Knife Returns

Jsega51 said:
For the comments about a dealer being responsible to check over the knives they receive from the manufacturers, do you have any idea how much time and money that would cost them? Not to mention that most dealers are only operated by a few people. There aren’t the resources to do this when they’re receiving and sending hundreds of knives in short periods of time.

It’s much more cost effective for them to deal with the few returns that they’d get. What Sal is seeing is those few returns per dealer, from each dealer. Funny to think that those hundred or so returns are a drop in the bucket when compared to overall sales. I don’t think there’s a concrete way to stop people from doing what they do but to pass the buck down to the dealer level isn’t the answer.
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What exactly is the dealers purpose, then?
 
mattmanyam said:
What exactly is the dealers purpose, then?
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To sell the products that they get from the manufacturers.

Are you saying that the dealer should be forced to double check the manufacturer’s work? Do you know how long it would take to unbox, unwrap, check fit, finish, and function of every single knife that they receive before making it available for sale? If you were a knife dealer, would it be worth a week’s time to go through a single shipment to find 3 knives that might not be up to a customer’s standards (which you can’t be sure of since everyone is different)? Now, say you only get one shipment a month. Over a year, you just spent 3 months (12 weeks) of time inspecting the products you’re selling. That’s an enormous hit to any knife dealer’s resources and that’s only talking about one shipment. I’m sure most dealers take on much more than that.
 
Jsega51 said:
To sell the products that they get from the manufacturers.

Are you saying that the dealer should be forced to double check the manufacturer’s work? Do you know how long it would take to unbox, unwrap, check fit, finish, and function of every single knife that they receive before making it available for sale? If you were a knife dealer, would it be worth a week’s time to go through a single shipment to find 3 knives that might not be up to a customer’s standards (which you can’t be sure of since everyone is different)? Now, say you only get one shipment a month. Over a year, you just spent 3 months (12 weeks) of time inspecting the products you’re selling. That’s an enormous hit to any knife dealer’s resources and that’s only talking about one shipment. I’m sure most dealers take on much more than that.
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No, I'm saying they are getting paid to be an intermediate between the manufacturer and the end user. If they are blindly accepting returns that have been compromised to non-NIB condition, handling that is their responsibility, not Spydercos. Too many are afraid of the power of the anonymous keyboard warrior affecting their business, apparently they're passing the buck back to Spyderco (if I'm reading Sals post correctly) in order to skirt any negative interaction with unscrupulous customers.
 
I see what you’re saying. A dealer though (in most cases) isn’t authorized to perform repair work on a knife. So if a knife is bought, taken apart, then sent back, I’m guessing the dealer wouldn’t have a clue on what happened since they aren’t authorized or paid to attempt a repair, or even take the knife apart to inspect it, trying to find the cause of the “issue”. The knives simply get sent back to the manufacturer where these issues are being discovered. It would be more liability on the dealer if they were required to handle this where the original buyer and the manufactuer can now collectively pass the blame to the dealer. Probably wouldn’t be too many dealers wanting to put themselves in that position.

Not sure what Sal can do other than ask people to stop F’ing with the knives, screwing them up, then making it seem like they were sold a defective item. Unfortunately, people do this. I’d be curious on the percentage of knives this is suspected to have happened to compared to overall sales.
 
Jsega51 said:
I see what you’re saying. A dealer though (in most cases) isn’t authorized to perform repair work on a knife. So if a knife is bought, taken apart, then sent back, I’m guessing the dealer wouldn’t have a clue on what happened since they aren’t authorized or paid to attempt a repair, or even take the knife apart to inspect it, trying to find the cause of the “issue”. The knives simply get sent back to the manufacturer where these issues are being discovered. It would be more liability on the dealer if they were required to handle this where the original buyer and the manufactuer can now collectively pass the blame to the dealer. Probably wouldn’t be too many dealers wanting to put themselves in that position.

Not sure what Sal can do other than ask people to stop F’ing with the knives, screwing them up, then making it seem like they were sold a defective item. Unfortunately, people do this. I’d be curious on the percentage of knives this is suspected to have happened to compared to overall sales.
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But, respectfully, your scenario still absolves the unscrupulous customer from any personal responsibility for their actions... If a dealer receives any knife that has been altered, it is not on them, at that point... but it seems they are shrugging that off back to Spyderco to avoid any possible negativity with the buyer, and not following the proper path of returning the knife to the buyer, and letting them deal with it, as they took the onus, once self-repair was begun.
 
Some products you buy include a toll free number to call if it is defective. With that number, it states "Do not return from where it was bought". The only way you can get it replaced is to call the toll free number. Then you have to talk to a rep about your issue, from there, they'll direct you on how to precede after a series of questions have been asked.
Most of the time, once they find out what the problem is, they'll send parts or direct you in getting a replacement. Like it or not, the knife world needs to adapt similar policies. IMO, that would curtail some of the dishonesty that has been going on and be less costly to the honest folks. I'd rather be without a knife for a few weeks as opposed to pay more for the same knife I'm going to buy anyway. I don't know of anybody that gets excited when prices go up.

That way, when one of the tinkerers that screw up a knife sends a knife in because "it's defective" and the manufacturer sees through the mile of B.S., they can charge the right person and the rest of us don't have to pay for stupid peoples idiotic ideas of making the wheel better. "Hey y'all watch this"
 
Jsega51 said:
For the comments about a dealer being responsible to check over the knives they receive from the manufacturers, do you have any idea how much time and money that would cost them? Not to mention that most dealers are only operated by a few people. There aren’t the resources to do this when they’re receiving and sending hundreds of knives in short periods of time.

It’s much more cost effective for them to deal with the few returns that they’d get. What Sal is seeing is those few returns per dealer, from each dealer. Funny to think that those hundred or so returns are a drop in the bucket when compared to overall sales. I don’t think there’s a concrete way to stop people from doing what they do but to pass the buck down to the dealer level isn’t the answer.
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I made a comment in that nature and I'm also in the online retail business (not knife related - no brick & mortar storefront) which means I get return requests some of which I deem as sheer ignorance or blatant abuse of a biased system platformed by eBay / PayPal toward the online buyer. It p*sses me off to no end when I know that I'm being taken advantage of but I also realize that I have a choice to either get out or accept that this is parts and parcel of doing such business. Let me also add that I also operate with meager and small resources so the time dedicated toward frivolous returns is the time we could've invested more productively elsewhere not to mention the revenue ding!

So what was the solution for my kind of operation? To proactively describe items better expecting that this would allow people who are a little bit more detailed conscious to make the right purchase without confusion of convolution, while we all realize that we can not fix STUPID so there will always be morons and fraudsters. I have not much sympathy for retail outlets who complain about lack of resources to inspect returns and in fact if any product experiences an unusually high rate of returns, the smaller retailer perhaps ought to reconsider carrying the products from that specific manufacturer.
 
T.L.E. Sharp said:
Not at all. I'm a 3+ hour drive from the nearest knife shop. I just don't buy knives from manufacturers with hit and miss quality.
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So you buy exclusively CRK, Shiro, and Rockstead? I've either personally seen, or heard reports from reputable sources, of issues with brand new out of the box knives from pretty much any other brand I heard of.

I'm probably being overly snarky - apologies on that - but defects can happen from pretty much anyone - there's no such thing as 100% quality control. As others have stated, getting a brand new knife with a defect, and being expected to navigate the manufacturer's oft-serpentine warranty processes, is really too much to ask from almost anyone.

Also, my point on having a brick and mortar store around isn't so much about picking a defect-free copy of the knife as it is about trying the action and ergos in hand. A knife could be 100% defect free, look awesome in pictures, but you get it in hand and it's just not right for you - wrong shape, bad hotspots, etc. I know in that circumstance a lot of people would say "tough, you're stuck with it, sell in on the secondary", but I'll also disagree with that - if a store allows returns, you bought a knife in good faith but it just didn't work out, and it's unused and un-tampered with, by all means return it. Given that many manufacturers set MAP policies or other pricing restrictions, dealers are competing on other perks like customer service, including return policies. Returns are priced into their business model and expected - you're only hurting yourself if you choose not to use them.

As I mentioned in Sal's thread, I'd be much less likely to buy a knife that uses permanent Loctite or custom hardware - hell, I've passed on many interesting WE knives because of their star screws, and they even include the tool in the box. I would most likely outright reject any manufacturer that had a seal on the box itself, where breaking the seal prevents returns.
 
mattmanyam said:
But, respectfully, your scenario still absolves the unscrupulous customer from any personal responsibility for their actions... If a dealer receives any knife that has been altered, it is not on them, at that point... but it seems they are shrugging that off back to Spyderco to avoid any possible negativity with the buyer, and not following the proper path of returning the knife to the buyer, and letting them deal with it, as they took the onus, once self-repair was begun.
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So then returns should only be made back to Spyderco, not the dealers, so that Spyderco can catch the unscrupulous returns and deny a replacement. Or, charge the unscrupulous buyer for the repair.
 
No.
Re reading, I can see I wasn't very good at making my point.

I think the dealer *should* handle the unscrupulous customers, and filter Corporate from having to expend resources on it... I feel that's part of their duty as a reputable dealer.

(I'm going to try to clarify my last post in clear edits momentarily)
 
tyyreaun said:
So you buy exclusively CRK, Shiro, and Rockstead? I've either personally seen, or heard reports from reputable sources, of issues with brand new out of the box knives from pretty much any other brand I heard of.

I'm probably being overly snarky - apologies on that - but defects can happen from pretty much anyone - there's no such thing as 100% quality control. As others have stated, getting a brand new knife with a defect, and being expected to navigate the manufacturer's oft-serpentine warranty processes, is really too much to ask from almost anyone.

Also, my point on having a brick and mortar store around isn't so much about picking a defect-free copy of the knife as it is about trying the action and ergos in hand. A knife could be 100% defect free, look awesome in pictures, but you get it in hand and it's just not right for you - wrong shape, bad hotspots, etc. I know in that circumstance a lot of people would say "tough, you're stuck with it, sell in on the secondary", but I'll also disagree with that - if a store allows returns, you bought a knife in good faith but it just didn't work out, and it's unused and un-tampered with, by all means return it. Given that many manufacturers set MAP policies or other pricing restrictions, dealers are competing on other perks like customer service, including return policies. Returns are priced into their business model and expected - you're only hurting yourself if you choose not to use them.

As I mentioned in Sal's thread, I'd be much less likely to buy a knife that uses permanent Loctite or custom hardware - hell, I've passed on many interesting WE knives because of their star screws, and they even include the tool in the box. I would most likely outright reject any manufacturer that had a seal on the box itself, where breaking the seal prevents returns.
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Yeah, I just take the loss and sell them on the secondary market. I've bought a few that just didn't work for me in-hand. Nothing wrong with the knife; I just didn't like it.

I have also had some with some issues out of the box. In those I stances where I reached out to the manufacturer I was made whole with little hassle.

Yes, it took longer than returning them to the dealer, but it also meant that the knife with issues wasn't sold again to someone else.

I agree with you that you should be able to return a truly new knife that you just don't like, but would you rather do that at the current prices or save 20% (I'm just making a # up) on all knife purchases by eliminating dealer returns and preventing people from abusing the return system?

That's the issue I'm seeing. No manufacturer just "takes it on the chin". If they're stuck fixing knives for free and selling "new" knives that were returned damaged as seconds then they're going to offset that by increasing their prices.

Oversimplified - dishonest and unskilled people are making us pay more for our knives by returning knives to dealers after they've screwed them up. I'm ok with taking small monetary or time risks on my purchases to prevent that.
 
Jsega51 said:
So then returns should only be made back to Spyderco, not the dealers, so that Spyderco can catch the unscrupulous returns and deny a replacement. Or, charge the unscrupulous buyer for the repair.
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I agree!
 
Good customer service - including those times when a buyer receives a defective, damaged or substandard knife is the very raison d'être for knife dealers. If customer service is no different from one dealer to the next, and I've got to deal directly with the manufacturer anyway, that's just one more nail in the coffin for the best dealers out there, and one more sad reason to make purchase decisions based on price alone!

Is that really what dealers want? Manufacturers?
 
Most of the big knife movers will exchange a defective knife after examining it. Factory defects are usually different than owner induced abuse or going beyond normal care and cleaning. But the big knife sellers like KC and BHQ cannot inspect their entire inventory before going into stock. They just don't have that kind of expertise or sense of factory standard for all the different knives they sell. Some of the bargain knives are certain to not have the same degree of fit and finish as the higher end of the scale. The buyer has to take responsibility for what they're willing to settle for in price and quality.
 
A few things to clarify, of course these are just my personal take.

Sealing a knife from opening by the customer to inspect it is a poor idea. The customer should be allowed to inspect the knife but not to disassemble it. Inspections here are limited to only visual checking and opening and closing the blade. And if a problem is detected by such inspections, the customer should be allowed to return the knife to the dealer, without any charge (I know most dealers will put the returning shipping fee on the customer, which should be fine because it is just a small amount of $. Other dealers charge a restocking fee, which is fine too as long as the policy is clearly written and communicated to customers).

If he wishes, the customer can send the knife to the manufacturer for warranty work. But this option should not eliminate the above one.

The dealer does not need to inspect every knife they sold. The dealer must inspect every knife that is returned by customers. It is absolutely wrong for the dealer to simply put a returned knife back to the shelf for reselling the same as other brand new knives.

Now there are certainly problems (although very rare) of new knives that can be found only when they are dissembled, such as broken washers or bearings. New knives with such problems should be sent directly to the manufacturer, not the to dealer.

So to summarize, (1) the customer should be allowed to inspect new knives they purchased but not to disassemble, (2) if any problem is found through such inspections, the customer should be allowed to return the knives to the dealer free of charge, (3) the dealer should inspect carefully every returned knife and can resell it as new only if no problem is found with it, and (4) if the customer disassembles the knife, he is not allowed to return it to the dealer.
 
Murdamook said:
If I buy a TV from Best Buy, get it home, and find it doesn’t work, then I’m returning it to Best Buy. I’m not going to call the manufacturer and I would wager 99.9% of people would do the same thing.
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More and more large distributors, Home Depot, Lowe’s etc are forcing the customer to deal with manufacturers instead of their stores.
Many products, water heaters and appliances, have ‘do not return defective product to store’ emblazoned right on the boxes.
You can return that TV to the store, but you’ll be wasting your time.
 
I inspect all knives that come back as a return as carefully as I can to ensure its in new condition and fits our return policy, but you can't catch absolutely everything.

As far as inspecting knives from the manufacturer, that would be impossible to do, we receive far too much product in too high of a quantity to take a look at all of it. We will happily inspect something before we ship it out if requested by the customer, but the volume of shipments is far too high to do it by default unfortunately.
 
If I buy a knife from a dealer online, for example, and the knife gets to me with some sort of defect, I will send it back to where I purchased it for a return or exchange. It's insane that the buyer should be responsible for a defective product, having to send it to the manufacturer and deal with the warranty service and all that.

The buyer paid for a problem- free working knife. If it arrives messed up, it should be the dealer's responsibility to remedy the issue.

That said, when people try to fix an issue themselves and in the process ruin or in some other way damage the knife, then that's on them. Now, they have to deal with the manufacturer directly to fix their problem. I would think that any kind of tampering or fiddling with the knife should exempt the dealer from the responsibility of providing an exchange. By messing with the product, it's now "yours," and any issue that crops up because of what you may have done is now your problem.

And finally, if someone does have to return or exchange a defective item, there is no reason why the dealer should have to accept it if it does not contain the intact box, papers, birth cards and everything else that came with it originally.
 
Ratman79 said:
If I buy a knife from a dealer online, for example, and the knife gets to me with some sort of defect, I will send it back to where I purchased it for a return or exchange. It's insane that the buyer should be responsible for a defective product, having to send it to the manufacturer and deal with the warranty service and all that.

The buyer paid for a problem- free working knife. If it arrives messed up, it should be the dealer's responsibility to remedy the issue.

That said, when people try to fix an issue themselves and in the process ruin or in some other way damage the knife, then that's on them. Now, they have to deal with the manufacturer directly to fix their problem. I would think that any kind of tampering or fiddling with the knife should exempt the dealer from the responsibility of providing an exchange. By messing with the product, it's now "yours," and any issue that crops up because of what you may have done is now your problem.

And finally, if someone does have to return or exchange a defective item, there is no reason why the dealer should have to accept it if it does not contain the intact box, papers, birth cards and everything else that came with it originally.
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Totally agreed.
 
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