Desperate:Please give advice!!!

Joined
Feb 11, 2022
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49
Hey guys I'm brand new to this forum and just looking for advice and maybe a distributor/vendor.

So I have a local (trade day) in my town and was walking around the other day and noticed an open market that I could maybe fulfill. There was no knife booths. I mean some of the booths had a couple knives on the table but there wasn't any dedicated booths. I'm thinking there's some money to be made there and possibly a business in the making. I'm young and determined!! I live in the south and pretty much every adult male has a pocket knife in their pocket. So I'm thinking about renting out a booth and selling knives but I have no idea where to start. I just recently got put on disability and can't go back to work due to a very bad injury. I was in a car accident and can't walk without a walker. So I've got some questions....

Where do I buy bulk wholesale knives?
How many knives should I buy and how much should I spend?
What knives are popular and sell the best?
How could I draw in customer to the booth?
What are some good ways to display or set up my booth?
What should be my markup percentage?
Is this even a good business to be in?
Am I wasting my time?


Any information is greatly appreciated. I love knives and have a pretty good collection already. But I don't want to sell my personal knives. So I'm looking for a vendor..
 
Hey guys I'm brand new to this forum and just looking for advice and maybe a distributor/vendor.

So I have a local (trade day) in my town and was walking around the other day and noticed an open market that I could maybe fulfill. There was no knife booths. I mean some of the booths had a couple knives on the table but there wasn't any dedicated booths. I'm thinking there's some money to be made there and possibly a business in the making. I'm young and determined!! I live in the south and pretty much every adult male has a pocket knife in their pocket. So I'm thinking about renting out a booth and selling knives but I have no idea where to start. I just recently got put on disability and can't go back to work due to a very bad injury. I was in a car accident and can't walk without a walker. So I've got some questions....

Where do I buy bulk wholesale knives?
How many knives should I buy and how much should I spend?
What knives are popular and sell the best?
How could I draw in customer to the booth?
What are some good ways to display or set up my booth?
What should be my markup percentage?
Is this even a good business to be in?
Am I wasting my time?


Any information is greatly appreciated. I love knives and have a pretty good collection already. But I don't want to sell my personal knives. So I'm looking for a vendor..

I'm new here guys! Go easy on me. Lol
 
I've never done anything like this but if it were me I would try contacting manufacturers directly. I would also try to get tickets to Blade Show 2022. There would be tons of people there that could help you and it would be good networking if nothing else. Although if your like me you would probably leave there with a lot less money than you walked in with.
 
I've never done anything like this but if it were me I would try contacting manufacturers directly. I would also try to get tickets to Blade Show 2022. There would be tons of people there that could help you and it would be good networking if nothing else. Although if your like me you would probably leave there with a lot less money than you walked in with.
I guess generally I'm looking for cheaper knives to start out with. More of a quantity type thing than quality until I know if I'm going to make it or not. And I gotta feeling the Blades how is nothing but quality expensive knives.. I mean who takes cheapos to a world wide show. But that's great advice as to go and look at other people's booths to get ideas of what I want mine to look like and ask questions of what's selling popularly.. I appreciate the feedback MrStabby!!
 
Sounds like perhaps you’re already in a saturated market, if not over saturated. Selling cheap knives will mean your customers will be shopping for low price rather than quality. Problem is, there are a lot of cheap knife sellers out there, perhaps many hungrier than you.

What will set you apart from your competition? Your knowledge of models and materials? Your ability to quickly put a keen edge on cheap steel? Your huge inventory and wide selection?

Gotta be something, if you want to succeed.

Parker
 
Sounds like perhaps you’re already in a saturated market, if not over saturated. Selling cheap knives will mean your customers will be shopping for low price rather than quality. Problem is, there are a lot of cheap knife sellers out there, perhaps many hungrier than you.

What will set you apart from your competition? Your knowledge of models and materials? Your ability to quickly put a keen edge on cheap steel? Your huge inventory and wide selection?

Gotta be something, if you want to succeed.

Parker
There isn't any knife sellers in that particular establishment. Theres a few booths here and there with maybe a dozen or so knives available but not much of a selection. Mostly just show/display type knives. So I'm thinking variety would be my number one attraction. And the sharpening thing is awesome advice.. I've got a pretty decent sharpening set up already for my personal knives so I could incorporate that in my booth. Have people drop there knives off to me while there shopping and pick them up when there done and charge like idk $5-$10 to sharpen it. In that area they let people set up 3 days a week and there are probably like 50-60 different vendor selling everything from fighting Chickens to dirt bikes and ATVs. Basically just a glorified flea market.. I know I'm not going to get rich off this in the beginning. I'm more or less wanting to do it bc I'm disabled now and very very bored.
 
And by no means do I think I'm a cutlery guru or anything. But if I do start something I was thinking KlayKutlery would be a pretty cool name because my name is Klay. Lol. Man this forum is actually pretty cool. Most forums are full of douche bags and trolls that get off on roasting other peoples downsides. Everyone here actually seems pretty cool and professional.
 
There are many wholesale cutlery distributors here in USA
But you must have established retail business and be accepted
Many good or very good manufacturers have no wholesale - or restricted one way or another
But of course you should and must try
Good Luck !
 
I've been looking on Google sites and government auctions and even eBay for like TSA confiscated knives and stuff like that. Im not really finding any great quality knives but definitely knives that would sell. I live in a rather poor county so I don't think quality expensive knives would sell very well. But I have no idea. I'm new to all this. If anyone has any suggestions where I could find bulk knife lots online other than what I've listed, please share...
 
What it sounds like to me is your going for the impulse buyer. Selling cheap knives seems difficult. Its too easy for someone to pull out there cell phone and order the same knife from amazon for dirt cheap. You might be better off buying a couple high end knives and seeing how it goes. You can't get a Sebenza off amazon and a knife like that will hold its value if not increase over time.
 
I agree with you %100.. And you right. Impulse buyers would probably be my bread and butter. I'll get a fewer high end knives just to see how they do but for the most part I don't think that the people shopping at flea markets have $200-$500 to spend on a pocket knife. I may do some type of specialty order type thing if there looking for high end knives.. But I can't rent out a whole booth and put 3-5 knives out on the table. That'd be silly and just off looking. And I definitely don't have the funds to fill the tables with high end knives. And your right again, They could get on Amazon and buy the same knife online but I think seeing it, holding it, feeling the weight,size ECT would be why they would buy from me...

Idk, lol... I'm trying to look at this from every point of view. I would absolutely love to sale high end knives and only deal in them but I live in the poor south. Some people's cars cost as much as some high end knives.
 
maybe some less expensive work/outdoor knives like Morakniv,Hultafors etc. and some Swiss Army knives (SAK) could be a good start.

edit: Opinel, Douk Douk knives are well made and very affordable
 
I think you need to learn a lot more about business in general, plus knives, before venturing into this. Maybe look to the same event a year later instead.
For now, find a retailer that sells knives near you and see if you can get a job there to learn as much as you can. Also there’s lots of info online about retailing and knives.
Having an interest in something like this is great but being in the business is a different thing.
 
In my neck of the woods people think Gerber, Kershaw's and CRKT are high end expensive knives.lol

I know what you're saying. Except here, Kershaw and CRKT are almost unheard of. Buck, Gerber, Leatherman, are the standard stock. People here also buy knives from Browning, Winchester, and Smith & Wesson because of the firearms association.

Go to the places where you want to set up your booth, and talk to the other vendors. Not as "Klay Kutlery", but just as a regular person who's there to browse, and maybe buy something for your nephew, who's into knives.

Doesn't matter if you really have a nephew, or not. Just for conversation purposes.

Obviously, don't take notes right in front of the other vendors, but you should be able to get an idea of what does well, and maybe where there are some unmet needs in the retail space. So to speak.

You may find that "knife adjacent" products are what really does well: gardening knives, machetes, axes. You may also have some success selling vintage axes, and painted sawblades, but we're a long way from strictly knives now, aren't we?

There's a fine line between "realistic" and "cynical", and even I have trouble telling which side of it I'm on. I know from the flea markets and suchlike in this area that "good" knives are a hard sell. Most of the guys who start out trying to sell Cold Steel, Kershaw, or CRKT, eventually either move to another market, or liquidate their stock. If people do well selling knives, it's because they're cheap and cool. Balisongs, "tactical" knives, and tantos, do well. These same vendors also sell pepper spary, and cloth goods celebrating the 2nd Amendment.

Before you get too deep in money or time on this, I would caution you to take a long look at your reasons: do you want to make money, or do you want to sell "good" knives? Because those two things may not be the same.

And, while I was writing this, 2 220-9er said it shorter. Oh well.
 
I think some people are getting the wrong idea of what I'm trying to do. I'm not talking about going into a full blown business and I'm not talking about going to trade shows and knife shows to set up and sale. I'm simply talking about setting up a booth at a flea markets on the weekends and selling knives. Nobody ask the origins of where a $12 knife was made and the kind of steel it was made from. I'm not trying to sale $200-$300 dollar knives. I'm trying to set up $1-$5-$10-$20 tables and just ssale some cheap knifes and make a little extra money.
 
With that being said the majority of what I'll sale will probably be $1-$10 cheap gas station style knives simply because they look cool to the buyer.
 
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