Important Info! New Website New Direction!

Joined
Jun 4, 2014
Messages
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New Website New Direction!


As Many of you are already aware I have launched a website!

The intention are to transition sales to that platform. There are several reasons for this decision. And I will explain those briefly later on in the text.



First I wanted to express my gratitude to the community here on Blade-forums. This is not a goodbye letter or but merely an opportunity for me to reach out and explain my goals and intended direction. This is merely a transition towards my Grand Plan!



Back to the gratitude. I cannot express adequately how much you all have impacted me as a knife maker, craftsman and an individual. I appreciate each and everyone of you, and I wish I could give everyone my undivided attention. But I am aware that is an unrealistic expectation. I will however still try my best!

Many of you have watched me grow from an apprentice to present. Many of you have also encouraged me and help promote my work by talking about your OKT’s and sharing your photos and experiences. For me this is what is all about being able to make something that brings people together, being able to see the joy that is displayed when using a tool that an individual truly appreciates. Selling knives and making money is exciting, fun and necessary. But the satisfaction I receive from you guy’s feedback, pictures, and complements is what keeps me coming back for more! I also enjoy the back and forth dialogue as well as the friendships I have developed as a by product. I truly do enjoy what I do sometimes like everybody else I hit rough patches, but at the end of the day this is were I want to be doing what I do.



I plan to continue to encourage and engage in the community we have all helped to build here. I just plan on focusing the bulk of my effort on the handful of platforms that work well for me and are more integrated. The idea is that it will make my efforts more impactful and concentrated, freeing up valuable time to fill with more important things than being bogged down with inefficiencies.





As Osprey Knife & Tool grows as a brand an a community I think it is important to evolve with the growth, sometimes things grow faster or slower than we are comfortable with.

I know I have felt both these instances in my few years as a Full-time Knife maker. I think all of these things are natural and I choose to try and embrace and balance as well as take advantage of the situation at hand rather than exhausting my efforts to fight something out of sheer stubbornness. That being said I can be quite stubborn and quite frequently choose to fight an up hill battle. But I like to think I choose my battles more wisely these days, a lesson hard learned in my youth.





The last several months I have noticed myself fighting this proverbial uphill battle and not really in a a negative kind of way, but I feel like my efforts have been spread thin lately. This can have a negative effect on my overall growth as a company, individual and craftsman. It also circles back around to my nature of wanting to provide as much undivided attention to my fans and customer base as possible. I do not feel like I can engage to the best of my ability via this platform. There is not one individual reason but a myriad of reasons when combined with my individual situation makes it difficult from my end to truly engage and do so in an efficient, effective and consistent manner.

I have always wanted to eventually have my own website but never felt the need or urgency until recently. It was something that I thought long and hard over for several months. Once I decided that I was going forth with the site. I took another good bit of time to figure out exactly how I wanted to execute the transition.

The Goal was to quietly unveil the site and give you guy’s the opportunity to visit, poke around, and get used to how the site navigation works. In the meantime I wanted to resume and continue business as usual for a period of time to minimize any buyers anxiety with a new purchasing platform.

This also gave me a chance to give my new website a test drive with out the anxiety of jumping feet first into unfamiliar territory. I like to dip my toes in first sometimes to check the temp of the water before I dive in!

The goal is to do one maybe two more sales threads via the Forum. Offering a handful of knives for sale for a specified amount of time them move the remaining un claimed knives to the website. I have already had one purchase through the site and everything went smoothly on both ends. I was in communication with the customer that bought it. I wanted to know how it looked and felt from his end. This was important to me!

When I decide to finally go all in on the website I will make an announcement. I hope you guys will look around, sign up for the news letters, and provide me with feedback on your experience. I will be continually adding and building onto the site, so that in mind make sure you check in regularly. There may also be an option in the future to place an order for a base model via the website in the near future as well. I am still ironing out the details of a lot of moving pieces.


I will be posting an additional thread shortly asking if any of you would be willing to volunteer provide photos snd testimonials as well as consent to use those on my website and other platforms.

I hope this thread is informative at I am open to answering questions!







Chris Linton,
Owner
Osprey Knife & Tool
 
Chris, That was the best thing I've read in a long time. No secret I've been accumulating your work. To my good fortune I've made a solid friend in you Brother! I'm Already Checking in on your website and get the feeling it's going to be way successful...Whoever;) built the website must really like knives because the photography and layout is pretty fine. I look forward to the unfolding of this new road you've taken.
 
Chris, That was the best thing I've read in a long time. No secret I've been accumulating your work. To my good fortune I've made a solid friend in you Brother! I'm Already Checking in on your website and get the feeling it's going to be way successful...Whoever;) built the website must really like knives because the photography and layout is pretty fine. I look forward to the unfolding of this new road you've taken.


Thank you Douglas!I consider myself fortunate to beable to call you a friend myself!
I am glad that you approve of the new site! I am pretty giddy about it! It is something I have wanted for a long time! I am glad you are along for the ride!
 
Hey Chris,

It has been a pleasure to watch you evolve and grow your business. Your work keeps getting better and better as your expand your creative frontiers to incorporate exotic materials and handle combos. Build it and buyers will eagerly follow.

Your new website looks very classy so far. Being able to buy a knife direct from your website is a plus. I think you owe Danny a free knife for all the amazing photos he provided to showcase your work.

My only suggestion for improvement concerns the Shop Now section that shows all the posted knives together with photos and prices. I would like to see that menu reflect whether each knife is available or sold without having to click on each knife and go to the next screen to find out the availability status. I was window-shopping on the website this morning and the first eight knives were sold (which is great for you :)) but it was annoying to me to have to click on each one to find that information then hit the back button, click on the next knife (gone), hit the back button, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat :rolleyes:. This is a wordy way of saying that I want to click ONCE on the Shop Now button and immediately see the availability status of everything pictured there.

I am happy for you Chris. You have come far and accomplished a lot as a knife maker and businessman. I wish you continued success in the months and years to come. :thumbsup:

Phil
 
Hey Chris,

It has been a pleasure to watch you evolve and grow your business. Your work keeps getting better and better as your expand your creative frontiers to incorporate exotic materials and handle combos. Build it and buyers will eagerly follow.

Your new website looks very classy so far. Being able to buy a knife direct from your website is a plus. I think you owe Danny a free knife for all the amazing photos he provided to showcase your work.

My only suggestion for improvement concerns the Shop Now section that shows all the posted knives together with photos and prices. I would like to see that menu reflect whether each knife is available or sold without having to click on each knife and go to the next screen to find out the availability status. I was window-shopping on the website this morning and the first eight knives were sold (which is great for you :)) but it was annoying to me to have to click on each one to find that information then hit the back button, click on the next knife (gone), hit the back button, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat :rolleyes:. This is a wordy way of saying that I want to click ONCE on the Shop Now button and immediately see the availability status of everything pictured there.

I am happy for you Chris. You have come far and accomplished a lot as a knife maker and businessman. I wish you continued success in the months and years to come. :thumbsup:

Phil



Phil,

Thank you for taking the time out to check out my new site and then come back here and give me your honest feedback! I thank you for that!
I appreciate your compliments and constructive criticism.

I apologize to you and the other for having to look through so many Items to only find they had already been sold! :(

I have found a temporary remedy that I applied last night, I will just simply Edit the Product title with (Sold). The Website Platform I am using has its limitations and I am still learning the ins and outs, so there will be some tweaking going on. I have already started to add new sections to the site. I hope you and everyone else continues to check in even if your not shopping to see what new parts of the website I have built.

I did however end up removing the 8 or so sold knives and replaced them with fresh inventory!

I hope you continue to stay active on the forum as I will keep it open and maintain a presence, my hope is one or more of you will step up and take the lead on driving the discussions here, while I continue to make knives and grow the brand.

As far as Danny AKA @FeralGentleman you are correct! I indeed how him a great deal of gratitude for so gratuitously photographing and promoting my work! I assure you he will be well taken care of from here on out. ;)
 
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