No, you are NOT a knife seller

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btinder

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I've been seeing a lot of knives pop up in the exchange recently that were purchased from a legit online retailer, then marked up a couple hundred dollars by a forum member. Can't prove it, but c'mon. MAYBE its buyers remorse, and they're just trying to flip it, but its a disturbing trend. Don't ruin our chance to own a limited production knife because you want to make a quick buck, and price gouge the community in the process.

Does anyone think this is OK? Obviously its legal and allowed, but is it ethical? Am I just too easily annoyed? Probably. Thank you for reading, have a great day.
 
I don't personally condone such actions; however in free market-based pricing, buyers are welcome to choose what they want to pay. The last thing I personally want is a ten pages full of regulations saying what you can and can't do. I think as long as they seller has legal title, they're free to ask whatever they want. Me as a seller can choose not to pursue if I feel the pricing is too lofty.
 
Obvious price gouging is obnoxious, however, an item is worth whatever someone is willing to pay, charging a few bucks more than what the knife goes for might be a way for the seller to recoup shipping cost and or taxes paid. Or maybe the item has increased in value due to supply and demand. It depends on the situation whether it's ethical or not. As a buyer you have all the power, if you don't like the price then you can take your money elsewhere.
 
Yeah, I've noticed certain scalpers, err sellers that only list LE's and sprint runs, after they've sold out, at 50-100% markups.
 
Irritates me. Especially those that buy LE knives solely because they're LE just to sell them at a jacked-up price.
 
Navitimer said:
I don't personally condone such actions; however in free market-based pricing, buyers are welcome to choose what they want to pay. The last thing I personally want is a ten pages full of regulations saying what you can and can't do. I think as long as they seller has legal title, they're free to ask whatever they want. Me as a seller can choose not to pursue if I feel the pricing is too lofty.
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Agreed 100%
 
This comes up from time to time. At the end of the day if you don't like the price don't buy it. Nobody is entitled to buy something for a price they choose.

Having said that, if someone is regularly flipping knives for profit here then my understanding of the rules is their name should be in green and they should have a dealer membership.

(and yes it's often tacky obnoxious behaviour )
 
OP, you like Busse knives? Let me tell you about a guy who goes by "Liu Kang"...

Vultures, speculators, scalpers, flippers, call em what you will. They have no power if you don't buy from them.
 
Chris Larrikin said:
Having said that, if someone is regularly flipping knives for profit here then my understanding of the rules is their name should be in green and they should have a dealer membership.
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:thumbup:
I was going to comment on that, glad I read first.
 
Don't get mad at the person jacking up the price beyond reasonable, get mad at the person willing to pay a stupidly high price.
Echoing what's already been said, it's the buyers that drive the price points.
 
Totally understand nothing can be done about this, it's more of a plea to members to not be jerks. I'm sure it will work. Big difference between a catch and release to get your money back vs reselling it immediately at $125 higher. Did it gain some add-on Ti hardware in the mailbox???? Today I saw the knife that sparked this thread being dropped in price. Justice.
 
This happens a LOT in the traditional/slip joint forum. And not even necessarily limited or special edition knives! The knives are produced with collectors in mind, but its a pretty even mix of collectors and users that want them, because let's face it, they're awesome. So they sell out, and then the prices go up sometimes to over twice retail.

The thing about it is, though, that these knives are available on pre-order and early reserve, and not all of them always get snapped up. The preorders and early reserves are available to everyone, but consistently people lament that "they weren't able to get one". Well, I think part of it is the rush. People get a rush from watching the for sale thread and seeing if they can jump on something first. I'll admit, I'm not immune to the rush...

My first of these knives came from this forum, second hand. Then, when I got one through the early reserve and I paid half the price of the 2nd hand knives, my "collecting" strategy changed. We'll call it a rearrangement of priorities, I suppose? I don't own a ton of knives, but all the knives I own now I love. And really, my needs could be served by just one of them if required, or two if a little less Spartan. So everything else to me is icing on top. But if it's something I'm "collecting," something that I really want, I just chalk up the extra energy required by the early reserve to the aggressive competitive nature of the knife collecting hobby.
 
I no longer get "worked up" over the greed of flippers. I just move on. Charge what you want. I almost always find that knife at a fair price. It just takes time. There are more knives to like than you can shake a stick at.
 
Ajack60 said:
Don't get mad at the person jacking up the price beyond reasonable, get mad at the person willing to pay a stupidly high price.
Echoing what's already been said, it's the buyers that drive the price points.
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Why can't we get mad at the ones doing the jacking and frustrated with the guys doing the buying?

Only one of them is using a persons desire to own something as a tool to extort more money from them, it's pretty obvious who the bad guy is.
 
1) it's not gouging. Your continued survival doesn't depend on purchasing that $900 flipper from a custom maker that's been making knives for three years.

2) let the market set the price according to supply and demand. If you put price controls on knives (which could never be implemented by the way) then expect to see a scarcity of those knives for sale.

3) be patient. The market for high end knives is out of control. I wouldn't be suprised to see prices dropping now that everyone and his brother seems to have bought a CNC machine and is making folders.
 
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JohnWE said:
Only one of them is using a persons desire to own something as a tool to extort more money from them, it's pretty obvious who the bad guy is.
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Simple Definition of extort. : to get (something, such as money) from a person by the use of force or threats.

No one is being forced to threatened.
 
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