Opinion: The problem with most Chinese brands

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Dan of Bazz Clazz said:
The issue you are speaking of is not just with knife manufacturers and china. The issue is related to business and is widespread. Most of the problem centers around trying to give customers more and more choices. Sellers are basically trying to find and offer the buyer the deciding point that will make them buy the product.
Take a look at a item like toothpaste. It wasn't that many years ago that if you needed a tube of toothpaste, you had 2 choices. Colgate or Crest.
Now you have 10-20 different kinds of Crest alone. Paste. Gel. Whitening. Flouride. Sensitive. Striped. Acid protection. Anti-gingivitis. And then you get the combinations, specially tailored depending on your exact needs. Older, Smoker, Kid, Young adult, the list goes on and on. All of it basically tailored to fool the customer into believing they are selecting exactly what they need, the perfect solution, just for them.
All of which leads to the next inevitability, discontinue the ones that don't sell, and try to come out with something that will. The emphasis becomes flooding the market with choices, instead of meeting the direct need. Manufacturers are essentially playing lotto, putting out a ton of choices, hoping that enough will click with the market and allow them to make profits. On the one hand, it is better to place a lot of small bets hoping to get winners rather than betting the farm on 1-2 products and dying if the big bets don't pay off....
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I think this is a slightly different phenomenon than consumer products sold in retail stores. There, having more varieties is an attempt to crowd competitors out of literal shelf space. It’s rampant in snack chips and soda. Coke wants to take market share from Pepsi, they hope by releasing coke, Coke Zero, vanilla, lime, etc etc they will get more space and push Pepsi and other competitors out. But most retailers only have x amount of space and aren’t going to remove another brand. So as happened at a cafeteria where I worked, they would run out of the most popular item (Diet Pepsi) which only had 2 rows of bottles, meanwhile most everyone ignored the disgusting cherry, lime, and other gimmicks. The market plan risks cannibalizing their own brand and killing the golden goose but companies and marketers seem devoted to the technique.
 
SpySmasher said:
Not sterile, no -- rather lovely, in fact -- but pretty faceless. I had to squint at my my computer screen to read "Reate." :) Though it occurs to me that establishing a clear brand identity, while definitely an issue for Chinese knifemakers, would be an issue for any new production outfit. Getting some "soul" from the Reate's of the world is probably just a matter of time.
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I agree with the "faceless" thing. I think Reate in particular suffers from the faceless malady due to making knives for designers who already have a distinct face and soul; Todd Begg, Liong Mah and Bharucha to name a few. Reate's only "soul" is the characteristic soul of other knife makers. Although, if you go all the way back to the Hills, Horizon A & B and District 9, there was a beginning of an identity that got swept aside in the name of profits. I guess I understand this, you gotta do what you gotta do. I think perfect proof of this is the newest, most popular "all Reate" knife is the Mini Horizon, lol. Not a new design but a rehash of an early, successful style. I think David Deng is an incredible knife maker but maybe stretched too thin as a knife designer.
Insipid Moniker said:
Honestly, I think WE has been the best about that and I think they're smart for doing it. They don't make anything I've fallen in love with, but just from my casual browsing I can almost invariably recognize a WE knife at first sight.
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I agree with this also. It's also kind of ironic that the biggest point of criticism for WE has been their attempt to create an identity with bright colors and the "star" hardware. It's kind of a damned if you do/damned of you don't situation.
 
A knife company typically needs to establish a catalog of products to fit the dizzyingly variable tastes of the consumers. Kizer, like WE knives is currently doing, did that at a ridiculous speed at the beginning. Kizer slowed down after a while when they started making more successful designs, and I’m sure WE Knives will do the same.


WE Knives hasn’t put anything out that has the right price:appearance:materials:functionality ratios for me, so I’ve never purchased/handled one. It’s only a matter of time, however, before they succeed to pique my interest, and I think that reflects the business strategy - Countless test runs until they find some models that are very successful.
 
(if you go all the way back to the Hills, Horizon A, B,C, and District 9, there was a beginning of an identity that got swept aside in the name of profits.) This sucks,too. those knives were great and were reasonably priced.For a company to offer those models as their 1st ones was amazing as far as fit finish design and quality goes.the Horizon D model was the beginning of the end as far as bang for your buck was concerned; that model doubled the price of their knives and has been that way if not more expensive ever since.
 
goldie said:
(if you go all the way back to the Hills, Horizon A, B,C, and District 9, there was a beginning of an identity that got swept aside in the name of profits.) This sucks,too. those knives were great and were reasonably priced.For a company to offer those models as their 1st ones was amazing as far as fit finish design and quality goes.the Horizon D model was the beginning of the end as far as bang for your buck was concerned; that model doubled the price of their knives and has been that way if not more expensive ever since.
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True! I bought my first Reate, a Hills, for $139. In terms of fit, finish and quality it destroyed any other knife in the same price range. Then I grabbed a new Horizon B for $150 and a lightly used Horizon A for $170. The introduction of the Horizon D with a retail price of $399 ended value proposition of a Reate. It evaporated like fog in the sun. They're still a great knife, but when I first held a Hills at the price I got it at, I was blown away.

That's why I tend to scout out new Chinese knives so I can be in on the next "reate" while pricing is attractive. For the most part, when I find one that's an original design I tend to be underwhelmed of late.
 
Not saying Horizon D is a value purchase but compared it to, say Horizon C, you got lots of upgrades (better steel, better hardware, and 3D machined ti/ti or ti/cf scales). It is debatable whether the upgrades are worth $160, though.

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Great stuff. The perspective here is very interesting. I tend to assign value based on quality of materials and execution. That defines and justifies price for me personally.
 
That single star always reminds me it was made in communist China. I just can’t get over that no matter how much I like the knife.
 
Yeah I agree the WE star bit shape did remind me of communism but it also seemed like an embrace of who they are so I kinda liked it but IIRC they stopped doing it. I find that originally WE were interesting but after some, admittedly limited, experience with their knives and how they just seem so similar with minor changes through their lines I lost interest in them. I still find Kizer to be interesting and so therefore more appealing to me. I also have a hesitation as there is still so much unknown about Chinese manufacturing and how legitimate everything really is and how there is a reputation/stigma for deceit in Chinese manufacturing.
 
Dan of Bazz Clazz said:
The issue you are speaking of is not just with knife manufacturers and china. The issue is related to business and is widespread. Most of the problem centers around trying to give customers more and more choices. Sellers are basically trying to find and offer the buyer the deciding point that will make them buy the product.
Take a look at a item like toothpaste. It wasn't that many years ago that if you needed a tube of toothpaste, you had 2 choices. Colgate or Crest.
Now you have 10-20 different kinds of Crest alone. Paste. Gel. Whitening. Flouride. Sensitive. Striped. Acid protection. Anti-gingivitis. And then you get the combinations, specially tailored depending on your exact needs. Older, Smoker, Kid, Young adult, the list goes on and on. All of it basically tailored to fool the customer into believing they are selecting exactly what they need, the perfect solution, just for them.
All of which leads to the next inevitability, discontinue the ones that don't sell, and try to come out with something that will. The emphasis becomes flooding the market with choices, instead of meeting the direct need. Manufacturers are essentially playing lotto, putting out a ton of choices, hoping that enough will click with the market and allow them to make profits. On the one hand, it is better to place a lot of small bets hoping to get winners rather than betting the farm on 1-2 products and dying if the big bets don't pay off.
Used to be a company called Iomega (remember zip drives?) that made data storage devices and media in the 90's and PC tech boom. Their CEO bet the farm on one technology, guessed wrong, and the company went out of business in 6 months.
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Manufacturers are moving away from this model. Recent studies have shown that people say they want choice, but are quickly overwhelmed when offered too many. At one point you could get 10 different types of peanut butter from one company alone. They found that customers quickly became bewildered by the choice and chose nothing. When they switched back to smooth or chunky theb customers chose quickly and moved on.
 
Interesting about the star on the We knives, I have one and never thought about it, if it was red it would be much closer to the communist star. I do happen to like that star hardware....
 
I can't do china made knives. I've tried and tried. For me it's nostalgia. When I was a kid all the old timers carried U.S. made pocket knives. I always associated those knives as being real Americana.
I can do fixed blades and axes but not any knife going into my pocket.
 
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