I don't know why but the USA always seems to get the better end of the stick when it comes to availability of knives, makers, steel, and most of all price.
For example a Cold Steel Trailmaster off Ebay.COM would cost aroung $100 to $120 delivered. Yet for the poor Northern Ireland boy that I am it cost me about £80 if I'm very lucky. Anyone have any idea why I get it so hard??????
1.Availability of knives. The U.S. is a huge market, with a lot of disposable income. For this reason, the U.S. has to have a large supply of goods to meet the demand. With the Third World now the world's workshop due to cheaper labor, the U.S. has been flooded with cheap imported goods from all over the globe. The availability is also the result of factors 2 and 3 that follow.
2.Availability of makers. In my opinion, the U.S. has so many knife makers because due to economic and regulatory reasons it is easier to start and operate a business there than in some other countries. Since there is also a large market there, it is logical that there would be many makers in the U.S. to supply that market.
3.Availibility of steel. As far as U.S. manufactured steel goes, the U.S. has an abundant supply because it has the natural resources to create steel. Having said that, however, the U.S. steel business seems to be a shadow of its former self lately. While the U.S steel manufacturers were paying profits out to the stockholders, the Japanese steel manufacturers were reinvesting profits and building state of the art steel manufacturing plants. Consequently, Japanese steel prices became very competitive, and some U.S. companies buy imported steel rather than U.S. manufactured steel.
Price. In my opinion, there are several reasons why knives are cheaper in the U.S. than in Northern Ireland.
a. Volume. The U.S. is a large market, and there are knife dealers there that buy and sell large volumes of product which results in these dealers getting better prices from the manufacturers.
b. Competition. With so large a market, the U.S. has a great number of manufacturers and dealers competing for the business. This competition results in lower prices for the buyer.
c. Cheap imports. There is little Americans can make that the Third World can't make cheaper (perhaps better, perhaps not). Due to the free trade agreements that the U.S. has made, the country receives a LOT of cheap knives from other countries.
d. Less government restrictions. Your higher prices may in part be a result of taxes placed on imported knives by your government to discourage the purchase of non-EU produced goods, or knives viewed by your government as weapons.
I may not have answered with all of the pertinent factors, but I hope that I have hit most of the major ones. There is also the possibility that there are other reasons totally unknown to me that are the cause...I have been known to be wrong before
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Oddly enough this word has its own Wikipedia entry ?!