Mini Griptilian price?

I'll play devil's advocate.

People pat themselves on the back for "buying American" yet they want to pay the lower prices of foreign makers. Foreign labor is cheaper than American labor. If you are okay with Americans being paid a decent wage and receiving healthcare and other benefits, that cost must be passed along to the consumer. Otherwise, don't squawk about patriotism and just buy Chinese made knives.

I, for one, will pay more for an American made product. If it is a good product. And if I can afford it. Just my two cents.
 
Locutus D'Borg said:
I'll play devil's advocate.

People pat themselves on the back for "buying American" yet they want to pay the lower prices of foreign makers. Foreign labor is cheaper than American labor. If you are okay with Americans being paid a decent wage and receiving healthcare and other benefits, that cost must be passed along to the consumer. Otherwise, don't squawk about patriotism and just buy Chinese made knives.

I, for one, will pay more for an American made product. If it is a good product. And if I can afford it. Just my two cents.
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I can see your opinion. But IMHO Benchmade is a poor value even when compared with USA made Kershaw, ZT, and Spyderco offerings.
 
Random Dan said:
I can see your opinion. But IMHO Benchmade is a poor value even when compared with USA made Kershaw, ZT, and Spyderco offerings.
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To be fair, Kershaw and Spyderco outsource some of their production, which reduces costs overall. Benchmade stopped outsourcing a couple(?) years ago.
 
Random Dan said:
I can see your opinion. But IMHO Benchmade is a poor value even when compared with USA made Kershaw, ZT, and Spyderco offerings.
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The real point is that this increase in price is the result of controlling dealer pricing/discount practices. No one from Benchmade has pointed to higher production costs, and MSRP has not changed. Benchmade is presumably making the same amount on sales to distributors and dealers, but the prices dealers charge consumers has increased. It's hard to see any value for me in that equation, and there are plenty of other American knives if I need to scratch that it.

But a lot of people who say they will only buy US haven't looked at where their vehicles, TVs, computers, phones, ovens, refigerators, even (for crying out loud) books (paper ones, not e-books) come from...
 
RevDevil said:
Try not to be so blatantly rude will you?
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Benchmade is telling us their price "levels" have not changed when anyone who can do simple math can see the cost to the end customer is 20-30% higher. I know price "levels" could mean anything in corporate speak so what they are saying is possibly true depending on what your definition of price "levels" is (ie corporate speak can be twisted to mean just about anything).

Sorry if it came off as rude but the end fact remains that their customers are now paying 20-30% more for the same product (for whatever reason). Their price "levels" may not have changed but my "levels" of ability to buy benchmades sure has.
 
craytab said:
Benchmade is telling us their price "levels" have not changed when anyone who can do simple math can see the cost to the end customer is 20-30% higher. I know price "levels" could mean anything in corporate speak so what they are saying is possibly true depending on what your definition of price "levels" is (ie corporate speak can be twisted to mean just about anything).

Sorry if it came off as rude but the end fact remains that their customers are now paying 20-30% more for the same product (for whatever reason). Their price "levels" may not have changed but my "levels" of ability to buy benchmades sure has.
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As I've said before, BM's factory prices have not changed, they're just forcing dealers to charge more.
 
There are a lot of threads on this, Benchmade is doing this mainly for Brick and mortar stores, Benchmade is not making anymore money off the knives they sell them to retailers at the same price but the pricing policy is to let the small brick and mortar stores.
 
AddictedToGear said:
There are a lot of threads on this, Benchmade is doing this mainly for Brick and mortar stores, Benchmade is not making anymore money off the knives they sell them to retailers at the same price but the pricing policy is to let the small brick and mortar stores.
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I know this is what Benchmade is saying but it still does not make sense to me. The three dealers I use the most who also have had the discounts in place before the change also have brick and mortar stores and have had them for quite a while. What is preventing the guy with a brick and mortar from creating a website, advertising a bit and selling online using the same discounts as the other guys? Nothing! The outcome of this is that the successful businesses who sell through a store front as well as online are being punished for their hard work and entrepreneurial spirit as they will no longer sell as many knives.
 
What sucks is a mini grip vs competition in the marketplace is a $55 used and $70 new knife at very best.


The plus side of things is that the secondary market is healthy and maybe the new map pricing will stifle rampant consumerism. In all honestly if you one one benchie you can beat on it for a decade before needing another one. On the other hand will this hurt future sales? Its going to be interesting to see what evolves from all this in terms of knife sales and map pricing over the next two years.
 
AddictedToGear said:
There are a lot of threads on this, Benchmade is doing this mainly for Brick and mortar stores, Benchmade is not making anymore money off the knives they sell them to retailers at the same price but the pricing policy is to let the small brick and mortar stores.
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I think everyone on bf is aware of the map pricing issues. This is why benchmade can within every right say their price levels have not gone up. But at the end of the day, prices have gone up for folks who do the slightest amount of research on a benchmade blade. To each their own. This is a bit of a risk for bm as those in the know will understand they are paying a significant amount more for a blade of the same quality. Folks who don't care, or don't care to research a product before the buy, won't know the difference. I guess this is the market bm is after now. Hope it works for them. It does not work for me. My dollar votes will go elsewhere.
 
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