Whats up with Gerber?

allyourblood said:
Gryffin, can you point me to any articles or research that back up these figures/claims you posted? not being a jerk, i just genuinely would like to see it.
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There's been a fair amount of press against Wal*Mart, over everything from their union-bashing, sex discrimination, buying off zoning boards, predatory pricing to kill off smaller retailers.... but not much has hit the mainstream news, since Wal-Mart has a lot of pull these days. But this is the article that really opened my eyes:
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html
 
Yeehaw! I would say I didnt intend to trash a thread with Wal Mart bashing but what the hey... boycott Wal Mart ! I work in the Point of Sale equipment industry , we sell to and service POS systems for independant grocery stores , Wal Mart is notorious in the POS industry for moving into a town or section of town and totally killing all other competition to the point of job loss and closing doors of once succsessful stores ! This company is about as anti-American as you can get , they think they are doing us all a big favor by those low low prices , not caring that by doingt hat they have just stolen several thousand customers who used to shop at "Bill's Foodland Market" that has been in business for 30 years and provided (locally) jobs for people for that same time frame. Multiply that by a thousand or so and you get the drift... :mad:
I dont shop there , wont shop there and will bad mouth them every chance I get.
 
AF said:
I noticed a little while back that Gerber stopped saying what kind of steel the blades are made from. The Gators used to be offered in ATS-34 but now I believe they are all made from an unnamed steel, which probably sucks. I agree, Gerber blows.
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I was just noticing that VERY thing today. They all say "Blade Material: 400 Series stainless steel." Which is the same as saying 410 or 440a. There are a few, like the applegate folder, which still claim 154CM.

At least you can buy some of the wal-mart gerbers for <$20.
 
rebeltf said:
Yeehaw! I would say I didnt intend to trash a thread with Wal Mart bashing but what the hey... boycott Wal Mart ! I work in the Point of Sale equipment industry , we sell to and service POS systems for independant grocery stores , Wal Mart is notorious in the POS industry for moving into a town or section of town and totally killing all other competition to the point of job loss and closing doors of once succsessful stores ! This company is about as anti-American as you can get , they think they are doing us all a big favor by those low low prices , not caring that by doingt hat they have just stolen several thousand customers who used to shop at "Bill's Foodland Market" that has been in business for 30 years and provided (locally) jobs for people for that same time frame. Multiply that by a thousand or so and you get the drift... :mad:
I dont shop there , wont shop there and will bad mouth them every chance I get.
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Well said- I totally agree!
 
i'm not a walmart defender by any means, but when was the last time "bills foodland market" hired somebody in a wheelchair......i dont see any of my downtown stores hiring disabled people......walmart seems to think they make good workers.

why dont the "downtown" stores hire them? do they find them somehow too embarassing to hire?
 
bill_G said:
i'm not a walmart defender by any means, but when was the last time "bills foodland market" hired somebody in a wheelchair......i dont see any of my downtown stores hiring disabled people......walmart seems to think they make good workers.

why dont the "downtown" stores hire them? do they find them somehow too embarassing to hire?
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They also make great PR. Just like the "my whole family would have died if not for wal-mart" advertisements. It's just another form of mega-corp explotation.
 
Don't be so nieve,you think a mega corp like wal mart really gives a crap?Of course not,they do what they have to do and a little extra just to look good.Thats why wal mart thrives ,they know EXACTLY how to work the system.
 
maybe bills foodland market should learn to play the system better

whatever walmarts motivation is ( good pr etc) maybe bills foodland might do a little PR for themselves and hire even ONE disabled person

whatever walmarts motivation, they do hire disabled

my question remains: why DOESNT your local grocer, deli, beauty salon, etc hire disabled people? cause maybe they're just too embarassing to have around??
 
bill_G said:
maybe bills foodland market should learn to play the system better

whatever walmarts motivation is ( good pr etc) maybe bills foodland might do a little PR for themselves and hire even ONE disabled person

whatever walmarts motivation, they do hire disabled

my question remains: why DOESNT your local grocer, deli, beauty salon, etc hire disabled people? cause maybe they're just too embarassing to have around??
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Ask the next person with a disability you see working at walmart how many hours they work, and if they get health benefits.
 
Kit Carson said:
Screw Wal Mart. I thought we were talking about Gerber and their knockoff :)
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we were trying to take your mind off it, Kit... ya know, distract you so that your rage doesn't overload your senses! ;):eek:

abe
 
bill_G said:
maybe bills foodland market should learn to play the system better

whatever walmarts motivation is ( good pr etc) maybe bills foodland might do a little PR for themselves and hire even ONE disabled person

whatever walmarts motivation, they do hire disabled

my question remains: why DOESNT your local grocer, deli, beauty salon, etc hire disabled people? cause maybe they're just too embarassing to have around??
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Most likely it is because of the 'American's with Disabilities Act'(ADA).
If you hire someone that is disabled, you fall under it!
Meaning...If you hire someone in a wheelchair, you HAVE to install ramps, and special restrooms, etc...You cannot do things like have someone help them through the bump on the door, you have to modify the door.
Where I work, they had to take out the stalls in the bathroom on our floor because of that, even though we do not have anyone in a wheelchair on our floor...It is not a single person restroom. They also had to remove the urinals. The 'word' was that if they could not be used by someone in a wheelchair then you could not have them there:rolleyes: ...I am not sure that that is true though.

From everything I have heard, the ADA, has made it HARDER for people with disabilities to get jobs...At least in small companies...
We have someone in our call center that is deaf! They cannot fire her(and that would not be right anyway, because she was transfered to that job by the company itself!), but she cannot handle any calls except for calls that are by other deaf people using TTYs...Any one can recieve calls from somone with a TTY(as long as they have a TTY attached to their phone), but she can ONLY recieve calls from TTYs. So she sits around and takes a few call a day, while the other workers are on the phone almost every minute they are not on break. It makes for some bad feeling against her, even though it is not her fault. Amost any other job we have, she could do with hardly any problems, but why hire a deaf person to answer the phones!
That is like hiring a blind persion to do color matching at a paint store:rolleyes: As much as we would like it not to be so, until technology improves a LOT, some jobs are just not suited for people with some disabilities
 
not only are they ripping off designes but their quality has gone down the drain. I have a 10+ year old gerber multi, i think it was the first model they every made, and it is one of the best multis i own. the other day i picked up a new model 600, i think, and it is a POS :barf: :barf: :barf: :barf:
 
Yea my Gerber mt is one of my prized possessions for this reason though.
In 1998 my Brother got married , for a present to all in his groom's party (I was best man) we all got Gerber MT's!! Imagine that , no useless beer mug with your name stenciled on it , not another lame tie clip or personalized ball point pen set , he had our initials engraved on them lol ! I love it...
Really though I wear it daily and use it just about daily , gotta love that. :p
 
That coffin handled bowie (of which I have one) that was discontinued several years ago was their peak of quality before that started down the slippery slope.
 
Kit Carson said:
Screw Wal Mart. I thought we were talking about Gerber and their knockoff :)
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To get back on the subject of Gerber, what do you guys think of the knock-off? Is there anything that can be done? Does gerber have an email address? I would like to send them an email expressing my concern.
 
UnixDork said:
It seems to me that every American knifemaker that has exported production to China has done so in order to sell their knives at Wal-Mart. Are there any that have moved production to China and don't sell at Wal-Mart?
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Probably contributed to Schrade's demise ~ especially when Walmart ran Schrade quality down to meet their price point; then they appeared to give Gerber more preferential treatment.

IMHO
 
First let me say that I have been collecting Gerber for 25+ years. It is not the same company that it was because the knife market has changed. Since the fall of Schrade, Gerber is now the biggest cutlery company in the USA. Their sales and size under Fiskars has grown 10 fold. They used to be a specialty cutlery company, now they are mainly a general cutlery firm. As for their choice of retailers, they go where the customers are. In my state we have exactly two quality walk-in cutlery shops. In the old "dealer direct" days gun shops were one of the main sales points. The number of high quality gun shops in my area is also low. It takes a lot of capital to fully stock a shop with knives, scopes, holsters, and along with the firearms. The big catalog boys (Cabelas,etc) dominate the gun accessory market and generally they want to sell a lot of low to medium priced items, rather than a few higher priced items.
As for the quality, that is a judgement call. I think for the price Gerber delivers a nice product. The old Presentation Hunters, stag handled brass frame folders, and Custom series hunters would be priced at least in the $200-$300 retail range (ie: specialty cutlery). If you have a constructive comment to pass on to the factory they can be reached at:

sales@gerberblades.com

They are interested in what their customers think. If there is enough demand for small runs of higher quality models then they might consider making some. Thanks!
 
Gerber is using 440A. I'm not sure how they are heat treating it, but it does not hold a good edge.

You should see what they are doing in China with WalMart's money. Everyone knows about the Three Gorges Dam, right? Well, all the old cities on the banks of the river are moving uphil - the old buildings are abandoned to be torn down or submerged and huge buildings are going up in the new city locations. EVERYWHERE. $20 Billion may be peanuts for us, but it goes a long, long way in China.
 
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