Spyderco moving to MAP pricing!

[this_is_nascar]

I doubt it...

They will fall just like all the rest before them have looking at the history.

If some things happen like I think they will in the future Walmart will crash and crash hard with Amazon to follow shortly after.

What? To be replaced by what/whom? Seriously?

 

[this_is_nascar]

From a consumer side of things, how can you not like Amazon? For many products, I can go online in the morning, pay $9.98 and have the product in my hand by 9pm that night. What's not to love about that? My last 6-knives were purchased that way and oh, by the way, if need to return it for some reason, no problem whatsoever.

 

[this_is_nascar]

Just so I'm clear, what you're saying is that once MAP pricing is instituted, all anyone has to do to get the actual price a dealer is willing to sell a Spyderco for is call them and ask them. In other words, MAP pricing is no more than a fiction manufacturers use to give the image that they're leveling the playing field for their dealers when in fact they really aren't. Dealers can still sell Spydercos for anything they want to sell them for and getting around MAP pricing could be as easy as picking up a telephone. Is that right? If it is, I'd say my days of buying knives online from Internet dealers are over. Depending on my negotiating skills and my willingness to pit one dealer against another if I have to, relief could be just a phone call away. And "call for best price" rather than "add to cart" could become the new paradigm.

That's all well and good and you want to go through the time and hassle to call all over the friggin' place to get a price. I much prefer to go online, sort by price and decide from there, based on other criteria as well. Having MAP takes that away from me, so my personal answer to that roadblock it to shop for another product instead, where I can easily and readily see the lowest prices. It's really quite that simple.

 

[Stays Sharp]

Imagine you average 12 Spydercos a year. You make it work by purchasing them online. Regardless it is still a luxury and a very expensive hobby btw....

Now imagine B&M's get their way and you must now purchase from them (at MSRP, maybe even higher or a little lower)... Unless you are Jim Skelton, I think most knife guys would move on.

Some argue that B&M's offer better service, in my experience, heck no they don't. When I make it to a knife store (hundreds of miles from my house or on vacation), I AM the one who ends up lecturing them on the knives.... My online retailers offer return shipping for lemons, returns, and exchanges..and they also handpick knives for me. "Support your local businesses".... before supporting your own pockets. If there's someone to blame for the rise of Walmart and Amazon...It's not the players (customers), it's the game (free market capitalism).

 

[chrisinhove]

That's all well and good and you want to go through the time and hassle to call all over the friggin' place to get a price. I much prefer to go online, sort by price and decide from there, based on other criteria as well. Having MAP takes that away from me, so my personal answer to that roadblock it to shop for another product instead, where I can easily and readily see the lowest prices. It's really quite that simple.

Alternatively some might find it helpful to know that those dealers without a price on their website are going to be AT LEAST 40% off mrsp

 

[bh49]

If I were a small business owner, my stance would be "How dare you (Spyderco, in this case) tell me what price I can advertise an item. It's my store and I'll advertise how I see fit." I'd then drop the product line in a heartbeat. Am I missing something with this logic? Why would store owners be held hostage to a product they're selling for the manufacturer?

Interesting point of view. I hope that my favorite dealers like KW and NGK will not do this.
Certainly or may be just in my opinion MAP cannot be a part of free market. But I even not sure that such thing like free market exist anymore.
I really like Mamba. It is out of my reach already, will be even more. And this is OK. It is not water or bread.

 

[bld522]

Alternatively some might find it helpful to know that those dealers without a price on their website are going to be AT LEAST 40% off mrsp

That remains to be seen. Once MAP pricing goes into effect, dealers can advertise Spyderco products for anything they want to up to 40% off (the MAP price). The only question is whether they can SELL Spyderco products below the MAP price if they choose to without getting heat from the manufacturer? If they can, then it's MAP. If they can't, then it's really Universal Price Protection (UPP). And that's a whole different animal.

 

[Sal Glesser]

Hi Stays sharp,

It's not just B&M dealers that are having issues, some of the internet dealers also are having issues.

Hey Bld,

Knowing what you do about Spyderco, what do you think we're going to do?

sal

 

[Danke42]

You guys keep yelling about this being unfair to small business owners. Let me clue you in'; they're the loudest complainers. They're the ones who cancel orders.

They get a daily dose of people walking in the door and demanding a price match to an online blowout. You've got a PM2 in the case? Well these guys are selling them online for $75 so that's my offer and I don't care if it's not the same model.

That's what they get all the time. They turn around and yell to their sales rep at Spyderco about it. The reps push that feedback upstairs where it winds up on the boss's desk.

None of those small business are weeping at the thought that they can't advertise a sale. Their ad budget was probably sucked dry years ago.

Side note; when you guys are watching the Black Friday fight videos when customers are resorting to violence for a flat screen TV how can you tell which customer is right?

 

[bld522]

Hey Bld,

Knowing what you do about Spyderco, what do you think we're going to do?

sal

I'd be willing to bet that you'll stick with MAP, Sal . . . at least at the outset. But resisting moving to UPP when your major competitors have already implemented it will be difficult, I suspect. And if you don't, I'd be surprised if your dealers ever stop whining.

 

[Ankerson]

What? To be replaced by what/whom? Seriously?

That's what people used to say about some of the former large retailers....

Notice I said former....

Just because a retailer is very large doesn't mean they will be around forever, people would be surprised how fast things can actually change and do sometimes.

I can think of one large one that was larger than Walmart is now at one point, then they scaled back and it was massive......

 

[Sal Glesser]

Businesses closing is not what America needs right now.

sal

 

[Ankerson]

Businesses closing is not what America needs right now.

sal

I agree there, unfortunately things are actually happening though, I do keep track of the retail side of things.

Just the result of some things I brought up earlier in the thread, the overall stuff.

I don't see how people actually thought that the economy in general could support 100 Million unemployed and going up... (Getting Worse.)

All I am going to rehash on that, it's all tied in together.

 

[p1445]

I fail to see how this benifits the end user. This whole minimum advertised price scam was used for cameras and stereo equipment back in the day and was a failure.

 

[scotchleaf]

Large dealers will advertise a product for less than they pay for it. They call it a loss leader, which brings customers into their store/website. Then they can sell them additional products. Smaller dealers cannot do that so MAP is a way to try to stop that type of loss leader advertising and keep more dealers in the game. If we just permitted everyone to do as they wish, we would only have a few customers (Amazon, Walmart, etc.). This doesn't serve everyone.

Also, for many, low price is everything. They don't want the special service, or they will go to a store and take the special service (and not pay for it) and then go to the cheapest source for purchase. Some think that's smart shopping. The dealers providing the service they are giving but not getting paid for do not.

sal

Sal, if Walmart and Amazon are the problem, why not just limit the number of knives you sell to them? And why does it make sense to sell your knives through middlemen anyway? What is the advantage of not selling a majority of your products directly to the public?

 

[stabman]

The funny thing is that if the MAP had been enacted without telling anyone, most people wouldn't know, because the prices at most places wouldn't change.
On the "Big River" site in Canada, 34% off is about the most you ever see.
Even on the American "Big River" site, many models are often not more than 39% off (some are, but plenty aren't, and the prices fluctuate).

But that's how we can tell life is generally pretty good...a whole bunch of people have the free time to get worked up about a thing they wouldn't have noticed if it wasn't pointed out to them.

 

[nccole]

Hi Stays sharp,

It's not just B&M dealers that are having issues, some of the internet dealers also are having issues.

Hey Bld,

Knowing what you do about Spyderco, what do you think we're going to do?

sal

You are going to get even more questions about this than you already do on the warranty and taking knives apart. I've been reading between the lines and am not losing sleep over this[emoji6]

 

[chrisinhove]

Global warming has become a political issue and we don't do politics or religion on this forum. Your kind understanding and cooperation is appreciated.

sal

This is all political, isn't it?

Imported Chinese knives are cheap because of currency manipulation, and low costs assisted by poor labour protection and poor environmental protection in manufacturing.
Domestic manufacturers are disadvantaged due to the lack of sufficient political will to protect intellectual property and to prevent the import and sale of counterfeit goods.
Domestic retailers are disadvantaged because of the existence of trade/tax frameworks that enables global sales outlets to sell in one dominion but pay lower taxes in another.

On that basis it is more than a little ironic that most folks objections to Sal's modest MAP proposal appears to be a fundamentally political stance, about interference in the free market.

 

[bld522]

Believe it or not, some folks object to interference in the free market for financial reasons. Politics has nothing to do with it. I, for example, am a value buyer. Once I decide what I want to buy, I'd like to be able to purchase it at the lowest possible price I can find. I used to be able to search out lowest pricing on the Internet. That was part of the game and part of the challenge. For me, finding the lowest price was practically as much fun as buying the product itself. MAP (and its ugly stepsister, UPP) deprives me of the opportunity to do that. It levels the playing field on the backs of the consumers it purports to serve. Am I happy about being deprived of a tool I used to enjoy using? What do you think?

 

[Yo Mama]

Hey Sal, when can you get me a paramilitary 2 in s110V? Love you brother!