There are a lot of unsubstantiated accusations based on 3rd (or 4th or 7th hand info) cropping up here and on the S!K Fan Facebook page. Some of them sound feasible and could be true. I have suspected some of the scenarios that are now being voiced for a while. However, there is NOTHING to PROVE that they are accurate. At this point it is just libelous BS. With that in mind, I will not discuss them further until more information is provided.
Going back to my first post and subsequent follow up, there are two problems that I wanted to discuss: misleading lead times and the viability of S!Ks business model.
Unfortunately, S!K continues to lie about the availability of their knives. I will not rehash all the details of all the times S!K has knowingly advertised totally unrealistic lead times, or verbally / over e-mail made delivery commitments they were unable to keep. Every person / company misses deadlines occasionally. Doing it once or twice can be excused as accidental, being overly optimistic or even poor management. At this point, there is no reason that S!K can not accurately forecast their lead times. What they are doing is intentionally providing inaccurate information.
Guy and Ellie, I hope you read this: You are actively and knowingly providing false information to your customers and fans. You are lying. You are destroying what little credibility you have left. Please, stop it.
S!K lying to customers sucks. To me, inaccurate lead time are just the tip of the iceberg. It is more important to answer the question why are they lying? I believe that S!K is having a serious cashflow issue. There could be many reasons for this, but the most glaringly obvious is the extremely slow rate at which they are producing knives. Combine the excessive lead times with low margins, increasing OH (adding employees) and other unforeseen costs and you have a recipe for disaster.
I have not seen S!K financials and have no inside information. With that in mind, my assertion that S!K is having a cashflow crisis is to some degree conjecture. However, you cannot repeatedly miss your lead times by the amount S!K has without having cashflow issues. This is not magic. This is not a mystery. It is simple finance.
I will not bore everyone with details, but S!K needs to drastically change their operations to increase capacity and / or get more $s if they are going to survive. It appears that they are trying to get $s buy selling more knives (both seconds / ugly betty / pre-sale / whatever-sale AND new models) and pushing back production of knives that were sold in 2015 or earlier this year. They are not making substantial changes to their operations, and what they are doing is not a sustainable solution.
I am just a guy on the internet. I might well be a chubby, acne scarred, millennial that took a business class in HS and is currently unemployed and sitting in my moms basement using her iPad to access this forum while I am recovering from surfing porn sites. But forget about who I am. Lets talk about S!K. If you disagree with what I say, show me where I am wrong. Explain how S!Ks current business model works and how S!K goes from where they are now to being a profitable going concern.
One more thing: silver, grog, revolver, chiral, standard and the other hardcore fans, I like you guys. I like my S!K knives. I like this forum. I am sad that it has become this negative. But I sincerely believe that S!K is running their business into the ground and lying to their customers. Considering that I was a public advocate for S!K in the past, and knowing what I know now, I will not quietly sit on the sidelines while S!K sells knives under false pretenses.
I'm adding 'hide and go flounce yourself' to my lexicon.
