Comeuppance
Fixed Blade EDC Emisssary
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2013
- Messages
- 4,765
After a recent less-than-ideal interaction with a custom knifemaker, I was reminded of a thought I had about success in the knife world.
If you offer good products and service at a good price, business can explode very quickly - to the point where you have more interested potential customers than time. So, what do you do?
Some do lotteries, some have long wait lists, some stop taking custom orders altogether. Others get burned out or move into a production mode.
Some, however, try to take it all on and end up slacking in quality and customer service.
Once someone is popular, demand becomes high and the prices rise. People start ordering custom knives just to sell them once the wait is over. The price set by the maker becomes irrelevant as getting one at that price is either a randomized (and extremely unlikely) chance or a wait that borders on profane. (Demko springs to mind. 3 year wait! And we're a relatively small group of enthusiasts and that's an even smaller segment that is going to cough up $500 and wait years for a knife, and yet he still gets so many orders that the wait is insane.)
Then the knives have such a high street value that few could justify using them. I've seen more than a few high- dollar knives change hands here and elsewhere 4-5 times before they saw any use or marks. They cease to be tools and become commodities.
Is there any good solution to a knifemaker becoming overwhelmed that doesn't involve going into full production? Cloning?
If you offer good products and service at a good price, business can explode very quickly - to the point where you have more interested potential customers than time. So, what do you do?
Some do lotteries, some have long wait lists, some stop taking custom orders altogether. Others get burned out or move into a production mode.
Some, however, try to take it all on and end up slacking in quality and customer service.
Once someone is popular, demand becomes high and the prices rise. People start ordering custom knives just to sell them once the wait is over. The price set by the maker becomes irrelevant as getting one at that price is either a randomized (and extremely unlikely) chance or a wait that borders on profane. (Demko springs to mind. 3 year wait! And we're a relatively small group of enthusiasts and that's an even smaller segment that is going to cough up $500 and wait years for a knife, and yet he still gets so many orders that the wait is insane.)
Then the knives have such a high street value that few could justify using them. I've seen more than a few high- dollar knives change hands here and elsewhere 4-5 times before they saw any use or marks. They cease to be tools and become commodities.
Is there any good solution to a knifemaker becoming overwhelmed that doesn't involve going into full production? Cloning?
