Selling

colu41

colu41

Joined
Dec 24, 2014
Messages
1,598
How did you guys start selling your knives? I'm just a part timer. I work full time and manage to make a little over one knife a week. I've sold a few to guys at work, and somehow managed to sell one from a Youtube video I posted.
I'm not looking for a huge fan base of people that want to order knives, I'd just like to sell a few here and there. I posted on Facebook and I'm just getting a lot of "That's an amazing knife" or "its beautiful". But no one seems interested in purchasing. I live in an area of heavy hunting and fishing so, I figured it wouldn't be too hard to sell a few knives. It doesn't help that Bark River, and Rapid River Knives are in my area :foot:
 
Join this site as a Knifemaker or Service Provider and than share your work while asking questions, and offering answers to other people's questions.

Strive to make each knife better than your last.

A quality product will almost sell itself.
 
logem said:
Join this site as a Knifemaker or Service Provider and than share your work while asking questions, and offering answers to other people's questions.

Strive to make each knife better than your last.

A quality product will almost sell itself.
Click to expand...

This is how I started.
 
As a knifemaker membership, you not only can post photos of your knives that you make and sell, but you can sell them in The Exchange. Many makers sell all they make there.
 
I gave away the first 25 knives I made that I thought were good. Word got around and I almost always have an order for a knife. My Face book page has only sold one knife, but word of mouth has sold dozens.

If you live in an area of hunting and fishing find someone prominent within that circle and give them a knife. Tell them you want it tested in the field. If you did your work right and the design and function are good, you will have knife orders. If not, work on your knife making skills.
 
I asked your very same question to a maker who invited me over to his shop recently. His answer: "I gave away a lot of knifes when I first started out." Now he is is in very high demand.
 
I'm new at this too - still in my first year. I made a few knives and took them on a bear hunting trip in Maine last year. One of my buddies bought one right then and another asked me to make him a knife with a handle made of a bone from his bear; then he changed the order to two. Then another guy wanted two and another guy wanted one. As I made them I would put a picture on fb saying simply that here was a knife I just finished and maybe a bit about the handle material, type of steel etc. No overt sales pitch at all. Occasionally from that source someone would jump on fb with a "hey I want one of those" and we would go from there.

Right now I have four orders from paying customers and am just barely starting on the first one. This all sounds good, and it is as busy as I need to be - but all the knives that are sold or ordered are for friends, family etc. Once everyone who hunts/fishes has their knife from me all this could easily dry up. I have not tapped into the general public at all, and really have not tried. All word of mouth so far.

That is my experience so far.
 
An additional piece of advice is don't take orders. It ends up beilng a problem for most part time makers . Make a knife and sell it...make another one....repeat.
 
I've noticed that the Exchange here seems to move knives quickly, at least for kitchen knives. I troll thru there looking for inspiration once in a while and I'm always amazed how quickly a $200 knife gets sold.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
An additional piece of advice is don't take orders. It ends up beilng a problem for most part time makers . Make a knife and sell it...make another one....repeat.
Click to expand...
This is the best piece of advice for a part time guy. I almost killed myself trying to fill orders last Christmas. I am now only selling what comes off my bench. I control the flow and my quality has improved. I find the gun and knife shows work well for me also. Whatever I can get together for a show, I take. I STAY MY OWN BOSS.
 
Most of mine have been sold to people in my area who see the blades for themselves. I want to attend more knife shows, but Bladeforums has been an excellent place to list pieces for sale, and to show off knives and talk about them. Swords that get shown on this site show up really high on internet searches, which is invaluable!
 
Truthfully I haven't sold to many. I'm not working to mass produce so the few I sell a year is enough for me for now. But all the ones I have sold have been through word of mouth. I did have a foot in the door with my brother being in the army, so the first few knives I made were for him to take and show off.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
An additional piece of advice is don't take orders. It ends up beilng a problem for most part time makers . Make a knife and sell it...make another one....repeat.
Click to expand...
This is some of the best advice here. You can quickly get burnt out and lose the love and enjoyment you find in your hobby by the pressures of sales.
 
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