Mike Turber, what's the story ?

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RH

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Moderator, by all means move this if you need to. I couldn't find a good place for it.
Mike, I know you run WOW, which I understood to be primarily wholesale - dealers only. Then you open up the gates and have a big retail closeout sale (great, by the way. I picked something up and am pleased), and say you are concentrating on the "internet business". Today I go over to a site which I know was retail - ABC-Direct - and up pops the WOW homepage ?!? What gives ?
 
I will expalin in much greater detail when I wake up. The last few days and been a major brain drain for me
smile.gif


In a nutshell I own that server that many knife web sites are on. You would have seen the same thing if you went to Busse's web site, Mission Knives, REKAT, Outdoor Edge, Darrel Ralph and about 30 other web sites.

When we upgraded the server software all web site ownerships reverted back to the machine's name, which happens to be ME! So if you visited a web site and saw WOW you were simply seeing the site which is in spot #1 on my server.

Nearly all sites are fixed now. In the case of ABC-Direct, Mike Gallagher has given up and thrown in the towel, so to speak. I owned half of ABC-Direct and I will be taking back over the 800 number, which was mine to begin with. ABC-Direct is officially shut down and I will be starting my own retail operation, www.1stopknifeshop.com to fill in the blanks of my personal income.

This will all make more sense when I get a few minutes of clear thought to put it on paper.

Let's put it this way. What you are about to witness is what the future of knife retailing will be all about. I will be putting several things in place that have never been attempted. Like my new ad says in Blade Magazine, "We are changing the way the World buys knives".

Stay Tuned


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Best Regards,
Mike Turber
BladeForums Site Owner and Administrator
Do it! Do it right! Do it right NOW!
Show Your Support -Visit Our Sponsors - Click On The Banners!

[This message has been edited by Mike Turber (edited 03-01-2000).]
 
Just to flesh out a bit more to this...

WOW-Distribution no longer wholesales knives to dealers, that aspect of the business was shut down last year. The "sales blowout" mentioned above was a clearing out of inventory pursuant to that, including some repossessed inventory and buybacks from dealers we used to sell to. The idea was to give the members a chance at some knives for great prices, especially around the holidays.

As Mike mentioned, there are other plans in the works right now, but as always, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask them and we will be happy to do our best to answer...

Spark

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Kevin Jon Schlossberg
SysOp and Administrator for BladeForums.com

Insert witty quip here
 
I'm sure that what Mike is doing is really going to be cool. And it is scaring the H*** out of my credit cards!
smile.gif


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Dave
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If at first you don't succeed, go buy a knife.
 
I think some of the confusion may result from the still-born magazine. When Mike announced the magazine, he said he was going to divest himself of the knife business. Now that the magazine is no longer expected to be a revenue generator, Mike no longer has to be a disinterested party.

Of course, if he had used one of my suggestions for the name of the magazine, things might have been different.
wink.gif


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Protect your Right to Keep and Bear Arms!
No On Knight - No On 22
 
well, Ewok
so the failure of the mag to go commercial is MY fault ?
There's nothing like putting the blame where it belongs.

wink.gif
of course



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BrianWE
 
Thanks Mike/Spark. You strike me as upstanding fellows, I knew there had to be a logical explanation for the website shellgame. I can't wait !
 
Since this thread concerns the forum owner, I'll keep my clicker away from the control buttons here. Threads concerning any other knife retail operation would be moved over to the dealer-sale section, of course. The forum has always been an arm of Mike's business ventures, and not a non-profit organization like "public radio," though many of us may have thought of it that way.

Things have never been dull here, and I'll be interested to see how it works out as a knife retailer among other knife retailers participating and advertising on an information site connected to and owned by another knife retailer. To be continued . . .


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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001
 
James,

Eloquent and politically correct. As a new one-person knife dealer myself, I am at the banner purchasing decision point and not sure that I want to contibute financially to a big machine that will compete against me. I also wonder how many banners there are total? I have started watching banners and it seems like the banners for BF or its affiliated parties come up much more often than others. I have to ask myself if this coincidence?

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Chief’s Cutlery and Web Design Specializing in Microtech and other Quality knives
 
...I will be starting my own retail operation, www.1stopknifeshop.com to fill in the blanks of my personal income...
Click to expand...

"Blanks of my personal income"? C'mon, Mike, I thought you and Rob Simonich cruised around in your matching Benzes looking at chicks and talking on your car phones comparing stock portfolios.
wink.gif
wink.gif
My entire image is now shattered...
frown.gif


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Don LeHue

Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings...they did it by killing all those who opposed them.

[This message has been edited by DonL (edited 03-03-2000).]
 
We have no interest in screwing over anyone and we realize that our switch over to a retail operation from wholesale is a big step that will make a lot of dealers uncomfortable.

As a result, we've taken extra steps to make BladeForums.com more friendly to dealers who support it - for example, only dealers who purchase advertising can now sell items in the Knives For Sale: Dealer forum (meaning less competition for those who do post there).

We're also instituting a new feature for paying advertisers - getting your own forum on BladeForums.com. You can read about that in the Knives For Sale: Dealers section.

Regarding BladeForums.com / OneStopKnifeShop threads, there will be no more threads here in the General Discussion Forum for OneStopKnifeShop merchandise - it will be subject to the same rules as any other dealer. There may be threads for BladeForums.com Tshirts and the annual BladeForums.com knives, but that is for BladeForums.com members only, not the knife buying public at large.

Make no mistake - we will do everything we can to support the people who support BladeForums.com. If you don't support us though, don't expect any special consideration.

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Kevin Jon Schlossberg
SysOp and Administrator for BladeForums.com

Insert witty quip here
 
I could write a book about what has happened to me over the last year or more.

In a nutshell I formed a strategic alliance with JRS Distributors last October. The deal was that I would run an East Coast operation for them. Several things happened to them and 2 Months later they sold to Moteng. So that income is gone.

I owned 1/2 of ABC-Direct. Mike Gallagher decided a couple weekends ago to shut it down. Again more lost income.

While setting up an East Coast operation for JRS, I shut down World Of Weapons. More lost income that was to be replaced dollar for dollar with me running JRS East.

Anyway there is more but that is not for open discussion.

Now here I am with this huge web site. We get 200+ emails per day. It takes up a huge amount of time to run this thing in a way that it needs to be run. Spark and I put a lot of hours into this site and I think it shows. We have tried virtually everything to make it float but all where just drops in the bucket.

The fixed expenses to run this site are in the neighborhood of 1,200 a month.

Here is the breakdown per month.
Server rack space: $350
T-1 Connect: $75
Router: $55
10 Channels fractional T-1 @$50 each: $500
The above totals $980

You can call FDN.com to verify any of the above numbers.

We have not considered the price of the server itself, the rack, wires, software and any of Spark's or my salary and other incidentals.

This site is now consuming a large portion of my time. It is also doing the same for Spark. We spend more time answering emails and the behind the scenes issues here than any other one aspect of my business.

So now to keep this site alive and to justify my time here I must now have it become a source of income. I did not put www.1stopknifeshop.com on this site. It will take the place of the store but it will not be under the BladeForums.Com URL. Profits from 1SKS will be used to help pay for BFC. It will be under the same rules as any other site. I will not jeopardize BladeForums for a retail knife venture. But without 1SKS this site will not be able to support itself. Simple as that.


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Best Regards,
Mike Turber
BladeForums Site Owner and Administrator
Do it! Do it right! Do it right NOW!
Show Your Support -Visit Our Sponsors - Click On The Banners!
 
Mike, for all you do with providing us Blade Forums, I think you would be the last one to have to explain yourself. My post above was intended as a gag, and not meant to elicit any real response, though, like a dork, I left out the winky/smiley. I hope you didn't feel any need to explain what is your own personal business here because of my poorly edited post.

We don't doubt that it takes quite an investment to keep this site running, and seeing the breakdown just proves to us your dedication to knifeknuts through this site. I know I, for one, will continue to help when I can. Heck, if I'm ever in Florida, I'll give your Benz a wash and wax so you won't have to bother with the detail shop.
wink.gif
(I made sure to include it this time...)

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Don LeHue

Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings...they did it by killing all those who opposed them.
 
No problem Don
smile.gif


This was all kind of thrown in my lap in the last few weeks, so insted of making lemons out of the whole ordeal I made lemonade
smile.gif


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Best Regards,
Mike Turber
BladeForums Site Owner and Administrator
Do it! Do it right! Do it right NOW!
Show Your Support -Visit Our Sponsors - Click On The Banners!
 
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