Benchmade's out of stock online... What "officially" is going on?

[MAURICE]

They quit making the old model 800 AFCK with a liner, you cannot get a plain edge with BT coating anymore, and a lot of their models just don't appeal to me anymore. Their newer models aren't what I would call bad, but I have no desire to buy any of them with the exception of maybe the Shoki. I'm not calling it quits with them or anything but they have made some calls I would not have.

Edited to add some comments on red class knives.
There is no problem with the red class knives other than just not being my thing. I always wanted the high speed, low drag, super duper knife steels for the longest time. You don't need them. I don't use my knives enough to justify paying out the butt for the newest whiz bang steel and I am willing to bet if most of the members of this site took an unbiased look at everyday use they would have to agree. My old Bob Ogg slipjoint with 440c or my Buck 110 is more than adequate for any task. Besides, if you know how to sharpen a knife then you don't need a knife with a rockwell hardness of 62.

 

[softrockrenegade]

buy from local shops support this poor economy i know it costs a few dollars more but its for the best.....

 

[Bonescraper]

no idea what some of you are talking about. I just got 2 benchmades that are perfect. Not a single flaw. D2 and S30V blades. Micarta, G10 handles. Amazing knives and materials. RAZORS right out of the box. Perfect centering, No blade play what so-ever.

 

[DallasSTB]

I don't have a huge amount of experience with Benchmade, but I recently bought a 940 Osbourne and a Mini-Griptillian. I've been very pleased with both in terms of quality, materials, and price.

 

[Ken44]

buy from local shops support this poor economy i know it costs a few dollars more but its for the best.....

Theres no local knife shops here, and hasn't been for 20 years. A few in Atlanta, 1.5 hours away, but no good ones. Around here we do have several knife shows a year and many guns shows. Those shows and the net is were all i know buy there knives. And hardly any of those dealers at the shows have a storefront.
This will hurt BM, and they will find out quickly.

 

[Mitchell Knives]

If I can't buy a BM online via my preferred knife merchants, I won't buy it. There is not a knife shop in my area, so buying online is my only option. I think that this move will cost BM sales in the long run.

 

[gmarthur]

I don't understand this discussion at all. Benchmade is not going to quit allowing dealers to sell online. The only difference is the seller will have to be an authorized Benchmade dealer. Online shops that have virtually no overhead used to be able to buy from distributors and undercut actual knife stores that have employees and rent to factor in. All this does is make sure that people selling BM knives online are actual knife dealers and not online fronts that order the knife from a distributor after you order it from them. I thought these threads were done with months ago when the policy went into effect. Six months later and I can still find discounted Benchmades knives online from reputable sellers. Maybe I'm missing something and BM announced a halt of all online knife sales??

 

[knarfeng]

We all know that many of our favorite online retailers are out of stock of all our favorite blades and I hear this is due to a change in Benchmade company policy.

Can someone simply and clearly explain what changes Benchmade has made to it's sales policy and why?
Thank you.

PS. Why have New Graham, yourcornerstore, and Knifecenter (for example) been out of most Griptilians for months but all of a sudden they now have many of the new 2009 models like the Barrage, Torrent, Nagara???

All I know is that MY favorite online retailer has a full line of Benchmades and the prices don't appear to have risen.

 

[akadave2]

buy from local shops support this poor economy i know it costs a few dollars more but its for the best.....

I agree with you there. However my local shop comes out about right at online prices when you consider shipping.

I havent seend a bad Benchmade. I think they could have done better withe the Opportunist but other than that they have a solid product.

 

[Wunderbar]

There is not a single Blue class knife that uses a poor quality steel. 440C, AUS8, etc is only found in their Red class knives.

No, those are all fine steels, but at one time Benchmade made all their blades from ATS-34.

 

[Knife Outlet]

This is a problem endemic to much of the industry. Many manufacturers have too many SKU's and the production runs are too far apart. The production runs are also too short to put enough in stock to carry them to the next production run. The distributors had a leveling effect on availability because there are several of them and most of them kept stock with an eye toward the short, infrequent production runs. Without the distributors, the expectation is run some production, ship it to the backorders from the dealers, go on to the next run. You should expect these kinds of gaps in availability. Actually Benchmade has always been poor at service of supply. This new system just makes it a little more obvious.

 

[FortyTwoBlades]

There is not a single Blue class knife that uses a poor quality steel. 440C, AUS8, etc is only found in their Red class knives.

440C is now found in the Presidio Ultra, in the Black Class line. Still not Blue Class, but I thought it worth mentioning.

 

[dano]

No, those are all fine steels, but at one time Benchmade made all their blades from ATS-34.

Is the implication that ATS34 is a "bad" steel?

 

[Knife Outlet]

The only difference is the seller will have to be an authorized Benchmade dealer. Online shops that have virtually no overhead used to be able to buy from distributors and undercut actual knife stores that have employees and rent to factor in. All this does is make sure that people selling BM knives online are actual knife dealers and not online fronts that order the knife from a distributor after you order it from them. I thought these threads were done with months ago when the policy went into effect. Six months later and I can still find discounted Benchmades knives online from reputable sellers. Maybe I'm missing something and BM announced a halt of all online knife sales??

A couple of points. If you go to Ebay and trace Benchmade sales you will see that they are being sold very highly discounted by authorized dealers for the most part, not by what you seem to refer to as pretend dealers. I don't have any stake in any of it. I stopped selling Benchmade knives several years ago. But I can tell you their approach to the problem will not result in what you view as the intended outcome. It never does. The internet is what it is.

One advantage they may get from this move is that, with fewer dealers, they may have a better chance of keeping them supplied. Their service of supply record is pretty dismal. Truthfully, I suspect that is the major reason they did it. The other was probably to satisfy the brick and mortar dealers by doing something they viewed as positive. I'm not an insidier so I'm just guessing.

But the pricing on the internet won't change at all. The authorized dealers will beat each other up for price just like unauthorized ones did. If they don't do it on their websites, they will do it over the phone or on Ebay. The internet is what it is.

 

[Knife Outlet]

Double post. Sorry.

 

[Wunderbar]

Is the implication that ATS34 is a "bad" steel?

No ATS-34 is awesome. Benchmade just went from a high end steel across the board down to a variety of high end and medium end steels. Understandable for marketing purposes but that makes them no longer an exclusive "high end steel only" knife club like Emerson or Microtech.

 

[TrickyVic]

No ATS-34 is awesome. Benchmade just went from a high end steel across the board down to a variety of high end and medium end steels. Understandable for marketing purposes but that makes them no longer an exclusive "high end steel only" knife club like Emerson or Microtech.

Doesn't Emerson make most if not all their knives with 154cm steel?

Oh yeah to the OP, I haven't had any problems getting BMs online. It's usually in stock somewhere. I've only been using BMs for about 10 years, but I would say their quality hasn't dropped. I recently picked up a 930, 940, and a Ritter-Grip, all were great quality.