Good advice on buying any knife. Manufacturers shouldn't be sending out duff knives, but neither should dealers. To then charge a fee because of THEIR incompetence is disgraceful.
I guess there are many ways to look at all the complexities. But first, a little context to the issues from both sides. I am a picky collector - so I know the joy of getting that knife in the mail and I know the misery of opening up a dud. There is no excuse for getting a knife with a defect; does it happen? Yes. So I will throw in my perspective of a few of the points raised.
Re-stocking fees. These are nearly a requirement to have documented on a website. Not for the good old boys that from time to time get a knife they just can't live with; but for the manipulators that would break the bank sending back knives for reasons that have nothing to do with anything under the sellers control. Most dealers I know rarely ever charge any fees other than what came out of their pocket in fees to get the knife processed and into the hands of the customer. Especially with GEC knives where shipping is built into the price from most dealers, it seems realistic to expect the dealer to break even on a return for something that was not under his control. Now, if it is a defect - his fault, he needs to eat some expense. But in most cases the documented restocking is purely for the protection of the dealer. I have never charged 15% and can't imagine the circumstances which I would. But if someone buys a GEC knife and then wants to return it because "it just doesn't feel right in my hand", I think this is perfectly acceptable but don't think asking them to cover my shipping costs is out of line. But every once in a while a person comes along that would buy 10 of the same knife, then send 9 back and want a full refund. Not only does that take 9 knives off the shelf for a time that other buyers cannot pick up, but it is not fair to the other buyers the have them all opened and cherry-picked thru. That is why you have to have the fees documented.
Warranty. If a factory defect gets thru the QA at the factory - And the defect gets past the distributor and to the customer - Who should handle the resolution? This is a good question and has different answers depending on scenario. But, the factory needs to know what is and what is not acceptable to the customers. This is what the factory warranty is in place to accommodate. It is obviously better for the factory and the dealer if the customer will send it to the factory. Many times, for one reason or the other, the customer does not want to deal with sending it to the factory. If it is a factory fresh knife with a defect, most dealers will gladly take it back and work with the factory themselves. If it is a personal preference issue that a customer has and most other customers would not have the same issue, that makes it a little complicated and the factory would probably be the best folks to resolve the issue because a dealer may have 1 more in stock that has the same preferential issue. My personal preference would be to have the customer send it directly to the factory and I would work with the factory to confirm and resolve the issue to the best of both our abilities. That way they understand customer preferences from the customers. If defects are involved most dealers are more than happy to pay the customers shipping back to the factory.
Pictures. In a perfect world it would be great if every dealer had front/back pictures of every knife in stock. And for smaller dealers that get a couple of each knife and only deal in one or two brands, that is feasible. Sadly if you are not the first or second person to these folks website - you are getting the picked over knife that the others didn't want. Also, many distributors have friends or good customers that get first pick before items even make it to the website. I believe everyone should have the same pick from a pool of exceptional specimens. If it is a requirement that, regardless of what you end up with, you get to pick it from a lineup - there are several good distributors out there for you. My business model simply does not allow me to take pictures of front/back of every single knife that comes thru here. Where some folks get 3 of the same knife if they are feeling good about it; I get 15 or 20. As I go thru them if there are a couple that I wouldn't want to get myself, I roll them out the back door to friends that will take them to a flea market or eBay so folks can view them from every side. I am pretty particular in what I will sell at the price GEC's bring; if it is not a premium specimen - I don't put it in my inventory. Most dealers would be glad to get an email from a customer that placed an order with some criteria of what they would / would not like in their purchase. So, it's not like it's a pig in a poke if you are dealing with someone that knows what your preferences are and has a large inventory to match your expectations. I have 6 GEC pages with an average of 100 knives per page; if I had front/back pictures of every knife I would have closer to 30 pages to maintain (which I do manually, not via some pre-packaged store software). BTW, no customer information (ZERO) is stored on my site or in some insecure co-location facility for thiefs to make themselves at home with.
So, you have to find the distributor that works for you. If a dealer does not have the vast majority of his customers satisfied day in and day out; he won't be in business long. In my old age (I have a 44 year old body but a 70 year old attitude), I am realizing more and more each day that anyone that bases their life on money or profit is miserable indeed. When I started my "Early Reserve" program there were distributors that had negative things to say about it; now they are trying to mimic it. When I started my "Early Bird" section on the website, there were distributors that had negative things to say about it; now some of them are implementing similar plans. You need to realize that even in this friendly hobby, there are those that try to tear down and those that try to build up.
Give the GEC brand a try, give a distributor a try; if you don't like the knife send it back. If you don't like the distributor post in the feedback forum. That is the easiest way to handle both those issues.
But, to be honest, if you go in with pre-conceived notions; you are probably going to find plenty you don't like about any knife that shows up. I have not seen a knife yet, and I have handled a few, that I couldn't find something if I looked hard enough.
