Marketing Question - need advice.

[Smoke]

Silverwing, Lisa Kudrow used a knife on 'Friends', a boot dagger to open a box. Where she got 'the look' and she told everyone about how she stabbed a cop because the cop stabbed her first.

Sal, it's looking like Spyderco is doing okay in terms of actual knives. The scissors idea might work. Who knows, maybe the next Spyderco fixed blade will be a letter opener. Drop point flat or chisel ground with leather sheath.

The Spyderco Daddy Long Legs or 'Spyder Legs'

[This message has been edited by Smoke (edited 04 November 1999).]

 

[Scarman]

My wife is fairly easy to please in that department.
She is rather fond of my Military("Uh honey, that doesn't go in your purse."), she likes the Enduras, and the AFCK and currently carries the mini.
She is also fond of the Cold Steel Mini Tanto.
I have to throw in one female opinion against "girly" colors and other frills. She says keep it basic and keep it black.
Sorry guys, she's with me.

------------------
It is no sin to doubt some things but it may be fatal to believe everything.
*A.W. Tozer

2 Tim 4:3-4

 

[Jeff Clark]

A knife action that might be a real step up for women is the one used in the Christy Co knives. The blade slides straight out and straight back using your thumb. It can be locked and used when only partly extended. It fits on a keychain. You can see them at:
www.christyknifeco.com

 

[timdennis]

Wow Jeff-Christy knifes.I remember years ago
seeing cheap copies of your knife that fell apart.I then got the real thing and what a difference! I'm glad you guys are still around and now you've helped me with my Xmas list.

------------------
Tim

 

[Heyns van der Merwe]

Hi Sal,
I just can't refuse this:

HOW ARE YOU GOING TO CATER FOR THE MIRROR, THE TISSUES AND THE LIPSTICK IN A SINGLE MULTI-BLADE KNIFE?

Seriously though, I'll get my wife's response over the weekend and post again next week. (At this stage she's enjoying her Cricket on her car's keychain...

)

 

[David1967]

My girlfriend is mainly interested in kitchen cutlery so I bought her 3 plain Spyderco Kitchen knives. They are on their way.

She also uses other knives of mine. Her favourite is Kershaw Starky Ridge 1410 ST and one Buck with three different blades.

When I showed her pictures of other knives (Spyderco) she liked Frank Centofante and Howard Viele (plain blades). She would just replace the black scales with different color (not necessarily pink or other bright colors). She said that cocobolo wood would be nice on them.

David

 

[Jeff Clark]

Many women fear sharp knives. My stepmother will not allow her kitchen knives to be sharpened (my dad has his one kitchen knife I gave him that she doesn't touch). The fear of cutting yourself seems to be much higher in the female population. A knife for women might have wider appeal if it had extra safety features.

I saw a trapezoidal-bladed utility razor knife that had a feature that I think would make some women more comfortable, an auto retracting blade. In this knife the very short blade slides forward under thumb pressure and pops back into the handle when the pressure is released. I would have got one for my wife on the spot, but it was designed for right-handers only. It's a pitty since it was perfect for her box opening application. She cut herself the last time I let her use my 3.25"-bladed SAK for the task.

So an auto-retracting, forward-sliding, short, sheeps-foot blade might be appealing.

 

[Paul Davidson]

My fiancee carries in her purse a blue Ladybug and a Victorinox Classic with the LED (can't remember model name). From our conversation she is well served by those two little knives. She was not thrilled when I gave her the Ladybug, but now she likes it quite a bit. She is reaching the point where she actually thinks to go for it when she needs it. She really likes the "pointiness" of the Ladybug blade compared to the little SAK. I showed her a Dragonfly at one point which she immediately declared too big.

Here are her preferences on a pocket/purse knife:

-no clip
-lightweight
-nice color handles, no pastels and NO PINK
-she does not like liner locks as she feels uncomfortable putting her fingers in the path of the blade
-she uses the scissors on her SAK but that's about it
-she likes her Photon II and the LED on her Victorinox, so she said it would be nice if you put a light in one (I showed her the keychain model with the light but she didn't like it very much)
-nailfiles are not important to her because she claims most of the pocket knife nail files are not good for nails. She carries an emory board.
-she was not crazy about my Mini Dyad also, claiming it to be too heavy. I tried to describe the new lightweight Mini Dyad (Dyad Jr or whatever it's called) and she didn't seem impressed, though I want one.

Sal et al, I hope this all helps in some way. As others have said, getting women to carry knives in the first place is your major obstacle. My fiancee only carried hers to humor me, and now she uses them frequently. Most of my female friends declare my Calypso Jr and Small Sebenza to be HUGE! The "knife" I've had the best responses to, when giving a knife to a woman, has been the Leatherman Micra. I doubt the knife blade has been used at all on most of them. I do know several women that do carry pocket knives, but most of them were archaeologists or archaeology students (which means they were not your ordinary women

).

------------------
Paul Davidson

Them:"What's that clipped to your pocket, a beeper?"
Me:"Uuh....yeah, something like that."

 

[Jim March]

It's been a while since I told this story anywhere and it's directly applicable.

A few years ago I was living in a large place with several roomies including one married couple. The guy was another knife knut but April had a major "weapons phobia". Mind you, she was big and tough but had a mental block on "carrying weapons".

But this was a BAD neighborhood, so we both wanted her packin' *something*. In California, so no gun permits so cutlery was about it.

At a knife shop I found a Buck Crosslock River Rafter. Good looking, yellow, had that nice fat serrated sheepsfoot. Not a great stabber but a hellacious slash machine, and that's probably what an amateur is liable to do anyways.

So on giving it to her, I showed her how the Sheepsfoot can be used in "rescue situations" to cut a child carrier's seat belt or similar.

Kewl - because it got her around the mental block about "weaponry".

She lost that block about six months later.

Getting off an Oakland, CA bus one day with her 1yr-old in a stroller, two thugs get off behind her. One says "Gimme your money, (female canine)!".

So she says, OK, HERE! and snaps out that Buck.

"Hey lady, it's cool, we don't want no trouble" as they back off.

She starts screaming something about how "you barsterds might have a gun but this sucker's serrated, it WON'T HEAL!" while *advancing* on 'em, waving the cutlery in one hand and dragging Jr's stroller with the other.

They run off. The bus driver calls the cops who happen to be nearby and grab the two idiots a couple of blocks out. The driver tells the cops everything, and the cops examine her piece. They ask her what the heck she's doing packin' that thing, and she explains that it's in case she needs to cut her baby out of a car carrier or whatever!

Not only does she NOT get busted, the baddies go down for strongarm robbery and the cops let her KEEP the knife! Believe me, by CA inner-city standards that's unusual.

Upshot: selling women a "rescue knife" that is pretty and can also double as defense in a pinch may have merit. The Spydie Mariner actually has more of a stabbing point than the Buck and is in theory a better fighter. Put a blade sorta like that except fatter on a decorated Military frame and you'd have a nice combo fighter/utility/rescue piece socially acceptable to many women.

Jim

 

[Outlaw_Dogboy]

Interesting thread. It seems my wife is way different, though. Like other women, she carries a mini-SAK, with scissors, nail file (that has had the tip snapped off/blunted intentionally, to make it useful as a flat-bladed screwdriver), and a small blade. She carries that ALWAYS. However, when it came down to picking a larger, locking folder to carry in case of 'emergency'... given the choice between an Endura, a Native (regular LtWt), and my BM Axis, she chose the Endura, because it was serrated. She liked the scare factor, and the blackness. Had no problems opening it or closing it.

Cool! But, like I said, different.

------------------
It's just a ****ing staple!
Outlaw_Dogboy

 

[SB]

My wife likes sharp things that are curvaceous, smooth, and colorful. However, she stresses that it should never compromise a knife's serious intention or use.

 

[PaulB]

Hi Sal,
I would say to make the knife look like a jewelry. Also no more than three inches on the blade. This is taking into consideration marketing to women who are non-knife nuts. Market it as a FIRST OF ITS KIND SPECIAL TOOL FOR WOMEN, i.e. cutting candy wrappers, boxes, around the house or workplace stuff and also a self defense tool. You can even have it attach to a keychain. Market it as chic and fashionable and you might be lucky enough to start a trend. Such was the case of women who turned to smoking cigars several years ago.

BTW Sal, that was a Great Indian resteraunt you recommended to me in New York.

 

[PaulB]

Looks like it made it hear after all, well better late than never.

[This message has been edited by PaulB (edited 08 November 1999).]

 

[PaulB]

I posted a post to this thread and it got eaten so I rewrote what I wrote again and it got eaten a second time. Where did my posts go?

 

[Clay Kesting]

Paul- your posts seem to be here. Sometimes the page comes back from the cache and you have to "reload" before you can see your post. Works for me

.

------------------
Take care,
Clay

Don't worry that the world might end tomorrow....in Australia it's tomorrow already.

 

[JohnR7]

I have been trying to figure out for a long time now, what knives to order in for women. Most of the time, its the teenage girls who will buy a knife. They just about always go after the smaller ones. Even the tiny ones around one 1 1/4" in size. The best seller for women, has always been a knife that had a bird design on it like a parkeet or a cute animal. They will buy 3 of those, for one of all the others. Usually, they want something that will fit on their keys on in their change purse. Out of all the knives I have, my wife picked a very small pearl handled Browning. I tried to expermant with fingernail polish finishes. I figured if they put that glitter on it on their fingernails, why not on a knife handle, but I have not gotten very far with that one. I expermented with precious stones, and had a real good reaction to a handle made out of crushed turquose, and epoxy. It was fast and easy to work with. I have heard you can do the same thing with Chrysocolia. Next I am going to try a harder natural material, but it takes so long to work with

I think the bottom line is women just don't get turned on by stag, bone, plastic or metal. In the very least, they want an enamal finish, and prefer a design. Ty Warner made it big off of cute animal & bird designs. Also, they love precious stones. Women just prefer different materials then men. My wife says if she were to buy an expensive knife, it would have to be a good, brand name, and resellable. But if you want to sell to women, mostly they want to buy a knife for a father, husband, or son. All they care about, is the knife something their loved one will like. If you overcome that obstical, you got a sell.

 

[James Mattis]

I get the same response - a woman will say "Nice knife!" And then, if I'm lucky, she'll buy it for her husband/father/son. And I'll say, "What about for yourself? We're egalitarian around here!" But that won't compute. Gotta get past that sexual stereotype!


------------------
- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001

 

[JohnR7]

>> I get the same response - a woman will say "Nice knife!" And then, if I'm lucky, she'll buy it for her husband/father/son.

In China, they believe that men have one set of qualities, and they use a dragon to represent men, they believe women have another set of qualities and they use a Phonex to represent women. They believe the two need to be joined together to become one whole. That the women is not to take on the mans charactor, and the man is not to take on the womens charactor. Spyderco makes mens knives, and its just to far of a stretch for them to try and make a womens knive. Also, there is not much use, because women do not collect knifes like men do in general. It would be a one time sale. But if you get a women to buy her man a knife, she or he may be back to buy more and more

Not to say they do not use them, my wife is from the Philippines, and she can pick up a Bolo and chop up a coconut as well as anyone. But they do not carry knives, or associate themselves with them as a status symbol as much as a man does. The men there carry Balisongs and are quick to take it out & proudly to show it to you. But women and children, if they do carry a knife, will usually carry a small swiss army style. My wife says she has to carry make up and diapers, and does not have room to carry a knife.

 

[Eggby]

Here's my experience:
I bought a SAK Classic for my mom and grandmother. They both love them because of the scissors. They say the scissors are more useful than the knife blade. They also like the fact that the knife isn't big enough to be threatening.

Your best be would be to build a multitool that has scissors, a blade, with small overall construction and many colors available.

When my girlfriend bought her Native w/stainless handle her first comment was "Ooooohh, pretty!" Then she played with it for a while and decided it was a good knife. If not for the asthetic appeal, she would have bought the Cold Steel Voyager. No pink, but bright colors would not be a bad idea.

-Jeremy

 

[Lokelani]

Sal-
Very good question. Over the last few years I've had the opportunity to talk with many women who have come in to the store....mainly to buy knives for the men in their lives. Very few actually come in to purchase a knife for themselves. I like Silverwings idea of making the female public aware of how usefull owning and carrying a knife actually is. When I have asked the ladies why they don't carry a knife, they say that they have "no need." I believe they just haven't given the idea sufficient thought. Get one of the gals at Spyderco to write an article for the magazines describing how knives are usefull in gardening, crafts, sewing, etc. Could be a real eye-opener.
Myself? I carry a Leatherman Supertool in my car at all times (only because I don't have my Spyderwrench yet

; a Ladybug with proton light in my purse (because it's lighweight and doesn't weigh down my purse); and, my Spur in my blue jean pocket. I like the Spur because of it's size and blade shape. Many women have made the comment that the points on the knives look scary. When I show them my little Spur, they like it. So, with that in mind,....here is a description of what I think alot of women (myself included) would like and why;

-Spur size is good.....Pro-Venator is too big.
-The drop-point is good as it does not have a "sharp, scary" point.
-30% serrated and 70 % plain edge.
-Liner lock instead of top lock.
-Machine notches above hole in blade
-CPM 440V steel or anodized titanium
-Carbon fiber handle with Kraton inlay
-Black Ti coating on blade
-Many women I know prefer these colors; cranberry, rust, & teal. The Kraton inlay would look good with one of these colors and a black coating on the blade. I go for the look, as well as the function. I wear my knife daily and use it for a variety of purposes: opening boxes, mail, cutting my steak, etc. I have no need for a larger knife. I buy the menfolk in the family the Military and my daughter carrys a Delica.
There you have it....my 2 cents. Hope it helps. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.
Patti @ IDB