stay in business. Just think about the costs in doing business. All of them. No one gets into business just to pay the bills, you have to make some money. Personally, I'm glad to see BM making a bold step toward tightening their ship and eliminating dealers that want to whore their product out. Seems alot of people want something for nothing. You simply can't buy a quality product and expect to get top service if there is nothing in it for a dealer. Period! When a company eliminates non-authorized dealers and dealers ruining it for others by whoring product out, it makes dealers look at brands they can make more money on.
If people like to buy from small dealers that offer that more personal feeling in a transaction, then they must understand this will only help those dealers out more by evening out the playing field a little. I run a small locally owned bedding store. I do not compete with the shear volume of business that a chain operation does, so I have to make up for it in offering a much more complete package. Better service, free delivery, free sheet sets or pillows etc. My store has been in business for over 50 years. But we are surely feeling the mess with the market. Don't think your favorite places like New Graham, PVK and many other smaller dealers are not being effected as well. This, can only help them.
Hopefully, other manufactures will follow suit and the whole " Can't beat our price" mentality will fade.Then, people will look to being concerned with the whole buying experience. Today, it seems we have gone to mostly disposable goods and this is due to dealers who really do not care what they sell products at. That also encourages importing some, not all, but some crap made in 3rd world countries instead of taking care of legitimate manufacturing. Whether the companies are in the US or elsewhere, we need to be concerned where its coming from.
I look at the thread here asking the ? about who is concerned with morals and remember also about how people were all about supporting the slightly higher prices of AG Russell. I don't mind spending a little more for everything I expect to get in a transaction.
If you would like another example. When I ran an Audio/Video Retail store, I seen profit margins fall on TVs and the like. Much of it was due to the internet and places like Wal-Mart driving the margins down way below 10%. And that is before you calculate in freight and advertising as well as other expenses. I seen many businesses fall within the last several years including 25+ store chains.
If pricing becomes more normal, not gauging or slashed to bits, but fair pricing for all involved, its only going to help stablize the market and save jobs. We just have become so sensitive to pricing.
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