BM Pulling from Distributors-Who Won't Put Up With It!

BM is Pulling From Distributors-How Do You Feel?

  • I HATE IT. I WANNA DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS!!

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • I Don't Care About Paying MSRP For A Knife

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    0
I hope price doesn't go up too much, I really doubt they will be MSRP. The axis lock is my favorite so I'm glad I have several BM knives already. It'd be a shame if those were my last BM knives.
 
It's time to start buying customs.
 
nate3993 said:
OOH,OOH-we all mail the letters in at the same time???anyone else liking my ideas?
Click to expand...

We should write the letter in this thread then everyone sends the same letter within a day or so. All of a sudden, benchmade finds themselves with lots of the same letter saying people won't buy thier knives if they do this.
 
peanuts said:
We should write the letter in this thread then everyone sends the same letter within a day or so. All of a sudden, benchmade finds themselves with lots of the same letter saying people won't buy thier knives if they do this.
Click to expand...

They will not care, and your stamp will be wasted. This is not a "sudden" thing, those weasels have been working towards this goal for some time.
 
I don't mind them shipping direct to store only, I do mind them jacking prices. From the looks of things at various online outlets they are not going to bring the price up to MSRP, but It will be a lot closer. In reality prices are going up for everybody who doesn't make their knives in China, so you have to take that into account, but it does seem that Benchmade is artificially inflating prices.
The best suggestion I've heard is to look for semi-custom knives instead. It seems that those knives have kept their pricing roughly the same, which means comparitively you're getting more value for your dollar than ever before.
 
I think that Rat hit it right on the head. BM has been doing strange things to their retailers for some time now. I am not amused. :mad:
 
If BM is producing at capacity, making a profit on every knife they sell, why not just make more knives overall? Why not increase capacity?

Look, I don't mind paying MSRP. But a few conditions have to be in place. Either you can actually just straight up lower the MSRP to be competitive, or you can raise the bar so much that the knives are competitive even at the current MSRP levels. Benchmade is a terrific company, worthy of being one of the major players in the knife world. It's hard to imagine what the knife world would be like without them...without their balis, the axis lock and so on.

IF they decide that they want to go play the CRK/Strider game instead of the Spyderco/Kershaw game, they can go for it and I think they'll be successful.

But the current option of simply raising the street price in a huge way without changing the quality is going to fail period. No non-knife person will be willing to spend 150+ on a knife (many of them will be in the 200-250 range anyway), and any knife person will be educated enough to know they can get a direct high quality competitor of that same knife for 100 from Kershaw or Spyderco.

But this isn't what really bothers me so much. The fact is, the quality of BM's lineup, overall, is slumping. I wish they had never released the red line of knives. They just cash in on Benchmade's sterling reputation, but what they're really doing is just creating a Gerber competitor or something like that. Maybe BM decided that high volume low quality knives was the way to bigger profits, but this mixed bag approach just dilutes the company image. If Ferrari started rebadging Ford Mustangs with their logo, and sold them for 35k, would you be as inclined to buy the Ferrari 430 for 160k? I wouldn't. Ferrari is important partly because they simply don't participate in the lower quality markets (not hating on the Mustang, it's just a 25k car). Saying you have a Ferrari, currently, automatically asserts you have a beautiful, high quality fast car. Saying you owned a Benchmade 5 years ago would have been the equivalent..

So what is the strategy here? We're seeing that the overall quality is lowering, and we expect that the overall price will greatly increase. I don't understand how this makes sense. Maybe there's something we don't know.
 
I would have gone for a different option: I don't care that much about their knives and I'm not going to pay MSRP. The price in $ normally represents the same price in euros over here, so maybe only the red class products will still be affordable. I'm not sure whether the new concept goes hand in hand with the one of different product classes, but what the heck, we'll see. There are a lot more manufacturers out there, whose products are much more appealing to me.
 
I don't own any of there knives and probably won't. Just don't care for them that much. So let'em do what they want to do imho it won't affect me one way or another. keepem sharp
 
Artfully Martial said:
If BM is producing at capacity, making a profit on every knife they sell, why not just make more knives overall? Why not increase capacity?

Look, I don't mind paying MSRP. But a few conditions have to be in place. Either you can actually just straight up lower the MSRP to be competitive, or you can raise the bar so much that the knives are competitive even at the current MSRP levels. Benchmade is a terrific company, worthy of being one of the major players in the knife world. It's hard to imagine what the knife world would be like without them...without their balis, the axis lock and so on.

IF they decide that they want to go play the CRK/Strider game instead of the Spyderco/Kershaw game, they can go for it and I think they'll be successful.

But the current option of simply raising the street price in a huge way without changing the quality is going to fail period. No non-knife person will be willing to spend 150+ on a knife (many of them will be in the 200-250 range anyway), and any knife person will be educated enough to know they can get a direct high quality competitor of that same knife for 100 from Kershaw or Spyderco.

But this isn't what really bothers me so much. The fact is, the quality of BM's lineup, overall, is slumping. I wish they had never released the red line of knives. They just cash in on Benchmade's sterling reputation, but what they're really doing is just creating a Gerber competitor or something like that. Maybe BM decided that high volume low quality knives was the way to bigger profits, but this mixed bag approach just dilutes the company image. If Ferrari started rebadging Ford Mustangs with their logo, and sold them for 35k, would you be as inclined to buy the Ferrari 430 for 160k? I wouldn't. Ferrari is important partly because they simply don't participate in the lower quality markets (not hating on the Mustang, it's just a 25k car). Saying you have a Ferrari, currently, automatically asserts you have a beautiful, high quality fast car. Saying you owned a Benchmade 5 years ago would have been the equivalent..

So what is the strategy here? We're seeing that the overall quality is lowering, and we expect that the overall price will greatly increase. I don't understand how this makes sense. Maybe there's something we don't know.
Click to expand...


You sir, have made some very good points... and I agree with you.
 
I'd rather spend my hard-earned money buying from knife companies whose primary focus is on making an outstanding product, not an outstanding profit! Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with companies making as much money as they can, but when more time and focus appears to me to be spent on jockeying for position in the market, instead of on product innovation, it becomes pretty clear to me what the priority of those companies are.

Some knife companies are known for having great relationships with the custom makers they collaborate with. Some knife companies are known for the amount of time they're willing to spend trying to assist, educate, and solicit feedback from their end line users. Some companies are known for their integrity and ethics. Some companies are known for their excellent treatment of their business partners. Those are the companies I buy from, even at MSRP!

Regards,
3G
 
If 1) I can't get their knives from my accustomed dealers anymore, and/or 2) I have to pay MSRP I will not buy any benchmades. It's that simple. I'm not going to get turned around by it. Other than their M4 line they have nothing I need that's not really easily replaced. In fact, I prefer some other brands already for knives at certain price points. I've bought about 7 benchmades in the last year, so I can't say they'ed miss me anyway. Joe
 
I would like to help out and vote but I don't like either option. No I will not pay MSRP for a BM so Option 2 is out and I am not a big enough fan of BM knives to "WANNA DO SOMETHING" So option 1 is out. I have a price range I will pay for a knife and BM is more often than not over the top on their prices. The few BM's I have I got good deals on. If I happen to see a good deal on one I may pick it up. If there are no deals to be had then NO BIG deal. Lots of other knives out there that are as good to choose from.
 
Sorry you're not allowed to be rational on the internet. It's all or nothing.
 
I don't think this new strategy would work. There are plenty of good knives from other manufacturers and I sure they will be more than happy to do more business with the dealers that BM will stop supplying.

Perhaps, if this does not work, BM can ask the government for a bailout.
 
Seeing as you guys are so good about predicting the future would ya'll mind giving me the winning lottery numbers for the rest of the year?...lol...

Until things shake down no one knows what the results of this move by Benchmark will be. I will say I have seen manufacturers do this when I owned a brick and mortar store and there was always the same moaning from people and it always turned out that it ended up best for both the dealers, the company, and the customers. Before you jump off the ship it is wise to see if it is sinking.
 
The only Benchmade knife I would consider buying is an Ares to replace the one I sold a few years ago. The only way I would buy a BM now would be to forget my glasses, then mistake the BM for a Spyderco because of BM's use of the round Spyderhole. Can I get 3 cheers for ethical business practices?

If they want to bite the hand that feeds them, fine by me.
 
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If it's a MAPP program like has been mentioned before, I doubt we'll see any price increases. I'm getting a Griptilian here in a month or so when the new '09 blades come out and the place I purchase from hasn't mentioned any price increases. Either way, it's probably my last Benchmade anyway. I prefer the spyderco/CRK/Strider/custom product.
 
Bad move imo. Stupid stuff like that makes companies go under. That said, I like their knives but there are others I like more sooooooooo WTF! Guess I better hurry I get that Bali after all:D
 
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