Crooked River Price Increase

BeaverTail_Hunter

BeaverTail_Hunter

Joined
Feb 14, 2016
Messages
1,139
Seems like the new price for this knife was at $178 on most sites.

Now I see it has jumped to $198 or so.

Does this happen a lot? Does Benchmade drive this price increase?
 
Damn. Pretty steep increase. Not sure I would've paid $200 for it without a better steel.
Joe
 
KnifeWorks is still selling it at the old lower prices.

Seems like Benchmade raised MSRP by about 10% recently.
 
palonej said:
Damn. Pretty steep increase. Not sure I would've paid $200 for it without a better steel.
Joe
Click to expand...

$178 was steep before. I owned it at that price and liked it (except the orange) but not at $200.
 
This is starting to smell a little funny.
1. Dump HK collaboration and introduce same knives with price increase.
2. Dump Doug Ritter collaboration and introduce VERY similar knife with price increase.
3. Introduce price increase for existing models.
4. Discontinue models that aren't selling per some quota standard.
5. Introduce "next generations" of best sellers to create artificial spike in sales.

If I didn't know better, I'd say someone is trying to show a healthy, growing and very profitable business/company. Maybe for sale.

...just saying

-Z
...
 
Apparently benchmade is trying to implode their company. Every decision they've made recently has been terrible.
 
I am certian BM is doing fine. Black Friday I visited the factory and got the low down from the company store. BM is shooting for the mid range market and making 100% U.S. Made products. From the sales perspective BM is 1/4 of the knife market in the U.S., scourced from the sales dept. I don't think they care if you all will pay for it or not, many people will. I for one will continue to buy an amazing Oregon U.S.A. made product with the best warranty in the industry.
 
Firestrike said:
I am certian BM is doing fine. Black Friday I visited the factory and got the low down from the company store. BM is shooting for the mid range market and making 100% U.S. Made products. From the sales perspective BM is 1/4 of the knife market in the U.S., scourced from the sales dept. I don't think they care if you all will pay for it or not, many people will. I for one will continue to buy an amazing Oregon U.S.A. made product with the best warranty in the industry.
Click to expand...

With horrible consistency in edge geometry and sharpness, as well as some fit and finish issues. Not to mention their questionable business decisions and price gouging. There is absolutely no way that BM is 1/4th of the USA market, that sounds more like made up numbers. You're talking about a market share that has Kershaw, Zero Tolerance, CRKT, Buck, Esee, Case, Strider, Microtech, Brous, SOG, Kabar, CRK (Chris Reeve Knives) AND the big daddy of them all, Spyderco, not to mention the hundreds of others. I know more people that own American made Kershaw, Spyderco and CRKT products than any other knife company. In fact, I'm the only person I know that owns any benchmade, and that may change shortly if I decide to sell my last one.

The only thing I'll give you is their warranty department is pretty dang good, but other than that, it's all spoon fed bullcrap.
 
It seems benchmade isn't listening to customer feedback on what we'd like to see and then gouging on price.

I love the benchmades I have but don't know if I need anymore with these price increases.
 
All good points. Benchmade does have a fantastic warranty, and they do make a great product as well as having a cornucopia of models. My first high quality knife was a benchmade back in 1996, and I will continue buying benchmades. However, for a hard use auto knife with an iron clad warranty, at these prices, I'd go with a protech.
 
Ask yourselves if we've seen any activity on Benchmade's part on this forum. The answer to that is not in a very long time. They must know we're here because there are a lot of us that love their knives. To my read there's a problem with the company and we're seeing it in the silence. Over on the company forum there's a similar buzz, but they're moderated, whereas we're not. Customer service is important, but to alienate so many of us is the larger problem. I don't have an answer but it makes me very uncomfortable to see this spring's offering and do not, even if I could, think I'd buy anything at this time. Yep, we're making good points, but still there's something wrong with this picture.
 
Pfff due to recent experiences with the benchmade customer service (or lack of reaction at that) I am done with this brand. Add to this the aforementioned actions taken now I just could care less.
There are enough other companies and especially over here in Europe I don't give a damn about made in the US when we have some high quality manufacturers here.

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`br4dz- said:
With horrible consistency in edge geometry and sharpness, as well as some fit and finish issues. Not to mention their questionable business decisions and price gouging. There is absolutely no way that BM is 1/4th of the USA market, that sounds more like made up numbers. You're talking about a market share that has Kershaw, Zero Tolerance, CRKT, Buck, Esee, Case, Strider, Microtech, Brous, SOG, Kabar, CRK (Chris Reeve Knives) AND the big daddy of them all, Spyderco, not to mention the hundreds of others. I know more people that own American made Kershaw, Spyderco and CRKT products than any other knife company. In fact, I'm the only person I know that owns any benchmade, and that may change shortly if I decide to sell my last one.

The only thing I'll give you is their warranty department is pretty dang good, but other than that, it's all spoon fed bullcrap.
Click to expand...

I agree. Here in Texas I rarely see benchmades in the wild. Most people carry Case, Kershaw, or Buck knives. So I don't really buy those market numbers. And yes benchmade has an excellent warranty, but so does zero tolerance and they are better priced for the same material and quality. I'm a benchmade fanboy, but they are making it hard to want to buy from them.
 
I like the Crooked River so I picked up it on a site that still had it for $178. I have one model already (the gray handle) and while I like it, I would not have paid $200 plus for it so I was happy to find a site that still had the wood grain model at $178.
 
Firestrike said:
I am certian BM is doing fine. Black Friday I visited the factory and got the low down from the company store. BM is shooting for the mid range market and making 100% U.S. Made products. From the sales perspective BM is 1/4 of the knife market in the U.S., scourced from the sales dept. I don't think they care if you all will pay for it or not, many people will. I for one will continue to buy an amazing Oregon U.S.A. made product with the best warranty in the industry.
Click to expand...

I love that they make everything in the US.
I am glad they think that they have a large market share, though 25% is hard to believe.
I have had no good or bad warranty experiences with BM, so I cannot address that aspect of the company.

I think if they are aiming for the "mid range" or the knife industry with some of the new 2017's that they are borderline delusional. The 2017's are the sorriest bunch of knives I have ever seen in a major US knife company's rollout. Almost all S30V? Rubber coated plastic handles that will wear down like a used eraser? Autos that have all the aesthetic charm of a rectangle? Blade shapes that look like the ones 5.11 and SOG are using?

I hope BM sells a lot of knives so our workers can have jobs, but I don't see the majority of the people BM is aiming for, i.e. the sporting goods store shoppers, putting them into any kind of mid range bracket with these offerings. These knives fill a void between what the regular joe buys at the sport goods store for ~$50 and what the knife enthusiast seeks out, and it's a place where I don't see BM doing well in.
 
Out of the new models I want 3 of them, all are s30v. Everybody crying about s30v like it is garbage, honestly this is one of my favorite knife steels as it sharpens up really easy, keeps an excellent edge, and does not seem to micro chip like these new super steels do. It is also a huge improvement over 154cm and D2 that was/is used on most models. Benchmade will continue to do well in the knife industry despite all the crying seen here.

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