Go for it Mike. Great original post. Looks like Benchmade's sense of open discussion is as bad as their notoriously bad heat treating.
Here's another embellishment on their failed sales policy.
I have an acquaintence who owns a storefront with a large knife clientele and a great inventory of knives in all price ranges. He is not a BM dealer because he frankly just doesn't like the quality vs. price thing and being told what he can and can't do if he becomes a direct dealer. On occasion he needs to get a BM on special request from some of his better customers. Therefore, he buys a few BMs from a distributor. He had several comments on pricing of BMs compared to a guy across town who does buy from BM. He investigated BM's pricing and realized that the difference he was forced to pay from a distributor was significant compared to what his competitor was paying to BM. We had a discussion about it and I decided to try something. I went to the BM direct dealer and started a little price negotiating for five knives. Too make a long story short, I bought five BM knives from a direct dealer for 5% less than my dealer friend could buy them from a distributor. Something that, according to BM's dealer agreement, is not supposed to happen. So much for BM's pricing policies. They do not really protect their prices through their dealers--they just hurt non-direct BM dealers be they internet or otherwise.
Worst of all I suppose is the arrogance shown by BM in the face of their rapidly diminishing quality and stale product development. They have taken what once was a pretty good and successful product and through sales policy stuck themselves in the foot. They need to learn from the experience or just bleed to death.
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A Patriot's Work Is Never Done--greetings from The Occupied South
Here's another embellishment on their failed sales policy.
I have an acquaintence who owns a storefront with a large knife clientele and a great inventory of knives in all price ranges. He is not a BM dealer because he frankly just doesn't like the quality vs. price thing and being told what he can and can't do if he becomes a direct dealer. On occasion he needs to get a BM on special request from some of his better customers. Therefore, he buys a few BMs from a distributor. He had several comments on pricing of BMs compared to a guy across town who does buy from BM. He investigated BM's pricing and realized that the difference he was forced to pay from a distributor was significant compared to what his competitor was paying to BM. We had a discussion about it and I decided to try something. I went to the BM direct dealer and started a little price negotiating for five knives. Too make a long story short, I bought five BM knives from a direct dealer for 5% less than my dealer friend could buy them from a distributor. Something that, according to BM's dealer agreement, is not supposed to happen. So much for BM's pricing policies. They do not really protect their prices through their dealers--they just hurt non-direct BM dealers be they internet or otherwise.
Worst of all I suppose is the arrogance shown by BM in the face of their rapidly diminishing quality and stale product development. They have taken what once was a pretty good and successful product and through sales policy stuck themselves in the foot. They need to learn from the experience or just bleed to death.
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A Patriot's Work Is Never Done--greetings from The Occupied South
