On the one hand, I'm glad that so many great knives are available online. On the other hand, that usually means you don't get to try them before buying. Sure, you could probably return one that doesn't fit your hand but I'll only do that if I really have to. I appreciate and respect the dealers who make that possible. So I've gotten better at eyeballing ergonomics and features that I like.
A place like Walmart is good in that you can handle most things. A main problem there is that they don't tend to carry a lot of good modern knives. Brands like WE, Kizer, and Bestech are totally absent. That in turn shelters brands with a spot there from competition (such as Kershaw, Gerber, and CRKT) and keeps them from improving. So while you might find a decent budget knife at Walmart, it's largely a quality desert. I actually visited the sporting goods counter at the closest Walmart yesterday... The nicest things they had were a Blur and a Buck 119. Otherwise, it was a sea of garbage, assisted knives, lots of 8Cr13Mov and 7Cr17Mov, and even one in 5Cr15...
I've heard that things are better at dedicated knife shops but those can be few and far between geographically.
Our online selection is very limited. We have 3 online dealers. Across all of them, there are maybe 10 models of Spyderco and 5 models of BM available. And then mostly high-end CF or m390/etc models. Civivi/etc only at one shop.
Wallmart (or our equivalent) does not carry knives. Weapon stores carry some knives, but at horrendous prices and basically a no-no for foreigners to enter. There’s one mall that I can think of, but even less variety and even higher prices.
Returns are NEVER possible (online or store). Under no circumstances.
It’s like you said, eyeball the ergonomics and aesthetics, watch YouTube videos… and (I should have done that much earlier) ask on Bladeforms for advice. Then it’s buy, pay, and accept what you get.
A while ago I ordered a Rat-2 in orange. It was so off-center that it totally destroyed all enjoyment. I sold it at a fraction of the price as “as new buy severely off-center”.
Add to that the unfortunate reality that, when buying online, one never knows if they’re real or not. The market it swamped with fake Spydies, BM, Cold Steel, etc. Common sense will tell you if it is a fake (cheap price) but many are sold at “full price” to compound the issue.
And then there’s the mystery Chinese steel cheap-o knives. It’s nice when they say ‘3cr’, but often they’ll say ATS34, m390, CPM-xx. So one knows this is real junk.
(Off topic: I could be quite happy with Ganzo. They might copy Spy/BM but at that price they are obviously not. 440c and axis lock are all good. But they are soooo heavy. Thick stock, thick liners. I tried drilling holes into a liner with a big drill press - only to break the liner. Impossible to even make a tiny center-punch dent.)
Coming full circle, this is pretty much why I want one folder that I can be happy with “forever”.
I say forever with a
