To any Kershaw representative regarding the ZT 0804CF

Status
Not open for further replies.
If you don't like the price don't buy it. It's not like you can't live without it. I don't buy a lot of knives because I don't like the pricing. I always wanted a Hinderer and never would pay the inflated prices. When they came down to regular price commonly I bought 3.
 
The seller charging the least makes more sales, might work on something like milk or eggs, but there's only a limited amount of people willing to pay over 200 dollars for a knife. Then factor in there's still a smaller number of the ones paying over 200, that will choose this model.
 
Mikael Andersson said:
It's capitalism - the seller who sells the cheapest makes the most sales. ;)
Click to expand...

I'm well aware of how Capitalism works, and I believe KAI is as well being that they run a multi-million dollar international cutlery company.

MAP is a program that manufacturers came up with to circle their wagons after spending years picking JUST the low hanging fruit of Internet Thunder Dome business practices.

By just manufacturing things and allowing the lowest bidder to set the consumer cost, you cheapen your brand and, generally, the guy cutting the price to such extreme levels isn't too worried about such overall aesthetics as he is literally doing the work to make a buck.

MAP pricing does a couple of different things: It cements your product's value, thus making it more desirable. You don't have to worry about cheapening your line to cater to the lowest denominator of buyer.

It also opens up avenues of business that were believed to be dead ends a decade ago. I.e. brick and mortar shops. It was thought that the Baby Boomers and early Gen Xers were going to be the last physical shoppers.

Those damn milenials do nothing buy buy off their phones, right? Not really. While shopping convenience is a big part of the generation, they also enjoy hands on and boutique shopping. It's one of the reasons why vinyl record stores are doing so well now. This particular group of consumer (roughly 80 million strong in the US), wants to have equal oportunity to handle AND have the convenience of purchase.

MAP pricing gives everyone a fair price to purchase where and how they choose. KAI retains its brand value, and they can pick and choose what dealers they think would fit their business mold best.
 
Mikael Andersson said:
the seller who sells the cheapest makes the most sales. ;)
Click to expand...

That is generally true. However, making the most sales is not what keeps a business actually in business. I will admit that I have never done product pricing for knives, but I have participated in the process of pricing a number of other products and setting a minimum advertised price generally involves customer research and a reasonable amount of sales and profit modeling to determine the price that maximizes profit for the entire supply chain, not the price that maximizes sales. I suspect that is the case here as well. I have no hard facts directly related, unfortunately, since I don't work at the company, but hope this is helpful anyway.
 
Mikael Andersson said:
It's capitalism - the seller who sells the cheapest makes the most sales. ;)
Click to expand...

Capitalism is about maximizing profit while minimizing loss. Why would a company want to reduce profits per unit by half whilst doubling units produced? That's poor math even if you aren't good at it. If I can make the same amount of money making 20 knives as I would 40 there is no benefit to me lowering the price just because of a few customers entitlement issues.
 
To answer the original question:

Can they drop it another 20%? Yes, I'm sure they could. Are they going to? Not a chance.

It's been priced to hit a target margin. If it's successful then there's no need to change it. If it's not successful they're not going to drop the price to move more product. They'll just drop the product.

It's KAI. I doubt they're short on new designs to try out.
 
Makael, you seem to have sales, marketing, pricing and profit margins figured out. Good job. :thumbup:

When can we expect you to go into business as a dealer, distributor or even maker?
 
Mikael Andersson said:
I see that the dealers are selling it for $280 which is 20% below the MSRP of $350 so my question is this: would it be possible to lower the price by another 20% and sell it for $210?
Click to expand...

Yes, that model can be purchased for $210, or less at KSF by redeeming rewards points.

Now I'm gonna update my ignore list.
 
Rupestris said:
Makael, you seem to have sales, marketing, pricing and profit margins figured out. Good job. :thumbup:

When can we expect you to go into business as a dealer, distributor or even maker?
Click to expand...

Winner!!!!
 
Steely_Gunz said:
I'm well aware of how Capitalism works, and I believe KAI is as well being that they run a multi-million dollar international cutlery company.

MAP is a program that manufacturers came up with to circle their wagons after spending years picking JUST the low hanging fruit of Internet Thunder Dome business practices.

By just manufacturing things and allowing the lowest bidder to set the consumer cost, you cheapen your brand and, generally, the guy cutting the price to such extreme levels isn't too worried about such overall aesthetics as he is literally doing the work to make a buck.

MAP pricing does a couple of different things: It cements your product's value, thus making it more desirable. You don't have to worry about cheapening your line to cater to the lowest denominator of buyer.

It also opens up avenues of business that were believed to be dead ends a decade ago. I.e. brick and mortar shops. It was thought that the Baby Boomers and early Gen Xers were going to be the last physical shoppers.

Those damn milenials do nothing buy buy off their phones, right? Not really. While shopping convenience is a big part of the generation, they also enjoy hands on and boutique shopping. It's one of the reasons why vinyl record stores are doing so well now. This particular group of consumer (roughly 80 million strong in the US), wants to have equal oportunity to handle AND have the convenience of purchase.

MAP pricing gives everyone a fair price to purchase where and how they choose. KAI retains its brand value, and they can pick and choose what dealers they think would fit their business mold best.
Click to expand...

MAP pricing screws over the consumer and there should be laws against that.
 
Mikael Andersson said:
MAP pricing screws over the consumer and there should be laws against that.
Click to expand...

Yawn... maybe if you would have been a member here longer than a few weeks, you would have seen all the Anti-MAP threads when Benchmade enforced it. Then all the Anti-MAP threads when ZT did it. Then when Spyderco did it.

It's old news. Maybe your next thread should be about what knives you should buy to prepare for Y2K?

MAP pricing is a necessary evil in the era of no stock, drop shipping, internet dealers.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top