Membership changes, was New Policy: You sell knifemaker's products, you are a dealer

Maybe its the terminology thats getting confusing. How about these memberships: Craftsman - you make or build something for sale such as a knife, sheath, lanyard, strop, etc. Supplier - you sell/supply raw materials such as wood, leather, metal. Just my 2 cents! :)
 
I'm a full time knife maker, who sells a little W2 steel on the side. Not sure if my Knife Maker membership will cover the steel sales. But I'll do whatever to support this site, as long as it's within reason.
 
Until the final determination is made, Burl Source, you can sell your stuff.
 
Daniel Koster said:
Spark = how about a different membership level



"Supplier"

(with it's own pricing level)



Neither a dealer nor a knifemaker.

Not only would this be more true to what they do, but it would make much more sense to me (as a buyer of supplies) to get them from a supplier.


Dan
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I like your idea and believe all parties would benefit.

One of the main reasons this forum is successful is the feeling of inclusiveness.
Much of that aura is put forth by the makers themselves; the people who operate this site are fortunate to have a situation, where its members promote the site, no flashy popups needed here.

Many people come on this forum just to look at what might be for sale and from who around the forum. From knives and hatchets to handles and pins.

I feel that people are uneasy and unsure in this situation.:(

For me personally, I have a half dozen different vocations, that keep me out of the dogfood isle at Krogers.:D
None of them is primary, maybe the 7,500 I get from the Social Security.

I think of dealers like folks that have stores on Ebay; by the way.

I sell knives and jigs and I sold a coke forge a while back on here and got good money out of it.

I am getting ready to manufacture and sell a grinding jig that I invented myself. I have the machinery together to manufacture it.
I have paid the patent lawyer his pound of flesh.

That was a lot more than 200 bucks.

If it comes to it, I'll pay for the dealers membership, I have been here for quite a few years; its home.

In the end the way this is handled may cause hard feelings with some and lack of respect for others and the site may not continue to be the preeminent knife site, it is today, on the web.

Just the view from here, Fred
 
+1 to Dan Koster.

I think a lot of the in betweens can be handled by moderators in the forums sending a pm or asking about levels of membership to people who are getting close to a line. That's what mods do, right?

If it had cost me $500 to *get* a knifemaker membership in the beginning I wouldna hae made it. I'm going to pony up what I need to at this point, whatever happens, but I can say that full time makers in general will be less able to afford *huge* increases in fees than second-career makers. There could be some negative consequences to that. Right now, I think BF is the creche of the next generation of great knifemakers, and I wouldn't like to see that be less true for any reason.

That being said, if I could pay with paypal (oh please!) and it was something like $50 a quarter or $150 a year, it wouldn't put too bad a hurt on people.

Right now the amount of business being done by knifemakers who are just registered unpaid users is pretty minimal and from what I've seen (I haven't actually run the numbers through a stats engine, but I do pay attention) it rapidly leads to a knifemaker membership anyhow. If a knifemaker membership gets really expensive it could drive up the unpaid dealing and make more work for everyone. Not happy work.

Coming in, I thought it was cool that knifemakers got what appeared to be a bit of a deal in the paid membership rates, and figured it had a lot to do with attracting the best cohesive group of makers and knife knuts on the internet.

Please don't kill that. But by all means make it fair to you, I know I'm getting a ton more value than I paid for.
 
The Supplier level is probably going to be the solution. Knifemaker isn't going to go up terribly much, probably to $75 a year or so, $100 if you want a dedicated forum.
 
"I am still confused as to what differentiates a dealer and a knifemaker. There are people who sell items, have their own websites, advertise in magazines, and pay $40 a year - they are knifemakers. I am pretty sure they are trying to make a profit, and a quick search will give you a list of 'full-time' makers."

I would argue that a knifemaker membership should not reflect the same as a dealer or supplier. Here is my reasoning on this subject in a simple eat/breathe type fashion.

Basic members buy knives on these forums. (membership $0)
Gold members buy knives and sell knives. (membership $25)
Knifemakers buy supplies and sell knives. (membership $40)
Suppliers and dealers sell knives and supplies. (membership $200)

As a persons motive here depends more on selling and less on buying, the price goes up. In this basic level view, suppliers and dealers do not add cash flow to the forums. They are here to make money, not spend it. I understand that they can spend money here, but it is not built in to the system.

(Please note that the additional fees for a platinum membership do not result in enhanced buying/selling permissions, but are for other perks. This is why I did not include this group in the comparison)
 
Rusty McDonald said:
Go UP! I Don't think I will stay if it does, that's almost a 100% increase.
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Look, since we've had memberships, going on 10 years now, the prices have remained the same, yet my costs have a lot more than tripled. I understand that price increases suck, including 100% ones, I'm not arguing that. I'm trying to be fair and not gouge things. As other members have pointed out, other forum sites charge $20 a month just to have your own maker's forum on there... yet we're the biggest knife site there is.

I'm sorry $75 sounds extremely unreasonable, I really am. $6.25 a month is a lot, especially to advertise as many knives as you can make. What other incentives do you need? Give me constructive feedback.
 
I am just sort of thinking while typing here. You say that your costs have tripled, but then again, haven't the numbers of paid members gone up too? I find it hard to believe that it would be necessary to double the costs of every knife maker memberships to compensate. I am saying this without knowing the numbers, so I'm just guessing really.
 
I said more than tripled, and I'm not going to post numbers, just like I don't expect you to list your costs for your products. I'm very grateful for you guys that support this place, without your help the site would have closed a long time ago.

That said, let's face facts, prices change over time. Tech support isn't free. The servers operating this place aren't free. The bandwidth & hosting aren't free. The site requires more and more resources, and I make up the shortfalls.

Believe me, I'm not living it up & driving sportscars.
 
Spark said:
I said more than tripled, and I'm not going to post numbers, just like I don't expect you to list your costs for your products. I'm very grateful for you guys that support this place, without your help the site would have closed a long time ago.

That said, let's face facts, prices change over time. Tech support isn't free. The servers operating this place aren't free. The bandwidth & hosting aren't free. The site requires more and more resources, and I make up the shortfalls.

Believe me, I'm not living it up & driving sportscars.
Click to expand...

What? :eek: :D
 
I don't like the emphasis on "double" as a word. if you raised basic membership from $10 to $18 it would be ALMOST DOUBLE :eek::yawn::eek:

I mean, yeah, if I was spending $300 a year and the price went up to $550 I'd be pissed. That's a very sudden change.

Knifemaker going up to $75 isn't quite the same thing. It's not as low as a basic membership, but I feel the actual dollar amount increase in terms of money isn't that bad, regardless of the percentage points.

I think $75/$100 is fine, I'd even be happy with that being $85/$120 if the number of PMs was tripled. I don't think PMs take that much storage (for the number of knifemakers) and I'd say that's the only service I'd like more of :)
 
I have also posted this in the makers forum:

I guess I should say something here.
Some of you know I have a small knife supply business. I operate it part time nights and weekends with my wife. I have a day job that pays the bills. One of these years I may slip over to it full time, I may never do that. Right now we are just trying to build something.

I have been a paid member here for at least 7 or 8 years as a knife maker or platinum level. I have posted a couple for sale items in the for sale forums but none lately and those were mostly around the No Weld Grinder. I have sold some knives in the past that I have posted here.

I never saw myself as a dealer and there really wasn't a Supply Seller membership that I was aware of so I continued under the membership I thought best fit. I didn't want to use this place to hype and sell supplies. I have answered some questions that have come up but mostly I have tried to avoid selling as most of my time here is spent in the makers forum and that isn't what it was about for me. I've got some good friends here and I have learned a lot from the makers forum over the years. I have had to almost stop participating in the makers forum as it always seem to come back to the appearance I was trying to sell. That wasn't working well.

As a result, I recently took some steps to further separate any of my personal knife maker activity here (or other forums) such as selling or answering supply type questions. It was a pure business decision for marketing properly and developing partnerships I couldn't other wise.

I have a great deal of respect for Blade Forums and Spark. I hope to continue supporting BF with some type of membership in the future. I hope I am allowed to continue my membership in that fashion.
 
There has been some good discussion on this topic with a number of (I think) good suggestions in Shop Talk that Spark might consider in terms of alternative membership levels or pricing possibilities.

Shop Talk's ideas

I only mention this to ensure there's some visibility, since the discussion kind of took off over there. :) I certainly understand why Spark has to consider rate increases, it's just hard to swallow from a wallet perspective. Personally I'm undecided whether I would renew if the Knifemaker membership went up significantly. But BF has been very valuable to me over the years, and I appreciate it a great deal.
 
I really dislike the idea of adding commissions or other types of fees. Users have paypal fees they already ask the buyer to cover, what happens when there's a 5% commission on sales? Paypal + Commission = 8%.

Is $6.25 a month really too much to pay? If you bought the membership but aren't making knives, why buy the membership in the first place? Go Gold or Basic for search and PM's.
 
There's no feasible, practical way to do commissions. It's not going to happen.
 
Here is one idea (not sure if it has been mentioned):

A basic knife makers fee of 30 or 50 or whatever dollars. For those who want to support the sight, have PMs, sig lines, other benefits, etc.

and

The option to buy "Buy a sales thread" for $5 or $10 (or whatever fee) when you wish to sell a knife, extra supplies etc. Limitations on selling multiple items may need to be set, or perhaps extra fees for multiple items sold in that thread, etc.

I realize that may not work well for suppliers like myself, but it may work well for the knifemakers here

-Todd



.
 
I have no problem with $75 for a Knife Maker membership and would gladly pay it. I pay more than that on another knife forum and it's voluntary.

But as a knife maker, would I still be able to sell my excess W2 and walnut in the 'Supplies for sale' forum? I also would not like 'Dealer' under my name. I'm a maker, not a dealer. I guess I'm a, Maker / Supplier. :)

Maybe I just need my own forum here? :)

Also, how do I know when my dues are do?
 
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