biggest selling folders?

Tuff

Tuff

Joined
Jun 15, 1999
Messages
981
What are he best selling folding knives of 2003-2004? Anyone have any idea? Is there a place that keeps track of something like this?
 
The sad thing is that some cheap rip-off copy probably outsold any one mainstream manufacturers knife. :(
 
Saks,Victorinox alone makes about 18 million folders a year.

Knockoffs.

Whatever Wally world and others sell.Gerbers,Kershaw,Buck.

The Spydercos,Benchmades,Emersons that we knife people like are really SMALL companies,and not what the masses buy.
 
mnblade could well be right, but we'll never know. I do marketing research from time to time. One of the hardest things to find out is sales information. Manufacturers know how many of a given SKU they sell to retailers or jobbers, but they seldom make that info available because of competitive considerations. Retailers know how many of a given SKU they sell to the consumers, but they typically don't release that info either, and you would have to aggregate it across retailers. Manufacturers associations will often have estimates for how big an industry is, in terms of how many dollars worth of sales there were in a given year, and sometimes how big a product category within the industry is, but that's not what tuff is asking about.

Here's something else to think about, especially in terms of the knockoffs mentioned by Patryn. In marketing there is a rule of thumb called the 80/20 rule. It means 80 percent of the product in a given category is consumed by 20 percent of the consumers of products in that category. Think beer for example. The rule predicts 80 percent of the beer that's sold would be bought by 20 percent of the beer drinkers, and that turns out to be very close to reality. Which explains why beer ads are relentlessly aimed at 20-something men. But whereas the typical 20-something man wants a bland and inexpensive beer, something just like Bud Lite, which is not coincidentally the leading brand, the heavy knife consumer wants anything but a bland and inexpensive knife. This explains how strong production manufacturers like BM and Spyderco, not to mention custom makers, survive--they sell their output to the 20 percent of us that buy 80 percent of the knives. The thing is, there isn't any Bud Lite of knives. Knives are a product category with huge variety compared to beer. So the big consumers of knives spread their choices among a very large number of selections. Considering that the Vic Classic is a knife that both the 20 percent will buy (I have probably half a dozen myself) and the 80 percent will buy, it's a pretty canny guess as to the single leading seller. But I would suggest that whatever the leading seller for the year was, it had a lot of competition nipping at its heels.
 
Among the general knife buying public I think SAK's for sure. They have marketed them selves well for years. All the non knife folk I know recognize them, or own one, but have never heard of anything else I carry.
 
GRMike, I'm a little confused by your 80/20 example. I agree with it, but I think it's clearer to say:

80% of the people who buy knives, buy the standards: Buck, Victronox, etc.
20% of the people that buy knives, buy more niche, Spyderco, Becnhmade, etc.

The Victronox appels to box the 80% and the 20%.

(I have one).
 
DaveH said:
GRMike, I'm a little confused by your 80/20 example. I agree with it, but I think it's clearer to say:

80% of the people who buy knives, buy the standards: Buck, Victronox, etc.
20% of the people that buy knives, buy more niche, Spyderco, Becnhmade, etc.

The Victronox appels to box the 80% and the 20%.

(I have one).
Click to expand...

Not to add to the confusion, but I read it more like this: the top 20% of knife consumers buy 80% of the retail supply. This 20% tends to be the more discriminating shoppers who aren't happy with just anything. Think about it; here on bladeforums we're the people who are never happy and always want the next and greatest thing. For us the Buck lockback isn't good enough we want an Endura. And then the Military comes out and we get that. Then we decided the AFCK is better. And then we get the Paramilitary, then we decide we want to get into assisted openers and we get a Leek and a Flash and so on and so on. That's 7 knives just in that example and that's 6 more than most people have. I have way more knives than anyone else I know and my collection is small and cheap next to many of the people on this forum.
 
DaveH, you're right. The beer example was confusing. 80/20 only talks about volume. In terms of product features, the 80 percent are usually interested in one or both of two things, a low price and a name brand. That would explain the popularity of the standards, as you point out, as well as the presence in the marketplace of the knockoffs that Patryn mentions (Meyerco is one I see around here). I think it also explains the popularity of cross-branded knives like Beretta and Winchester (not the repros but the cheapo wood-handled ones in blister packs). Some of these low-priced items (SAKs, Bucks, Schrades) also appeal to many of us in the 20 percent--low price is not a barrier to a sophisticated consumer when desired features such as materials, design, workmanship, quality control are present. That's the definition of value.

DeadManWalking makes a very good point. If we surveyed a sufficiently large number of people at random--1,000 or so would be fine--and asked them how many knives they bought in the last year, we could plot the number of knives bought by the number who bought that many. That plot would not be a normal curve. It would follow what is known as a power law. It would look like sort of like a hose looks when you stretch it on the lawn and pick up one end. The end you're holding is the left end, representing 0 knives bought. This is the highest point of the curve, meaning of all the numbers of knives reported to us in our survey, this number (0) was reported the most often. The curve would rapidly drop as you increase the number of knives bought from 0 to 1 to 2 to whatever the largest number reported in the survey was (sorry, more confusion here I'm sure). The point being, there are a lot of people who buy very few knives and a few people who buy one hell of a lot of knives. The 80/20 principle captures that crudely. The curve, if we had the data, would capture it precisely.
 
MNBLADE: I'd reckon the Victorinox Classic outsold everything by a wide margin.
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I agree. They're in just about every department store and hardware store in the country. Lot's of non-knife people have them on their keychains.

I suppose the answer that would interest me would be what is the most popular knife among the ourselves -- people we'd think of as knife knuts. Maybe define the group as anyone who buys one or more knives per year with the knives costing $40 or more???? That's where you'd see something like the Delica show up.
 
GRMike said:
DaveH, you're right. The beer example was confusing. 80/20 only talks about volume. In terms of product features, the 80 percent are usually interested in one or both of two things, a low price and a name brand. That would explain the popularity of the standards, as you point out, as well as the presence in the marketplace of the knockoffs that Patryn mentions (Meyerco is one I see around here). I think it also explains the popularity of cross-branded knives like Beretta and Winchester (not the repros but the cheapo wood-handled ones in blister packs). Some of these low-priced items (SAKs, Bucks, Schrades) also appeal to many of us in the 20 percent--low price is not a barrier to a sophisticated consumer when desired features such as materials, design, workmanship, quality control are present. That's the definition of value.

DeadManWalking makes a very good point. If we surveyed a sufficiently large number of people at random--1,000 or so would be fine--and asked them how many knives they bought in the last year, we could plot the number of knives bought by the number who bought that many. That plot would not be a normal curve. It would follow what is known as a power law. It would look like sort of like a hose looks when you stretch it on the lawn and pick up one end. The end you're holding is the left end, representing 0 knives bought. This is the highest point of the curve, meaning of all the numbers of knives reported to us in our survey, this number (0) was reported the most often. The curve would rapidly drop as you increase the number of knives bought from 0 to 1 to 2 to whatever the largest number reported in the survey was (sorry, more confusion here I'm sure). The point being, there are a lot of people who buy very few knives and a few people who buy one hell of a lot of knives. The 80/20 principle captures that crudely. The curve, if we had the data, would capture it precisely.
Click to expand...

That's a good way to put it I think and also explains why you can't really say what sells the most... I'd say it's probably the Victorinox Classic. #2 through #25 are probably offerings from Monster Mart brands like Buck, Gerber, Winchester, Schrade, Case, Victorinox again, etc.

On the other hand I have a case right here with about 12 knives and a multitool in it by various manufacturers... Spyderco Victorinox Benchmade Cold Steel SOG CRKT Kershaw and Gerber are all represented and most of them are less than a year old. This is about 1/3 of my collection but this case alone represents well over $500 tied up in knives. That alone puts me in the top 33% of knife buyers I bet. If you consider what I've bought over the course of my lifetime I bet I'm in the top 20%. Of course 12 good production tools is nothing to brag about on this forum, but the point is we are the minority here on the forums.
 
A knives availability is a good indication. SAK's are available almost everywhere, most department stores carry a good selection of old Timers, Bucks, Schrades, Gerbers, etc. But as far as a lock back I'm going to guess it's the Buck 110...they must be making a hell of a lot of them to retail for $30 and still make a decent profit!

Collecter
 
Hey tuff! You must feel like your question got hijacked.

Here's the answer to your question (drum roll please). Whatever is the best seller in China is the world's runaway best seller. That would be a knife that is probably unavailable in the west.

If we're talking about the western world only, my guess would be the leading SAK model--possibly the Vic Classic but maybe more likely (on reflection) the Recruit.
 
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