question for buck's price

Joined
Oct 1, 2002
Messages
10
i found the price in buck homepage was muck higher than other site,why?is there any different between them?
 
I imagine all manufacturer web sites list full retail price, which is usually higher than other web sources.

They do this so that they "protect" their distributers, wholesalers, brick and mortars, etc. from being "undercut".
 
A owner of a pizza restaurant once told me "There is a lot of dough in pizza". Well, I guess you can also say there is a lot of dough in knives. Buck's retail price is quite a bit higher than the wholesale price. That gives the retailer a lot of room, or profit, to deal with. This is also true for other knife makers. Maybe a person on the forum who is also a retailer may give us a ideal on how much knives are marked up.

So remember what the pizza owner said "There is a lot of dough in pizza (knives)".:rolleyes:
 
I dont know that it doubles, but more probable is that it goes up by percents, or whatever each company that handles it charges for its margin.

So if the actual cost to make a knife for buck was say $10, then Buck might charge 12 to the distributer, then the distributer might charge $14 for the shop, the shop $16 or so, while the MSRP would be $20
 
My point is, the mark up is a lot more than double. My guess is, if a knife company wholesales it for $10, the retail price is more like $39.95, instead of $20. It is not exactly a high volume business.

One example is the knife I just bought after asking this forum about the knife. It was a Alpha Hunter, #277 with ATS-34 steel blade and leather sheath. List is $94 from Buck, the on-line store I bought it from lists it for $59.99 and I got a sale price of $38.99. Now I doubt the store selling me the item lost money, do you? Buck lists a high retail price to protect the retailer. Some small retailers will list their products at full list.

Don't worry, Buck knives are still expensive, even at the sale price. I belive they are worth every penny, especially in the long run.
 
retail 101

just for the sake of argument, we will only use keystones in our formulas. Keystone means that you want to double your money so if you buy something for $10 you want to sell it for $20. That also means you got a 50% margin cause at the end you have $20 in your hand and $10 was your profit, being 50% of the $20 so 50% margin or Keystone...

now, say the manufacturer wants to do the same thing. If it costs $5 to make, the manufacturer would charge $10 to the dealer. The dealer would charge $20. If you get too many middle men this gets way out of whack so a streamlined distribution system is a good thing.

Now if a dealer got a discount, say 10%. That would mean he would pay $9 for the product. Now say he wants to make 40% instead of 50%. You divide the $9 by .6 and you get a selling price of $15 generating a $6 profit (40% of $15).

One key formula. To get 40% margin you do not multiply by 1.4, you divide by .6.

Say someting costs $10. You multiply by 1.4 to get $14. $4 profit (14-10) is 28.6% of $14. A 28% margin. Now divide $10 by .6 and you get $16.67. $6.67 profit is a 40% margin.

Hope this is somewhat interesting...
 
Compared to 5 USD crap Buck knives might LOOK expensive until you understand just a little bit about knives.

Compared to most of the other major brands I think Buck knives do represent a very good value - especially considering the low price-points some are selling them.

Exception been IMO the prices Buck knives are sold in europe / germany - which is around 90€ for a 110 which MSRP is 60 USD and which can be found in the 30-ties online.

Klaus
 
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