Let's talk about the latest Northwoods buying process

I’m newer to this, but love the gec’s and Northwoods. Never been able to acquire a Northwoods yet, but can someone please tell me, where do you guys find out ahead of time that a new line of Northwoods is dropping-so that I have a slim chance in heck to possibly pick one up in my life time?
 
ljgepetto said:
I’m newer to this, but love the gec’s and Northwoods. Never been able to acquire a Northwoods yet, but can someone please tell me, where do you guys find out ahead of time that a new line of Northwoods is dropping-so that I have a slim chance in heck to possibly pick one up in my life time?
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Follow KnivesShipFree on Instagram and Facebook. They usually provide advance notice there.
 
I gave up playing on the Northwoods "lottery". I just got tired of the whole deal. Have been pleased with the knives, but I am not going to sit at a computer for the clock to strike 4 or whatever to place an order.
 
I've owned three, a Presidential that I sold, a Norfolk Whittler which I also sold & a 2014 Indian River Jack which I still have & use a lot.
They are nice knives but definitely overpriced & not worth the hassle it has become to acquire one.
 
I didn't get a chance to even think about the 4pm drop until 4:15. Of course all were gone. No problem, there's always next time. Congrats to the lucky, can't wait to see some pics. :thumbsup:
 
I wanted to first read every post in this thread before commenting. I did everything possible, but was unable to get anything. I don’t claim to have a solution, but I don’t think it would hurt to have, say a 5 minute in your cart rule. If you didn’t complete the purchase in that time, then Poof...Gone.

I find it somewhat galling, that some could buy multiples, leaving others with nothing. Since these drops are high demand for limited amounts, I would like a limit of one knife per customer. That would afford more people a chance. It would also limit the amounts that go to flippers. The last thing I would do is not list each knife individually. As long as the system is not likely to change, a separate category for each cover choice, would avoid the wasting of time in getting a specific knife into your cart, only to have it “stolen” immediately, or having to find out after trying to complete your transaction, and then having to go back, only to find out that there’s nothing to go back to.

This system, particularly in traditionals, is not limited to KSF. I believe in their sincerity and caring for their customers. They really struggle to make things better. I know Derrick did, and I believe his family and employees are cut from the same cloth. I will still participate in the drops because of the people and the knives.
 
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KSF, what will you do to prevent the scalpers from buying multiples when many loyal customers cannot even buy one?
 
4:00 came and went. I see the Freeman Jacks sold quickly. I would have driven over to their store, but the email said "online only". Not going to concern myself. Just not worth the effort.
 
I got lucky and got one Fremont Jack today, so not a complaint, just my experience.

I started refreshing my screen a little before the drop time (3:00pm my time, and at work). At one point in the melee, I am not sure when, I had to close the site and re-open. First I saw a couple of stags, a red micarta, and "something" else, I think was a brown burlap, but no Mammoths. I put one of the stags, without looking at it closely, in my cart and tried to check out - too long, it was gone. Got out of my cart and now there were no red micartas, I think some stags, and several Mammoths. I quickly looked at the pics of one of the Mammoths, decided it was good to go, and hit the back arrow so I could put it in my cart - it was gone. I quickly looked at the thumbnail pics of the remaining knives, without actually opening the images, and took a chance on one. Somehow this checkout went quicker and I got a Mammoth Freemont. I then called a coworker over to look at what was going on. I refreshed the page and there were three knives left. I refreshed the page almost immediately and there were none available; the time was now at eight minutes after.

I was not able to see the expanded picture to know what I had actually bought until I got home and read how to retrieve it from the Northwoods thread on the Traditional site. (I got really lucky and really like it.) In hindsight, I wondered if I should have tried to get a second one to sell at cost here on the Exchange, preventing a flipper from getting it; of course that might have prevented someone else from BF getting one.
 
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Vaporstang said:
I got lucky and got one Fremont Jack today, so not a complaint, just my experience.

I started refreshing my screen a little before the drop time (3:00pm my time, and at work). At one point in the melee, I am not sure when, I had to close the site and re-open. First I saw a couple of stags, a red micarta, and "something" else, I think was a brown burlap, but no Mammoths. I put one of the stags without looking at it closely in my cart and tried to check out - too long, it was gone. Got out of my cart and now there were no red micartas, I think some stags, and several Mammoths. I quickly looked at the pics of one of the Mammoths, decided it was good to go, and hit the back arrow so I could put it in my cart - it was gone. I quickly looked at the thumbnail pics of the remaining knives, without actually opening the images, and took a chance on one. Somehow this checkout went quicker and I got a Mammoth Freemont. I then called a coworker over to look at what was going on. I refreshed the page and there were three knives left. I refreshed the page almost immediately and there were none available; the time was now at eight minutes after.

I was not able to see the expanded picture to know what I had actually bought until I got home and read how to retrieve it from the Northwoods thread on the Traditional site. (I got really lucky and really like it.) In hindsight, I wondered if I should have tried to get a second one to sell at cost here on the Exchange, preventing a flipper from getting it; of course that might have prevented someone else from BF getting one.
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Congratulations. I’m happy you were able to get the Fremont Jack. They look beautiful. You sound like you care about your knife community. Your heart is in the right place. That is more meaningful to me than any knife. I don’t want to be a part of any “vulture culture.” It’s just a knife. There will be others.
 
cigarrodog said:
Congratulations. I’m happy you were able to get the Fremont Jack. They look beautiful. You sound like you care about your knife community. Your heart is in the right place. That is more meaningful to me than any knife. I don’t want to be a part of any “vulture culture.” It’s just a knife. There will be others.
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Thanks - that is much appreciated!
 
This was the first time I've been home from work during a Northwoods release and I managed to grab one of the burlap micarta ones. I made sure to log into both KSF and my PayPal account in advance, and started refreshing before 4pm. After a blip where the site was non responsive at 4pm on the nose when presumably they were putting the knives on the site, next refresh they were all there. I went straight to the micarta, put a burlap in my cart, checked out, paid, got confirmation. Since I was logged in and paying with Paypal, it was only like 3ish clicks with no additional typing to go from the add to cart button to finalized purchase.

I was back on the site in time to still be able to see 7+ pages of mammoth ivory. I click through a few pages, clicked on a few specific versions, but wasn't planning to buy any of those this time around, so I just kept refreshing and watched the page count go from 7 to 5 and then 2 and then they were all gone in minutes. I also had enough time to see some of the stag (2 pages) and the other micarta versions before they all sold out. I can't say whether I would have had enough time to get either mammoth or stag into my cart and purchased before someone else, though.

I don't have any answers about how to change the process so more folks have a chance to get one; just sharing my experience and my tactic, such as it was.
 
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I see a lot of people getting upset, but this is just a good example of supply and demand. Imo ksf made it very fair. As Tomboy said you just need to be strategic about the process. I actually googled Fremont jack images the night prior to check out which version I’d want. I was set on the burlap.

When the time came I set an alarm for few mins prior to the release. And I made sure to already be logged into the account. Had the page opened up. And I made sure to get close to the modem so my WiFi is at optimal speed. Once the time came I refreshed several times and once they were up I bee-lined for the burlap micarta. I literally checked out in about 30 seconds. Afterwards I went to check out the mammoth not expecting to pick one up. But saw one I liked so I got one too.

I think a lot of folks were trying to add misc items into their carts or had to actually type in their billing/shipping info on top of their payment info. This was my first time trying to buy a Northwood but I’m not new to this kinda stuff on monkey edge. I’ve missed out on the strider dub a few months ago because I was in a meeting and couldn’t check. It sucked but I wasn’t sour about it. It’s just the nature of the beast. I ended up buying it on the secondary market for a $75 markup which I thought was ok. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. But good strategy can put the odds in your favor.
 
AlwaysTomboy said:
This was the first time I've been home from work during a Northwoods release and I managed to grab one of the burlap micarta ones. I made sure to log into both KSF and my PayPal account in advance, and started refreshing before 4pm. After a blip where the site was non responsive at 4pm on the nose when presumably they were putting the knives on the site, next refresh they were all there. I went straight to the micarta, put a burlap in my cart, checked out, paid, got confirmation. Since I was logged in and paying with Paypal, it was only like 3ish clicks with no additional typing to go from the add to cart button to finalized purchase.

I was back on the site in time to still be able to see 7+ pages of mammoth ivory. I click through a few pages, clicked on a few specific versions, but wasn't planning to buy any of those time time around, so I just kept refreshing and watched the page count go from 7 to 5 and then 2 and then they were all gone in minutes. I also had enough time to see some of the stag (2 pages) and the other micarta versions before they all sold out. I can't say whether I would have had enough time to get either mammoth or stag into my cart and purchased before someone else, though.

I don't have any answers about how to change the process so more folks have a chance to get one; just sharing my experience and my tactic, such as it was.
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The first time I tried to check out, I bypassed the PP option. The second time, I used the PP option. Maybe this was the difference for me too.
 
This was my first Northwoods Drop. PayPal helped out ALOT and so did the auto fill of my address. Right at the time they dropped, I went in with a plan and saw which one I wanted and didn’t waste any time looking around. Got a Red Micarta. This is my first “rustic” Northwoods.

Dose anyone know how often they do drops or what knife they will come out with next. I really want a Hawthorne but secondary market is crazy on all GEC.
 
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