Has rising inflation caused considerable knife price increases?

[PocketKnifeJimmy]

As the title asks... What are your opinions on how current inflation has affected knife prices in general. I've personally seen it run the gamut. Some knives seem to have held to about the same pricing they've been at for the past few years, some have went up a little bit, and some have made big jumps in pricing.
I know that inflation is caused by various factors, and many of those factors are hitting all companies, no matter how big or small. So, to a certain degree, all knife makers have needed to face their own price hikes in their operating costs. And yet, somehow, some of these firm's products have risen to no more than the usually expected bump that match previous expected increases.
But again, some have had huge increases.
In other words, what I have not seen is high rising costs across the board.
I wonder if some simply were quite profitable at their previous pricing, and maybe these firms are eating their own costs to stay highly competitive, while still making a decent profit.
Then there is the fact that knives are all over the place, lots of competition, and as inflation rises, people start thinking twice about their expenditures. Getting more knives could be a luxury that gets cut out from folk's budgets. Companies could fear that happening on a large scale, so maybe they simply have to keep people interested, with one way of doing that is to not price themselves into a corner that makes people shy away altogether from them. Just me thinking out loud here.

So, what say you folks pertaining to this matter?
Thank you all for your input and opinions

 

[CHNeal]

It a bit early to see the damage raise prices by the non-gougers on much other the fuel needed to receive material and deliver finished products. These increases are coming but most ethical companys will raise prices to pass on additional cost to the consumer as theses are incured. The knives you are buying now were not as affected buy this ever increasing issue as they were produced and shipped earlier.

 

[shane45-1911]

I believe the pandemic has influenced cost more so than "standard" economic inflation in the last year and a half. Of course that still amounts to the same thing - stuff costs more.

Manufacturing and supply chain will be recuperating for some time, I suspect.

 

[PocketKnifeJimmy]

I had purchased a Randall from a very reputable online knife dealer about 4 to 5 months ago.
My cost, before any shipping or taxes, was $595.
That same online dealer now has that same exact model listed for $735. That's a $140 price increase.

I have run across the total opposite on some other rather recent knife purchases.

I do wonder how the latest fuel price increase will impact the knife making/selling community.
We are talking EVERTHING going higher because of this. Going to be an interesting situation for all of us, (obviously with knife purchases being the least of our worries).
Hope we get to see some light at the end of this tunnel

 

[Steely_Gunz]

I have a sneaking suspicion that all things are going to remain high and that wages and earning will eventually reflect it. Everything costs more now due to material procurement AND demand. It's been a double punch to prices on all durable goods: Things honestly are costing more to get. There has been a shortage of people due to disease mitigation thus a shortage of materials as no one was able to be behind the lever to crank out the "stuff".

However, most manufacturers have seen a huge uptick in demand regardless of price, and I see that as a hedging maneuver. Yes things are more expensive, but maybe we can get a few more drops of blood from the stone. It's very hard for me to hear huge corporations cry about just how gawl-darned expensive it is to do business, then report multi-billion record profits. So, IMHO, it's a combination of legitimate aggravated/higher than normal inflation due to multiple factors AND a bit of juicing from the top down. Every manufacturing business I work with is seeing/partaking in this to some degree. I have had to do it a bit in my business as a proactive measure. I have to price my products a bit higher now with the anticipation that someone is going to juice the prices more than is necessary for me to buy materials in the near future and leave me holding the bag to lose profit because I promised a certain price to my customer. Case in point, I normally see about a 3-5% increase year over. 2020 was more of a lost of time than money because things didnt cost me a lot more, they just took forever to arrive. In 2021 I hedged at 12% for 2022 using what tea leaves I could muster to read. My 2022 cost is 22% higher on average not factoring in current oil pricing spikes. The only reason I have been given is "Yeah, everything is just going up...it's crazy man". No one seems to be looking real hard for the answer because I keep paying my bills because the customer keeps writing me checks for what I price things at.

But I digress...

I would expect knives as a whole will go up as all of the various cogs, widgets, and workers increase in price due to the mentioned reasons. I would say that any knives not an inflated price now are mostly due to retailers simply selling their stock at their mark up based on what they bought it for, which is fair. They aren't bidding you a job to be completed in the future based on guesstimate pricing. When they restock, the new pricing will reflect that.

I dont ever see pricing coming DOWN. I would guess that once demand and pricing settles into a balance, then you will simply see the prices stagnate a bit until normal inflation catches up with this hyper-inflation and pushes them up again. In short, we will be used to buying them at the elevated cost and won't think much of it until it's pushed higher again.

 

[PocketKnifeJimmy]

It a bit early to see the damage raise prices by the non-gougers on much other the fuel needed to receive material and deliver finished products. These increases are coming but most ethical companys will raise prices to pass on additional cost to the consumer as theses are incured. The knives you are buying now were not as affected buy this ever increasing issue as they were produced and shipped earlier.

I think a lot of what I see out there on knife prices is as you say... They were paid for, or a previously agreed to price, is how they were acquired. And, as new orders are put in by the vendors and such, their pricing will have jumped up quite a bit.

As for the secondary market, I sure had quite the sticker shock when I decided to finally bite on getting one of my "Grail" knives recently.
I had wanted one of the Buck 184 'Buckmaster' hollow handled survival knives for quite some time. I knew they weren't cheap, and that they held good resale value, but I truly jaw dropped when I saw how much they had risen in price within just the past few years. I wanted a truly mint unused specimen, and wanted it to be one of the silver color variants that had the BUCKMASTER name drop forged right into it's blade. I did wind up getting exactly what I wanted, but only got the mint knife and it's sheath, it not having any of the accoutrements that would have been shipped out with it originally, (no silva compass, no original box, and no original paperwork). Even so, the darned thing wound up costing me just over $800 after the taxes were included.
That may seem high, but it was the most mint specimen I could find, and was actually quite a bit less in price than some of the others I was peeking at that had met my criteria.
I guess the many months of lockdowns & shutdowns, people did some serious shopping, (I am one of the guilty ones in that), and the Buckmaster's prices went through the roof during that time.
True story!... I looked into the pre-pandemic pricing of Buckmaster 184 knives, and it did show that they had gone up by 40 to 50 percent after the pandemic began.

 

[Greggy]

OP's post is a virtual economics exam question. There are a host of factors that have worked side by side to impose upward pressure on prices in the knife market. First, the pandemic likely increased demand for knives, as men (primarily a male-driven factor) got bored or addressed the increasing loneliness by intensifying their knife collection interests. This alone will cause prices to push upwards. Second, and this applies for the most part to large mass manufacturers. Large producers may tend to avoid the spot market for steel stock by buying steel in forward looking contracts. They can lock in prices for a period of time and thus avoid increases in costs for that period of time. When these contracts expire, prices are negotiated upwards to match current spot prices. I suspect that inflation is finally working its way into these supply costs and much of the resulting cost increases will be passed on to final prices and consumers. Finally, and this is an unknown to me but I am suspicious. I wonder if US based manufacturers with manufacturing capacity in Asia face unfair or uneven treatment in foreign lands, with respect to labor conditions, pricing of raw materials that are produced in the foreign lands, taxes paid to foreign governments, working conditions requirements imposed by foreign governments, etc. I wonder about this. Could partially explain price advantages apparently enjoyed by Civivi, We, and the other Chinese manufacturers.

 

[Bob Denman]

As a fella who has already bought too many knives ths year: prices are up across the board.
I've bought knives from $90 to $750, and they've ALL jumped this year...

 

[not2sharp]

Shipping cost and taxes are up (including the infamous PayPal 1099 forms) So prices have to go up.

n2s

 

[ferider]

Since most of the knives we are talking about are luxury goods, pricing works differently than for consumer goods. Compare to luxury hand-bags or shoes, for instance, they are priced to what the market takes, much more so than using a fixed ROI on top of COM.

Which is why the pandemic mattered, the current inflation not so much. Not yet anyways.

 

[elde66]

I see prices increasing due primarily to transportation and raw material costs. Demand may well decrease due to consumers feeling increases in everyday costs for necessities as well as the uncertain world situation. Personally, I’ve purchased my last knife of the year and am actively selling parts of my collection online.…..a consequence of fixed income vs. inflation.

 

[Hyesouljah]

What people aren’t talking about is record high profits most companies are experiencing, take gas companies for example…. Knife companies too though.

 

[shane45-1911]

What people aren’t talking about is record high profits most companies are experiencing, take gas companies for example…. Knife companies too though.

Source please??

Costs are typically higher right now due in part to the pandemic impact. I am not aware of any knife company reporting record-high profits this year or last. Everyone is trying to recoup their losses due to people spending less - again due in part to the pandemic and loss of jobs, and/or cutbacks and layoffs due to DWINDLING sales.

Prices are climbing to offset the slow-down in the economy and the lack of end-user expenditure as well as the increased manufacturing, material and shipping costs - not to make people rich. That is not profit. If anything, I'd say most companies have had a dismal profit margin, when compared to pre-pandemic years.

"Record-high profits"? I highly doubt it.....

 

[sgt1372]

I lived thru the "inflation" of the 70's and you haven't seen anything yet!

Back then, my mortgage had a 16% interest rate! My current mtg rate is 3%. Fortunately, real estate didn't cost that much back then and I could afford the mortage but, if those rates come back again, there will be A LOT of foreclosures on ARMs.

Gas prices back then were around $1 but the gas "crisis" then had people lined up overnight to buy gas. The same thing could also happen again now with prices in CA now at over $6/gallon, which is what I paid the other day.

Inflation will kill the value of your $'s but it makes NO sense to be in the "market" (any market) right now because who knows how far the markets will drop w/the possibility of WW3 looking us in the face.

So, the cost of knives will go UP along w/everything else with "inflation" but will DROP like a rock if a depression hits thereafter, in which case, the value of your $'s will be restored and you can then buy A LOT more knives. LOL!

 

[Bob Denman]

Source please??

Costs are typically higher right now due in part to the pandemic impact. I am not aware of any knife (or other) company reporting record-high profits this year or last. Everyone is trying to recoup their losses due to people spending less - again due in part to the pandemic and loss of jobs, or cutbacks/layoffs due to DWINDLING sales.

This isn't profit - prices are climbing to offset the slow down in the economy and the lack of end-user expenditure, and the increased manufacturing and material costs. If anything, I'd say most companies have had a dismal profit margin, when compared to pre-pandemic years.

I agree: cite your sources...

 

[Hyesouljah]

Source please??

Costs are typically higher right now due in part to the pandemic impact. I am not aware of any knife (or other) company reporting record-high profits this year or last. Everyone is trying to recoup their losses due to people spending less - again due in part to the pandemic and loss of jobs, and/or cutbacks and layoffs due to DWINDLING sales.

Prices are climbing to offset the slow down in the economy and the lack of end-user expenditure as well as the increased manufacturing, material and shipping costs - not to make people rich. That is not profit. If anything, I'd say most companies have had a dismal profit margin, when compared to pre-pandemic years.

"Record-high profits"? I highly doubt it.....

Economist explains record corporate profits despite rising inflation

NPR's Michel Martin talks with economics professor Isabella Weber about the price hikes and inflation occurring alongside skyrocketing corporate profits.

www.npr.org

You know who's not hurting from inflation? Big business.

FactSet found the biggest US companies headed for their second-highest profit margins ever. That's not how inflation is supposed to work.

www.businessinsider.com

Investors See Hope in Big Corporate Profits (Published 2022)

Alphabet, Exxon Mobil, UPS and others gave shareholders reasons to stay optimistic.

www.nytimes.com

I can’t say for sure some knife companies profits are at record-highs for sure but what I can say confidently is that several high end production companies are backlogged for a long time, actively increasing production, and pumping out more knives than ever before.

Take everything with a grain of salt and do your own research at the end of the day. This is my perspective based on articles I’ve read, people I’ve talked to, and experiences I’ve had listening to several different makers talk about their businesses on podcasts and such and following along with everything that’s been happening with their companies on announcements and talking to makers at knife shows.

 

[shane45-1911]

I can’t say for sure some knife companies profits are at record-highs for sure but what I can say confidently is that several high end production companies are backlogged for a long time, actively increasing production, and pumping out more knives than ever before.

Again, I question this statement (and much of your "source" material). We are talking luxury items here, not essential goods or services. And a quick scan of just about any online knife retailer shows "no stock" on just about everything. And that is not because people are buying up everything - it is because manufacturers can't get raw material in steady, cost-effective supply to support distribution.

The shelves are bare everywhere for most luxury items. Knife retailers can't afford to re-stock due to manufacturer price hikes and lack of supply, and knife manufacturers cannot get material stock because of the aforementioned constraint reasons.

 

[knarfeng]

The responses need to key in on the original question, else this thread is going to get shut down.

Are KNIFE prices affected. JUST THAT.

 

[Bob Denman]

The responses need to key in on the original question, else this thread is going to get shut down.

Are KNIFE prices affected. JUST THAT.

While I agree: the knife manufacturers are existing within these current economic conditions. It's a bit tough to discuss them as if they exist within a vacuum...

 

[knarfeng]

While I agree: the knife manufacturers are existing within these current economic conditions. It's a bit tough to discuss them as if they exist within a vacuum...

Nonsense.
"Yes, I have seen rising prices"
"No, I have not seen rising prices."