Hello everyone, my name is Joe and I'm new to the forum. This happened to be the first post that I read and when I went to look at the up dated pictures it said that I needed to join in order to see them. I used to be in the culinary arts field and the chef knife heading probably caught my attention because of that. It has been many years ago (35 yrs.) but even then I was a connoisseur of tools and your knives were they available to me at that time would have been tested. I suspect that if their function is as good as their form I would have been the envy of the kitchen for a few days
As far as your asking price I would say that there is the strong possibility that I paid more than your asking price and received less in what I got.
A few quick comments on pricing. My wife will occasionally ask me what I think an item is worth. I usually respond with "as much as I can get". She usually smiles and says "well, how much do you think you can get" I'll pretend to think about it for a moment and then I'll tell her a price. That all sounds kind of off the cuff and flippant but it isn't. I spent a fair number of years in business and part of my responsibilities was setting pricing on lines. Most items are sold before a customer takes out there money. People who are going to purchase something often have done research on the item. That research is often done with information that they get from the marketing efforts of companies that are selling the item. The marketing efforts are designed to establish not only the value of the item to the customer but also to convince the customer of the value of purchasing the item from their company. For example you should buy Cool Widget because of x, x, x and y. and you should buy it from them because of x, x, y and z. Depending on how well they do that seriously effects what they can ask for Cool Widget. The people doing the pricing have to be able to evaluate the value of those marketing efforts in order to get the maximum amount for their Cool Widget. If they can't effectively evaluate the value they will under price their item and lose margin or overprice and lose sales. Actually in looking back over my "quick comments" I realize that this is a topic that I can't really cover with a few quick comments. Not so much because it is a difficult subject but because I am such a verbose fellow that it takes me ten words to say what should take me two
Before I shut up I would like to make one more observation. I think in one of your comments you said that once you sold your first knife word of mouth kicked in and you sold everything. The following is a comment, not a suggestion
If I sold all of my inventory at my asking price I would stop and ask myself, what has changed? Perhaps my marketing improved for example it is a well know fact that word of mouth especially if it contains a personal endorsement of the product is the best marketing one can get. If somehow I managed to get some good word of mouth advertising going because people had started using my product and realized what an exceptional value it was then I would adjust my pricing accordingly. If supply is good and I'm running out of product it is because I'm selling it too cheap
Sorry for the long and unsolicited reply, I have to say that I was really moved by the beauty and perceived quality of your knives and my big mouth got ahead of me.
I am not a knife maker but have some other questions that a manufacturer directed me to this forum and said I could probably get some help so I will shut up and go in search of the appropriate place to ask those question. Have a great evening and keep on making those fantastic knives. I will show them to my wife and tell her it would make a great Christmas present
