Getting sick and tired of Zero Tolerance

ZT is nailing it in designs and price points. At SHOT show last year the people/excitement at the ZT compared to Benchmade/Spyderco booths was night and day. The average knife customer doesn't see a new design until it's in the stores, so if takes ZT 12+ months to get to the market, most of their buyers never know or care. Anything ZT releases I expect at least a year. They still don't have significant numbers of 0180, 0562, and 0620 knives out there and none are limited editions. It will be interesting to see if they have as much interest at SHOT show this year.

Remember that Zero Tolerance is part of KAI LTD, owner of Kershaw, Shun knives, KAI housewares, etc. so KAI does not live/die on ZT profits/sales. It probably affords them lower manufacturing and materials costs and more flexibility for taking more time to focus on top notch designs/materials because Kershaw provides the cheaper priced high volume sales/profits for KAI.

Once you start looking at ZT as simply a small niche division of KAI, their business model makes more sense.
 
Do you own a ZT? Try one if you don't and see if you like just the standard production models. If you like those look for the companies that have ZT make them a limited edition. I have bought a couple of the LE from ZT and found that they were too expensive for me to use. Welcome to the forum.
 
I hate to say it, but the complaining about the availability of LE's is getting excessive. It wasn't difficult to acquire any of those knives if you had the funds together when they came out. I distinctly remember seeing the 0600 and 801CF in stock at dealers for more than a few days when they first were released. I spent ten minutes at my computer refreshing the screen to get a 0454, it definitely wasn't an arduous process by any stretch of the imagination. The Ruby, although a Kershaw, was up for like two days before they sold out.

If you really want one of the LE's, follow the forums so that you know when they're going to be released and make sure you have the money ready. Obviously the idea of making limited runs of items is not going to disappear from marketing strategies.
 
LIBERTARIAN1984 said:
I really don't understand this company. They have all the awards, great designs and name recognition you can want but they still play this silly supply and demand game. Every awesome knife that they come out with seems to be limited edition. Just in recent memory here are some knives that were impossible to get your hands on ...0801CF Rexford, 0454 Sinkevich, 0600 RJ Martin and the soon to come 0392 Hinderer. Why? Why are you doing this Zero Tolerance? Are the designers stopping you from producing these knives in mass? That wouldn't make much sense as the idea of partnering up with these well known designers on a production knife is to get it in front of as many people as possible. Is the material so expensive that it is actually costing you money? I haven't heard of one company that would intentionally and consistently lose money just for the name recognition and advertising. I understand that these knives are hot sellers but scarce quantities start before they are even released, all of them were marked as limited edition instead of production. Maybe you just like to see your customers gouged on Ebay and other second hand stores? Anyway, after racking my brain on this ludicrous practice for some time and I have finally given up. Maybe someone out there could give me an answer. Thanks.
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I agree with you, yet disagree with you at the same time.
Yes, I think its silly for them to do this time and time again, yet it makes their products "rare" and "high demand".
I hate that they're getting rid of the 300, 301, and the 0200
 
Well it's funny that two of the knives the OP is griping about (0600 and 0801cf) are two of the most affordable zt LEs out there. A decent amount of them both were made and secondary prices are not insane.


The margins on the LEs are already pretty thin (some possibly even being a net loss for the company) so stopping production of more profitable knives to make more would be bad business.

If KAI USA was interested in making as much money as possible, they would do nothing but make Leeks and Blurs all day, everyday.
 
Scurvy092 said:
Well it's funny that two of the knives the OP is griping about (0600 and 0801cf) are two of the most affordable zt LEs out there. A decent amount of them both were made and secondary prices are not insane.


The margins on the LEs are already pretty thin (some possibly even being a net loss for the company) so stopping production of more profitable knives to make more would be bad business.

If KAI USA was interested in making as much money as possible, they would do nothing but make Leeks and Blurs all day, everyday.
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Exactly. I still don't understand this mentality of blaming ZT for scalpers charging exorbitant prices after the fact. If you miss out on getting tickets to your favorite popular band when they are available, do you blame the band for some shady guy selling them for 10x markup in the parking lot?
 
Wait, a first time poster is pissed at ZT? Ha!

I joke.

The only ZT Limited Edition I was interested in was the 600. I would have one maybe two by now but I don't. Not because I couldn't find one. Not because they were too expensive. The pocket clip is just so damn ugly! Yuck! The blade shape is sick though.

Seriously, if you want one you can find one. If you want one bad enough, you will pay the price.

Like Lost Cosmonaut said, they are called LIMITED editions for a reason.
 
I never have has a problem landing ZT LE knives.I have all three the OP mentions.All I have had to do was stay plugged in on this forum and have a CC ready.Sometimes you can be a day late and a dollar short.Not a problem, because there is always another knife down the bend and around the corner.
 
There's a lot of knives out there I can't afford. I even own a few of them:). And while I wish I could get a custom bowie fighter right now, I don't need one. No one does. IMO all knives over $100 are complete luxury items excepting tools people use directly for specific work tasks.

KAI in particular caters to a wide financial spectrum. They have fantastic and widely available quality budget knives.

ZT is their higher end line. Within that high end line they come out with limited products and keep them limited to protect that higher end market. If they flood the market then they will be getting good short term money but stunting their future sales. The people making these know their market (better than me and this little explanation) and while I want a zt I can't yet get one(yet).

It'll always be nicer to be richer dude, but as long as your needs are met, be happy. The price of medical care is an outrage. The price of ZTs is just smart marketing.
 
I agree. It's very frustrating to not be able to buy a knife because there are all these limited editions and sprint runs.
 
Personally, I like a lot of their LE designs and truly wish they made production versions. My guess is that they are only offering LE because they don't want to infringe too much upon the sales of the custom makers knives, especially with what the prices are set at (especially knowing what secondary market prices are). As it is, I'm guessing that the ZT 0560/1/2 are taking away some of Hinderer's customers. I'm extremely impressed with my 0561, and have yet to feel that an actual Hinderer will be worth the extra cost.

ZT's LE collab's are bringing custom manufacturer's name's to the big time as well as selling much faster than the custom's they are based off of, bringing increased short term revenue, as well as bringing more customers to the designer's own knives. Its a winning formula for both parties, especially considering what ZT is charging for them.
 
I don't understand why they do all this engineering,design and effort to come out with one of these limited knives,like the 0777,it gets delayed by many months, and its gone before you know it. And they are not the ones getting the big money they go for after it goes out the door.Wouldnt they make more money selling them if it was a regular production model available for the next 2-4 years than just making 1000 and moving on to something else?
 
For knives like the 0777, it's not about the profit. It's more about pushing themselves to do new and interesting things and learning what can and cannot be done. A showcase of manufacturing and design if you will. Sometimes that engineering trickles down into production models where it would've never been seen if not tried in an LE first.
 
Im a ZT fan boy! I have 12 of their knives and love them all! Only the 0777s and the 0888s were really hard to get for retail....atleast from my experiences. Anyways anyone excited to see the new offerings (if any?)at Shot Show? I am! Hope they got something badass in the works! I was expecting to hear about a 0392 raffle much like the Blade Show 0454 one. But guess not?
 
While I understand supply and demand and econ 101, there does come a point where its just nonsense and crap after awhile. I had a 0562cf on order for near half a year. I cancelled and bought a new spyderco instead. Hell its not even a limited edition knife!


I really wanted to add that knife to my collection but it'll be sometime in the far far future if I ever do decide to buy one again. ZT I love your knives, but some of this slow trickle drip drop supply, demand demand demand wait and demand some more is just frustrating when there is no visible movement for supply.
 
This is an interesting video from Blade 2014
[video=youtube;f9UXU6Q8UlE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9UXU6Q8UlE[/video]
 
jeeper9010 said:
While I understand supply and demand and econ 101, there does come a point where its just nonsense and crap after awhile. I had a 0562cf on order for near half a year. I cancelled and bought a new spyderco instead. Hell its not even a limited edition knife!


I really wanted to add that knife to my collection but it'll be sometime in the far far future if I ever do decide to buy one again. ZT I love your knives, but some of this slow trickle drip drop supply, demand demand demand wait and demand some more is just frustrating when there is no visible movement for supply.
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First World problems are great aren't they?

I had no problems scoring the 801CF or the 0600, I was late to the party in fact on both of those.
 
Nevermind. Zt proved me wrong beyond a shadow of a doubt today.
 
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There are many reasons why a company does this, and all of them seem to be working. Small runs consistently sell out, the price can be higher because of demand, it creates a feeding frenzy when they are released, it gives high re-sale value, etc. Sounds like they thought this whole process out pretty well.
 
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