Victorinox says goodbye to distributors

K

Knife Outlet

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Effective this morning, Victorinox has dropped all of its distributors in response to complaints from Amazon.com. That means that the product will only be available from retailers who buy directly from Victorinox and follow the minimum advertised price policy. If you are looking for something from the Swiss Army people, now would be the time to buy it.
 
guessing the thread starter is a distributor? sounds like what a few other american companies did... bench made I believe done this?
 
Benchmade, ZT, Vicotorinox, many others. There was a court case back about 3-4 years ago that changed all this. 5-4 split at the supreme court on the conservative wing. Its just the beginning.
 
Well, I'll register my disappointment, if this is true.
That means Patriot Knives will not be able to carry the line
in the future and that means we cannot offer the low prices
on the few models we did carry...and ultimately the consumer
will have to pay more.

Robert
 
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Knife Outlet said:
Effective this morning, Victorinox has dropped all of its distributors in response to complaints from Amazon.com. That means that the product will only be available from retailers who buy directly from Victorinox and follow the minimum advertised price policy. If you are looking for something from the Swiss Army people, now would be the time to buy it.
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Why did Amazon complain?
 
Bill1170 said:
Why did Amazon complain?
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To eliminate competition. Why else? After the competition is eliminated they will go back to their normal practice of discounting. It is one of those situations where someone has clout and uses it. That's life in business. it's life in politics too. While it will hurt consumers and distributors, it will actually hurt victorinox the worst. I'm always amazed how some companies will give up sales and market share for appeasement. Pretty common these days. Pretty common in politics too.
 
God I hate MAP, and I hope that it's not the cause of this policy change with Vic. :grumpy: We had mfrs. pushing us for that kind of crap when I was selling hardware. Created a lot of conflict every time it came up. With MAP, someone gets screwed, usually the end user, who can - and most of the time will - switch to another brand.

I usually don't comment too much on these things, but it seems to me that Victorinox is shooting themselves in the foot here. Considering the backlash that Benchmade got from their decision to do this, I can't believe Victorinox would want to upset customers here in the states like that. They make a great product at a great price, why mess with that? Because Amazon whines about smaller sellers?

I lead a Scout Pack here, and what I recommend (because I'm a 'knifeguy' ;) ) carries a lot of weight. I steer folks toward SAK's a lot of the time, but there are other good brands out there, that I have no problem recommending. I hope Victorinox realizes that. Lot's of folks here in retail can recommend others brands just as easily.

thx - cpr
 
felinevet.sosakonline.com has the same info regarding the MAP policy.
 
Knife Outlet said:
He can take the information and accept it or not as he sees fit.
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usually when someone posts information like this there is usually a press release, a news article, a notice on the manufacturer's website that they can refer people to. Without a source of information all i have is the word of the person who posted it and internet forums are rife with rumors. Without knowing where this information came from or something else to corroborate the information i have no reason to take it seriously.

I'm not saying you made this up i just want to know where the information came from originally. How did you come across the info? Are you a dealer? Did you get a letter from Victorinox?

As an educated consumer it's my job to question things like this. A post saying "Swiss army knives are going to be harder to find and more expensive so buy them now" just screams to be called into question.
 
The problem is, everyone is doing it now so its only going to get worse. I think I noticed it with Leatherman recently.
 
freedoom said:
usually when someone posts information like this there is usually a press release, a news article, a notice on the manufacturer's website that they can refer people to. Without a source of information all i have is the word of the person who posted it and internet forums are rife with rumors. Without knowing where this information came from or something else to corroborate the information i have no reason to take it seriously.

I'm not saying you made this up i just want to know where the information came from originally. How did you come across the info? Are you a dealer? Did you get a letter from Victorinox?

As an educated consumer it's my job to question things like this. A post saying "Swiss army knives are going to be harder to find and more expensive so buy them now" just screams to be called into question.
Click to expand...

I'm just offering advice. The information comes from distributors, obviously. You can take it or leave it, as I said above. It doesn't matter to me one whit. I'm just trying to be helpful.
 
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