Yeah, I'd wager that their own site doesn't generate many new marketing impressions - folks probably arrive there having been introduced to the product elsewhere...
I believe you are right. I had been away from BF, but not knife forums in general, and only recently heard about them from a youtube channel (BlackScoutSurvival.)
Youtube. Folks, it has
always been youtube. There was even a thread asking about how S!K got so big to be selling out of knives 1000 at a time with almost no marketing.
BlackScoutSurvival
Equip2Endure
Nutnfancy
GideonsTactical
etc.
etc.
etc.
Survive! is an internet-based company, and Guy came here way back when to stimulate interest in his original designs, but that is NOT what brought on the massive expansion of orders.
Most customers looking to buy "the best knife for the money" do a google search (or similar) looking for images
and especially for videos. There really aren't that many youtube reviews of S!K products, but nearly every one I have seen extols the knives in one way or another. Google "survive knives" and you get their website, this subforum, facebook, etc., but click the "videos" tab and you are OFF!
Now, people can troll the comments sections of those videos and attack the company every way possible (like one common poster in this thread who presents a very different tone here on BF, leading me to distrust EVERY post he makes), but how many people actually READ the comments on such videos? Especially if viewing them on a mobile device (as is now common)? I am new to these devices (had a flip-phone until very recently) and have only used it to watch videos twice,
not once did I think to check the comments-section.
People who find
this subforum got here from somewhere, but there are NO WHERE NEAR enough people trafficking this forum to account for all of S!K's orders, which should tell you right away that people order from S!K without ever coming here, maybe without ever checking FB (I know that a lot of people abandoned that platform - too ugly and time-killing), the instagram people seem a lot more calm (I don't have an account there but do read comments), and internet blogsters have even less traffic.
People buy in because they like how it looks, like how it performs, and have the money. Some people are patient, others less so.
There was a wave of recent shipping-notices (including something for me
) and the production schedule indicates that the 4.7s (to date, the longest 'in production' knife on the S!K roster, at
13+ months) are almost all out the door.
The 2.7s have been shipping out already (not yet 12 months in production), and if the 4.1s start shipping by mid-December (which seems likely) than they will have taken 12 months to go from steel-being-cut to knife-in-hand.
Missing delivery estimates without giving clear notice of the expectation is stupid, it shouldn't happen. For Survive!, it seems to happen a lot
when they give such estimates. When no estimate is given (i.e. not trying for quick sales), they are actually pretty consistent with their production times... which is a while
(approximately 6 - 12 months right now). People quote "17 months" because that is when they paid for (invested in) a Starter knife, but that is NOT when production started on anything but the 5.1s, which have all been out for a while now, afaiaa. NO ONE has been waiting on a S! knife for 2 years yet.
Regarding the analogy to a "relationship", ONLY the starters and maybe the pre-orders qualify. Folks waiting 15 days, 30 days, 60 days, no way - that's barely in the range of the length of a highschool romance (and also happens to be within the range of entering a credit-card dispute for acquiring a charge-back in the event of REALLY distrusting the company). If you ordered a knife with that expectation and it missed shipping deadlines over and over again (like Clip.'s situation),
no that isn't right, and that "relationship" effectively ended after the second missed deadline -
"Sorry, it's not working out. See you around! Thanks for helping me with my homework." If you chose to stick around despite the missed deadlines, THEN we are talking "investment" because you are giving without taking while waiting for the fulfillment of the promise, an endeavor that takes
trust and
patience.
"Trust" and "patience" do not mean ignoring problems, but they do imply a lack of passive-aggressive behavior,
including saying one thing about the company here on BF and something completely different elsewhere *cough*. It also implies
believing the rep when she says, "We're improving", and YES giving the "benefit of the doubt". If you are NOT willing to give that trust, then
you are the "bad guy" in the relationship.
Ellie has mentioned changes, what is evident on the production schedule is a pause to all production not in-house. Why? Well, they have at least 1000 4.1s in house to finish and ship on top of the remaining 4.7s
and 2.7s,
and the 7/7s that are apparently in-house, and there are only ... is it five now? ... that many people working on them. It may not take that long for the 3.5s and 12s (wait, really the 12's are right after the 3.5s?? awesome) to go through water-jet, grinding, and HT, so I for one will be watching the schedule to see when those start moving forward while ALSO waiting for the next 4.1s to make it into the wild.
Someone asserted that
this thread is supposedly a "cause" of "improvements" in production or communication, etc. I see
no evidence of that, no more than the silly "EDComm" blog-post getting the blogger his knife any faster than it already was coming. Don't kid yourself thinking that your attacks (that's not many people, that's just a few) on the company are making a positive difference. They aren't. Most of the constructive criticism was made a long time ago and can be summed up as, "Ellie, hire more people and stop giving delivery estimates and make MY knife now already." Going back to the title of this thread, this is yet ANOTHER line of, "Here's how S!K
should be doing business," and we've had about enough of those, haven't we? Nothing new to see/read other than about knives shipping out and customers being satisfied or asking for and receiving a refund. The company remains in business and has STILL never failed to deliver, they just take a while. Maybe one day S!K will close this forum altogether like ESEE, Kershaw, others *shrug* They don't NEED a presence here, people. Their products speak for themselves and sell with or without this forum.
In other news, my Starter GSO-4.7 may be arriving precisely on my birthday, which is kinda cool given how totally random it is
