How to sell Knives

M

MrFlea

Joined
Jun 29, 2020
Messages
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Any suggestions on how to sell a knife? I made 2 nice bowies and i put them on etsy but its filtering my stuff out for the more popular people so im not getting much views
 
Rhinoknives1 said:
Buy a Knifemaker level membership here & sell on the Exchange.
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That is a good way to go. This place probably has the right audience for you.

Why not share a few photos of your work (no prices/no sale offer) and see what the reaction is?


n2s
 
not2sharp said:
.....
Why not share a few photos of your work (no prices/no sale offer) and see what the reaction is?n2s
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PLEASE DO NOT ASK HIM POST PHOTOS of knives a non-knifemaker level member wants to sell. It will get him and you in trouble.

His post was about how to sell knives, not about posting photos of them.
 
I sell knives here on BF, on Instagram and I made a fairly simple website with Squarespace where people can see my work. I don't do commerce through the website but have outlined my pricing on it and people can contact me through the website if they're interested. I don't know how long you've been making knives but it can take a while to build up a reputation. Be persistent but patient.
 
MrFlea said:
Any suggestions on how to sell a knife? I made 2 nice bowies and i put them on etsy but its filtering my stuff out for the more popular people so im not getting much views
Click to expand...
I would highly recommend buying a maker membership here and selling on the Exchange. But other than that, I can't think of much besides Instagram, but even they tend to filter out for the trending stuff. Unless you have someone that is specifically searching your sales tag.
 
Find a place you like to post. Post a lot there. Engage. Continually and regularly regularly make knives to present at your spot. People are the critical part. You have to grab their interest, AND put knives in front of them regularly. I repeated the word regularly three times in this post on purpose.
 
You can also find a local hunting and fishing store and ask them if they will put your knives on consignment. I know there is always a cost involved, but it's one way for local people to see your work. I sold a lot through consignment.
 
Posting pics of your knives and getting some feedback prior to trying to sell them will help you to make sure that your knives are of a quality that you don't damage your reputation when you begin to sell. We all get better over time but its nice to know that you don't have any major issues that you will regret later. For example I was making a bunch of practice knives to just test out designs and got sloppy with the handle and over tightend the corby bolts and broke them. I knew about it at the time but thought it would be fine because I was just going to test how the blade geometry worked. I made several of these knives and was not as careless on all of them but they all looked similar. I ended up letting a friend borrow one who has bought several knives from me. The borrow turned into more or less a gift and we never built the knife for his wife the whole reason he borrowed it. Now a handle scale fell off and even though he is a friend and it was free ir does nothing to improve his assessment of the quality of my knives and is bad advertising.
 
I've sold several via online forums like here in the exchange, or similar selling subforums. I've also sold a few via Instagram and Facebook (personal pages and selling groups). I've also sold quite a few in person, so I wouldn't discount that method either. Sometimes it's easier to sell something when it's in someones hand vs looking at a couple of pics on the internet, or as a "bonus", they can tell you what they WOULD buy if there's something in particular they may not prefer in the one they're holding, or give you some feedback otherwise.
 
Etsy is the biggest joke when it comes to hand made knives. It’s now flooded with cheep Chinese knives with some custom engraving or some other mod.
 
I honestly see the most sold on IG. It takes time to build the follower base but I feel it’s time we’ll worth spent. And all it takes is posting pictures of doing what you love to do. Another thing is mind set, the reason your making them so to speak. If you go at this with sole intention to sell them you will have a hard time. Make knives because you love it and let your customers come naturally. Don’t try and force the sales or all you will end up doing is selling knives before your ready to take on that quality lv or come across as someone that is just doing it to make money.

I feel one Reason customers buy custom knives is because we have a passion for them. That passion is contagious and will spread to your customers. Thy always love progress pictures as it makes them feel like thy are part of the process. I try and send pictures to my customers as there blades go from plasma cut blanks to heat treated and surface ground beauty’s. Everyone likes to be involved.

Keep your head up and do it cause you love it. The old saying “build it and thy will come” holds true. There is nothing wrong with making simple knives and giving them out. Word spreads fast and who will pass up free knives. Your name is everything in this business. Do everything you can to treat your customers like you would treat you. That’s what we strive for here. How would I want to be treated. It’s not always the most cost affective path but in the long run happy customers are what pays the bills.
 
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