Knife Shop Owners

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projektio

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Dec 11, 2007
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Hello guys,

I am new to the forums, but they came highly recommended. I am thinking about opening a B&M knife shop sometime next year, and wanted to know if there are any current or former knife shop owners that could share information with me about successes and pitfalls, and general advice...

I saw the "ShopTalk" section on these forums, but it appears that those are for knife makers, rather than B&M owners. If this is not the right place to post, I will be glad to move this thread to the appropriate area.

A little information about me, I live in Southern California, I have been a collector off-and-on for years, and going back about 7 years ago I was the store manager of a successful B&M shop for 3 years. Sadly, they have closed down, but I am wanting to strike out on my own...

Thanks in advance for helping me get a discussion started here!

Matt
 
Welcome to BFC!

I moved this to the GB&U forum. Since we try to keep the discussion forums on the topics of knives rather than the business of knives.

Matt,

I hope you end up enjoying this place at least as much as I do.

Gus Kalanzis
 
Hi Matt welcome to the forums.

I have a store attached to my shop. Tried the multiple lines of factory knives but with the need to deal with wholesalers in the US (none in Canada) I ended up being unable to get small quantities of new models in time to match the release dates in the US. Then there were the whiners who could buy cheaper off the internet not realizing that B&M stores have more overhead than someone working from his kitchen table....take the order, run the credit card, run downtown to pick up the knives, mail them out and 30 days later pay the wholesaler.

I am a custom maker and finally decided to phase out the factory stuff and concentrate on customs.

I wouldn't suggest the B&M route to anyone without a decent wholesaler in the immediate area, that way you can run on minimum inventory levels and restock daily if necessary.

George
 
Hi George,

Yes, I have previous experience as I mentioned in my original post, and one of the people I would run across (although admittedly rarely) was the "i-can-buy-it-cheaper-online" whiner. The good news is that the vast majority of people who visited my shop, like our products (the bulk of which were factory, not custom knives) and like me because of my knowledge.

My hope is that I can start out selling mainly factory knives at first, and maybe bring in a small handful of customs from time to time. Also, you mentioned having a decent wholesaler close by, and the good news is that I live closer to the same old wholesaler whom my old shop used 7 years ago, so chances are I can link up with them in the new B&M store.

Do you have any suggestions for starting out with carrying, let's say 6-10 custom knives at first as far as pricing goes? I think the one reason why we never carried customs, even semi-customs like the Chris Reeve Sebenza lines, were because my shop owner thought they would never sell with a $200+ price tag. So the most expensive knife we carried was probably the Spyderco Civilian or Benchmade Stryker.

Do you think that by carrying 95% factory, and only having a handful of $300-600 custom knives would be wise? I know there is a collector's market out there for customs, but it seems to me a faster way of moving them would be through dedicated monthly/quarterly knife shows? Any thoughts??

Thanks for your reply, and I hope that others will pipe up to share their experiences so I don't get in over my head...

Matt
 
Thanks whippersnapper, those threads did help provide some insight. There are a few people who owned shops that posted information there I will try to get in touch with to see how their shops are doing.

I can see how hard it is to start up a shop, especially if you are only planning on using that as a primary means of income, but since I have another full time sales job which pays my mortgage and everything else, I would be working both angles during the same business hours.

I think the biggest mistake people make is assuming that "all people" who walk into their stores will handle the product and then go home to purchase it on the net. When I was the store manager for 3 years of a shopping mall knife shop, it seemed to me we were selling a lot of product, not only during the months leading up to Christmas.
 
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