Spyderco Consumer Announcement

Sal Glesser said:
MAP is designed to protect the little guy. Spyderco doesn't make any more money, in fact it will cost us to implement MAP.

sal
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I assume that the cost of implementing MAP pricing will eventually be passed on to the consumer. So by implementing MAP pricing, the consumer will end up having to pay more for Spyderco products on both the front end and the back end. Hmmmm. I'm not sure I see the fairness in that.

While MAP pricing may be designed to protect the little guy, it does so at the expense of the littlest guys . . . guys like me.
 
Their banking on the idea that more dealers continuing to sell Spydercos will be better for them in the long run.

I'm sure dealers like BBS are ecstatic. :rolleyes:
 
I guess. Knives are already so darn expensive that I've just about decided to get out of the game. All MAP pricing does is push me further toward the exit.
 
bld522 said:
I guess. Knives are already so darn expensive that I've just about decided to get out of the game. All MAP pricing does is push me further toward the exit.
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Start looking at making them. No reason to get out of the game. Up it.
 
Yeah, maybe. I'm getting close to retiring so it's something I might look into . . .
 
Stays Sharp said:
^
Well said.

I'm the type that gets hit the hardest... A Spyderco "aficionado" with no Spyderco dealers within 100 miles from me, and the two knife/gun shops several counties away price their dozen or so Spyderco models laughably high. All my purchases are online.

While I understand why they are doing it, mainly insuring that MORE dealers continue to sell the brand instead of outright dropping the brand because of getting priced out by loss leaders and big chains.... I'm not at all pleased... Just glad that it's 40%, which really is a saving grace. Who knows, we might even get lucky and our favorite online dealers are able to "add to cart" sale prices like they used to do BM and ZT's before they went full on enforcement.

If it's all about protecting the small guy dealers, then MSRP is another thing to pay attention to, time will tell if Syderco relaxes on the MSRP to compensate and LOOK OUT FOR THE REAL LITTLE GUYS... US. ;)
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I wish that spyderco would cap the high prices. If there's going to be a cap on the low side, then cap the high side too. I'd rather see price gougers go out of business than anyone else.

"Here, this widget cost me $1 to make. MSRP is $500. Street price was $5. I'll now enforce a MAP of 90% off MSRP. Oh, now everyone is charging $20 and there are price wars that cripple the small guys through shipping and lack of advertising budgets? Tough titty. Other places monopolize specific models and charge the full MSRP of $500? Tough titty."

That business model doesn't make sense to me even if everyone else is doing it. What makes sense is making a better product at a more affordable price more readily available to the consumer. I don't see MAP doing any of that. As a matter of fact, I don't see many big knife companies doing it at all anymore. They're all bottlenecking themselves into the few companies that can undercut others in other areas, like shipping, or can monopolize certain high demand models. What kind of business model is that?

I hope spyderco listens and dramatically lowers MSRP and gives wholesale discounts to businesses with under a certain sales volume and raises the wholesale costs and cut discounts for companies that sell above what SHOULD be the reasonable MSRP.

If a knife costs $50 to bring to market and the MSRP is $200 with wholesale costs at $100 for small volume dealers and wholesale costs are $120 for large volume dealers and wholesale costs for companies that show they're willing to gouge customers are pinned at $180, then there'd be a true leveling of the playing field with more people willing to carry spyderco knives.

It's not MAP that's needed. It's letting smaller dealers feel like they're appreciated. The only way to do that is to adjust wholesale costs based on sales volume and market ethics. The consumer doesn't need to be punished, especially when the proposed policy does nothing to stop big box and giant internet retailers from undercutting the smaller guys.
 
Hi Bodog,

With regards to MSRP, it is merely a line drawn to establish pricing down the line. One year, when we eliminated MSRP and just gave dealer and distributor prices, there was much screaming. The dealers and distributors want that MSRP from which to gauge pricing. They also expect dealer prices to be a certain percentage off of MSRP. These have been the standards for 50 years. I don't think the market will accept your suggestions.

As far as making a better product at more affordable prices, I don't understand how you could do that more than we are doing that? Better products are made of better materials and close tolerances. Prices are the result of those factors. How would you go about making them more affordable? We can lower material quality? We can lower tolerances requirements? We can make no profit and go out of business? We can stop paying our staff and go out of business? If you've got some magical business cure, I'm all ears.

sal
 
Sal, I'm sure you are getting pressure from some local brick and mortar stores that you've done business with forever. I also understand the perceived need to protect the little guy but Sal most of us don't have a little guy anywhere near us. All of my knife purchases are online. This does me no good and only hurts my ability to buy your product. If a particular on line retailer is an issue then simply don't sell to them. I know one blogger dropped the largest one because he didn't like their business model. I suppose it's too late for you to change your decision and there aren't thousands of responses here. I hope Spyderco has made the right business decision for their retailers 'cause it sucks for us.
 
Hi Gadgetman,

I think it remains to be seen whether it will really be a problem for you.

sal
 
Sal Glesser said:
Hi Bodog,

With regards to MSRP, it is merely a line drawn to establish pricing down the line. One year, when we eliminated MSRP and just gave dealer and distributor prices, there was much screaming. The dealers and distributors want that MSRP from which to gauge pricing. They also expect dealer prices to be a certain percentage off of MSRP. These have been the standards for 50 years. I don't think the market will accept your suggestions.

As far as making a better product at more affordable prices, I don't understand how you could do that more than we are doing that? Better products are made of better materials and close tolerances. Prices are the result of those factors. How would you go about making them more affordable? We can lower material quality? We can lower tolerances requirements? We can make no profit and go out of business? We can stop paying our staff and go out of business? If you've got some magical business cure, I'm all ears.

sal
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Sal, you're one of the only businessmen who's been a big success and seems to have remained true to his roots. It seems that this is a step away from those roots, favoring dealers over users. Your knives have been the epitome of fine working class tools with function and form meeting innovative ideas and materials at every step since you started. You shouldn't simply be in a hall of fame, you should be at or near the top of the hall of fame lists for years to come. And to top it off your demeanor and words make me truly believe you're a world class gentleman. What you've done for the knife world is astonishing and that's no small statement given how much so many have given to us working class stiffs trying to do our jobs just a little easier everyday.

Having said that, I truly don't understand how this MAP is helping the working class that you seem to have identified with so well over the years. I believe quite a few others are having a hard time seeing it, too. No one expected different from some of these other companies as they seem to genuinely be in it for the money whereas you seem to cut from an entirely different cloth.

Some people, me included obviously, don't understand the super high MSR prices and then pinning a MAP to those MSR prices.

I'm sure everyone wants spyderco to make a profit and most people would rather have small entrepreneurs and business owners have viable competition with places like Amazon and Walmart. What people, I think, don't want is to involuntarily pay more for those businesses to have a fair shot, especially when those small businesses don't seem to care to return the favor to the consumer.

Hell, I'd probably be happy carrying a spyderco knife alone for the rest of my life unless I made one myself. It seems so corporate to institute these MAP prices.

I genuinely believe you want the best for us as spyderco fans and users and you also want the best for the dealers who sell your knives. It seems that it could be done in a way that is in line with what you're known for, crushing the market with styles and ideas never seen before. MAP HAS been seen before and it may help the bottom line of dealers but it sure doesn't help the consumer by opening free markets and competition. When has the idea of doing something new and improved and completely different than what's been seen before ever stopped you from doing what's right for the hand holding and using the knife?

Sorry for the rant. I truly hope I didn't overstep my bounds. The fact you are here reading and commenting about it speaks to how much you care. Please realize there are a lot of us down here that care too. Much more than a lot of the dealers screaming about Amazon and their lost profits.
 
firefighterguy said:
This article is the perfect example of why sal and co implemented map pricing. If you don't like it please read the article

http://knifenews.com/why-is-knivesshipfree-phasingout-spyderco/

Smaller Stores cannot compete with Internet superstores. They sell them for what other stores buy them for, sometimes lower.
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Then raise the wholesale cost to those Internet superstores by several percentage points based on sales volume. If they don't like the slight price increase then they can stop buying and the smaller businesses will take up the slack, as long as they try to be competitive.

I didn't bother reading that specific article you linked to but there are several really good, honest dealers and retailers that backed out of dealing with Benchmade and Zero Tolerance when they instituted MAP pricing simply because these smaller guys ABSOLUTELY COULD NOT remain competitive with places like knife center, knifeworks, blade hq, etc. once MAP took effect.

The articles I've read from knife news that talked about this subject didn't mention those guys.

What's not talked about are the smallest dealers trying to gain ground in the market by offering the lowest prices. That's the only way to gain customers away from the well known sellers without dumping a ton of money into marketing. Amazon and Walmart, etc., are their own problem. There's no way Ron Smith, independent spyderco dealer trying to scratch his way up into a viable business, can compete with Blade HQ, not without being able to offer knives at a lower price and giving better customer service. With MAP it robs Ron Smith, independent dealer, from any true competitive standing.

If you were a disinterested buyer, would you buy from Ron Smith or Blade HQ if the product were the same price? You know as well as I do you'd go with the known entity.
 
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A "big box store" that I frequent carries the CRKT, large Fossil for $39. I think the cheapest I have seen it online is $55. I can see why this would be concerning to other knife dealers. I never buy from big box stores because they always seem to carry serrated models.

My local Mom and Pop just started selling Spyderco this year. One example of M&P pricing- Spyderco Stretch, black FRN, VG-10:$120 +7% tax. I bought a Stretch online in 2014 for $72-$78 (regular price). All of their knives are being sold for the same sucker prices. There is another M&P about 45 miles away selling for full retail + 7%, as well.
 
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mwhich50 said:
A "big box store" that I frequent carries the CRKT, large Fossil for $39. I think the cheapest I have seen it online is $55. I can see why this would be concerning to other knife dealers. I never buy from big box stores because they always seem to carry serrated models.

My local Mom and Pop just started selling Spyderco this year. One example of M&P pricing- Spyderco Stretch, black FRN, VG-10:$120 +7% tax. I bought a Stretch online in 2014 for $72-$78 (regular price). All of their knives are being sold for the same sucker prices. There is another M&P about 45 miles away selling for full retail + 7%, as well.
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If you wanted to sell your Ford f150 for $10,000 less than your neighbor, would you care what your neighbor had to say about it? Is it their place to say anything? They're free to lower their prices if they want. Hell, they can raise them if they want. It's their truck to do with as they please just like it's your truck to do with as you please.
 
bodog said:
If you wanted to sell your Ford f150 for $10,000 less than your neighbor, would you care what your neighbor had to say about it? Is it their place to say anything? They're free to lower their prices if they want. Hell, they can raise them if they want. It's their truck to do with as they please just like it's your truck to do with as you please.
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What does this have to do with anything? We are not discussing used resale values. Ford has an MSRP and MAP as well on all new products. You seem to be discrediting your own arguments by going off on unrelated tangents.
 
I wonder how Benchmade sales have been doing since their change to MAP pricing? The economy has been slowly improving and consumer spending has been steadily trending up. Logically their sales should be up, as well, unless MAP has created an adverse affect.
 
SpeedHoles said:
What does this have to do with anything? We are not discussing used resale values. Ford has an MSRP and MAP as well on all new products. You seem to be discrediting your own arguments by going off on unrelated tangents.
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Dealers complained that other dealers were selling knives for less than they could.

While it may help knifecenter, blade hq, and other similar large knife dealers, it hurts the small up and coming dealers.

If you're not an already established, well known knife dealer you could not step in and start your own business. Not when you can't advertise better prices AND better service. An up and coming business sells for lower profits because their name isn't known. This takes that away and is guaranteed to crush small guys while funneling most sales to the places like blade hq.

What's the incentive for small guys to carry inventory and make mandatory minimum sales when they have to work much, much harder? Before they could just advertise and sell the knives for 5 or 10 bucks less than blade hq or knifecenter or whatever and draw business that way.
 
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The brick and mortar shop in my hometown sells all their knives at full msrp. They have some really old stuff that's discontinued and still on the shelf because it's outrageous. I'm sure if it weren't for the guns they sell, they would be out of business. They claim the full msrp is a result of the cost of running a brick and mortar store, but 115 for an endura is completely nuts. If map pricing is in place to protect shops like that, I would rather see them go out of business.
 
legato1 said:
The brick and mortar shop in my hometown sells all their knives at full msrp. They have some really old stuff that's discontinued and still on the shelf because it's outrageous. I'm sure if it weren't for the guns they sell, they would be out of business. They claim the full msrp is a result of the cost of running a brick and mortar store, but 115 for an endura is completely nuts. If map pricing is in place to protect shops like that, I would rather see them go out of business.
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For real.
 
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