Price Controls Spoil My Fun !

[DocJD]

Part of knife buying fun for me is to shop around for a bargain price . So all these price control schemes are a real PITA in my book . Very anti competitive , almost un-American !

Big thanks to all those great companies that still have a free market pricing approach .

I'm sure somebody will argue that price fixing is somehow best for the consumer , but that logic escapes me .

Seriously , this does have an impact on my buying . I'm much less likely to buy with no "deal " available anywhere .

 

[Hickory n steel]

Part of knife buying fun for me is to shop around for a bargain price . So all these price control schemes are a real PITA in my book . Very anti competitive , almost un-American !

Big thanks to all those great companies that still have a free market pricing approach .

I'm sure somebody will argue that price fixing is somehow best for the consumer , but that logic escapes me .

Seriously , this does have an impact on my buying . I'm much less likely to buy with no "deal " available anywhere .

I agree, finding deals is part of the fun.

 

[Rupestris]

Do you mean Minimum Advertised Price?

I have yet to see a manufacturer dictate the absolute lowest price a distributor can sell for. I have, however, seen "Add to cart to view price" many times and that price well below the typically selling price as well as the MAP.

 

[DocJD]

Do you mean Minimum Advertised Price?

I have yet to see a manufacturer dictate the absolute lowest price a distributor can sell for. I have, however, seen "Add to cart to view price" many times and that price well below the typically selling price as well as the MAP.

I just notice that for some brands the price on a given knife is everywhere the same . No better deal to be found . Makes my Scots parts sad !

 

[Dangerously]

I love that a CRK is priced the same everywhere. I don’t have to waste my time looking for a cheap price and wondering if they’re fakes.

 

[sharp_edge]

Unless discontinued or as dealer exclusives or sprint runs, I have yet seen any knife from major brands including ZT, Benchmade, and Spyderco that has this "add to your cart to see the actual (better) price" thing.

 

[Rupestris]

Then that could be a MAP set by a manufacturer. If the item is in demand and a distributor wants to stay competitive, they will sell it at that price (providing the competition is as well).

There is a built in profit margin determined by the supplier and sometimes based on how much of a product that seller moves.

Sell 10 and you get the difference between distributor price and MAP or MSRP. Sell 10,000 and you get an additional % rebate. Depends on the product and the market.

There are cars that are currently selling for tens of thousands of dollars over the sticker price because of demand.

I believe the expression is "buy once - cry once" when buying a quality item. If that knife really put its hooks in you, you'd buy it. If you're shopping for the half off sale, you either know you have more important things to spend your money on or you just don't want it enough.

I love that a CRK is priced the same everywhere. I don’t have to waste my time looking for a cheap price and wondering if they’re fakes.

Pandora Jewelry is the same and it saves a lot of time.

 

[DocJD]

Then that could be a MAP set by a manufacturer. If the item is in demand and a distributor wants to stay competitive, they will sell it at that price (providing the competition is as well).

There is a built in profit margin determined by the supplier and sometimes based on how much of a product that seller moves.

Sell 10 and you get the difference between distributor price and MAP or MSRP. Sell 10,000 and you get an additional % rebate. Depends on the product and the market.

There are cars that are currently selling for tens of thousands of dollars over the sticker price because of demand.

I believe the expression is "buy once - cry once" when buying a quality item. If that knife really put its hooks in you, you'd buy it. If you're shopping for the half off sale, you either know you have more important things to spend your money on or you just don't want it enough.



Pandora Jewelry is the same and it saves a lot of time.

Even though my time may be shorter than I like to think , I still have more time than money !

 

[evilgreg]

MAP pricing pretty much ended my Benchmade purchasing; I used to buy piles of them and now I generally will only buy them secondhand.

 

[GermanyChris]

I don't really bargan shop for anything, my time is worth more than the few percentage points I might save.

 

[craytab]

Part of knife buying fun for me is to shop around for a bargain price . So all these price control schemes are a real PITA in my book . Very anti competitive , almost un-American !

Big thanks to all those great companies that still have a free market pricing approach .

I'm sure somebody will argue that price fixing is somehow best for the consumer , but that logic escapes me .

Seriously , this does have an impact on my buying . I'm much less likely to buy with no "deal " available anywhere .

God forbid a company sell its products for the price it wants.

Any dealer is free to sell anything the have at the price they want. And any maker is free to sell or not sell to any dealer based on the agreed upon end selling price.

Not unamerican at all. It's called business.

 

[BD_01]

Part of knife buying fun for me is to shop around for a bargain price . So all these price control schemes are a real PITA in my book . Very anti competitive , almost un-American !

I sort of agree. That’s a large reason I spent LOTS of time stalking the Exchange here in 2017. Enjoying the hunt was part of it.

Now that my collection is reasonably large (by my personal standard), I occasionally sweep the exchange for bargains on the short list of things at the top of my WTB list...but I don’t hunt the way I used to.

I do tend to save some funds for the fall discontinuation sales.

I will say this about MAP:
There is a small knife shop in my town. It tends to be well stocked in ZT (owner is a fan) with a reasonable Benchmade selection. Prior to this year he didn’t stock much Spyderco—excepting maybe the PM2 & Endura. When I asked him about it, he said the margin wasn’t favorable for him. Well, when Spyderco bumped their MAP in January, his stock expandend to about a dozen models. I haven’t talked to him for a while, but if that change was coincidental, I’d be really surprised.

As a consumer I don’t like MAP. But based on what happened with my LKS, I guess I conceptually understand why it exists.

 

[Legendary_Jarl]

God forbid a company sell its products for the price it wants. Any dealer is free to sell anything the have at the price they want. And any maker is free to sell or not sell to any dealer based on the agreed upon end selling price. Not unamerican at all. It's called business.

There are instances when products, specially staple products or products that peoples life's are dependant on need to be kept at a certain price range. Recently when Martin Shkraeli(sp?) raised the price of hiv treatment drugs by 300% or something like that it caused public outcry and government action. Maybe he was well within his rights but he sure paid the consequences.

This, of course, will probably not apply to knives. But, in this case, the consumer is free NOT to buy an overpriced item and seek alternatives(within the law, of course. Nobody is telling anyone to get clones ). Specially when the asking price is unjustified.

 

[Rupestris]

There are instances when products, specially staple products or products that peoples life's are dependant on need to be kept at a certain price range. Recently when Martin Shkraeli(sp?) raised the price of hiv treatment drugs by 300% or something like that it caused public outcry and government action. Maybe he was well within his rights but he sure paid the consequences.

This, of course, will probably not apply to knives. But, in this case, the consumer is free NOT to buy an overpriced item and seek alternatives(within the law, of course. Nobody is telling anyone to get clones ). Specially when the asking price is unjustified.

With luxury items like the Jeep Trackhawk, bronze single finger knucks or Secondhand Busse knives, the consumer is the one who decides whether or not the price is justified.

The same can be said for medication.

If the government steps in it's because of abuse of a patent or market share. Not the price itself. If there was competition in the field, a manufacturer can ask whatever they want for medication, knives or broccoli. Even 300% more than they did yesterday.

 

[Bucketz21]

find the deals on the secondary, it's high risk high reward, should satisfy all your thrill seeking needs. asking retailers to climb all over each other to give you the lowest price in their sprint for insolvency is silly. you can charge maap and still make me a regular loyal customer with service while keeping the playing field fair for other retailers

 

[salduchi]

Do you mean Minimum Advertised Price?

I have yet to see a manufacturer dictate the absolute lowest price a distributor can sell for. I have, however, seen "Add to cart to view price" many times and that price well below the typically selling price as well as the MAP.

I was checking for prices on couple of ZT models and an authorized dealer that most of you know had them listed for substantially less than everyone else. I thought, wow, these are cheap I gotta get them. But before I could complete the purchase the prices went up to match everyone else’s. I sent the company owner a message and said hey man, what gives. He said one of the other ad’s ratted him out and told ZT and ZT called him and told him to raise his prices to where everyone else’s were or he’d lose his distributorship.

 

[salduchi]

I love that a CRK is priced the same everywhere. I don’t have to waste my time looking for a cheap price and wondering if they’re fakes.

And you can feel happy that they are juicing you for the maximum they think they can all without alienating too large of a segment of the knife buying community.

 

[Rupestris]

And you can feel happy that they are juicing you for the maximum they think they can all without alienating too large of a segment of the knife buying community.

They are charging exactly what the market will bear. Not a penny more.

 

[aji1]

With luxury items like the Jeep Trackhawk, bronze single finger knucks or Secondhand Busse knives, the consumer is the one who decides whether or not the price is justified.

The same can be said for medication.

I wouldn't call medication a "luxury item", not if you're sick anyway (botox, usually, or hair restoration cream would be luxuries). The consumers' choice is pretty meager as to whether the price of their prescribed meds are justified.

 

[salduchi]

I wouldn't call medication a "luxury item", not if you're sick anyway (botox, usually, or hair restoration cream would be luxuries). The consumers' choice is pretty meager as to whether the price of their prescribed meds are justified.

I was recently watching an extreme example of medication price fixing. The price for a critical drug went up 1000 percent. Not because the manufacturing costs went up but because the manufacturer deemed it a necessary drug and unless you wanted to die they would pay it. Many did die. And they pinned the pricing decision on one guy and he got locked up. But most companies aren’t so stupid or greedy but they still make ginormous profits. Medication a luxury? Rasputin, dude you are truly clueless.