Spyderco moving to MAP pricing!

i think that minimum advertised pricing is a good thing in the long run, both for real businesses that want to sell and spyderco's value as a brand. the end consumer won't be hit that badly as many established and reputable sellers circumvent MAP by simply not listing the price on their websites and have you add to cart to see the price... a practice im sure the manufacturer would frown at but it is a thing.

It seems to me that MAP stabilizes the market by allowing the serious resellers to play on the same plane while weeding out the resellers trying to make a quick buck by undercutting the competition in price.

you might get a good deal but with a cheap and dirty sale of a quality piece comes issues that the consumer does not perceive. the reseller's ability to serve the customer eventually suffers because the profit margins aren't sustainable, the manufacturer's brand suffers causing the value of their product to go down, rinse and then repeat until there is no more spyderco because resellers profit margins are so low that there is no point in carrying their product anymore (that might be a little dramatic for spyderco but i've seen many a good company go down like that... conversely i've seen many a crappy company go up by demanding their product be advertised at a higher minimum price)
 
Hi Bodog,

Each manufacturer has their own market and their own ways of serving their market.

As far as dealers, 90% of our dealers have been with us more than 3 years, probably 60% more than a decade and some more than 3 decades. Kelly works very closely with our dealers and distributors as Kristi and I do with the ELU's. We'll see what the situation is 3 years after MAP.

sal

I hope it works. I'm just concerned that the whole "buy American" thing will be completely gone by the time my kids are my age. I'm betting most Chinese manufacturers, good, bad, or indifferent, will not cap what someone wants to sell their products for. You can go onto alibaba and see the exact same products selling for $20 and $100. They make the product, figure out what it takes to sell it for profit, sell it to dealers, and move on. As noble as what it may be, I think, in the end, it's futile. Without congress imposing some pretty severe tariffs on Chinese/Indian/Mexican/whatever imports and without congress severely reducing tax liability for the American manufacturing base, things will not get better for America's manufacturers. Putting a false floor on American made products isn't breeding competition with China, it's giving them the win. That's my concern.

And I'm not even talking about putting start up dealers at a severe disadvantage anymore. I've said my peace. If the prices don't make sense for the knife, I won't buy it. I'll say that I've not purchased a knife from a company with MAP restrictions, not when I saw how quickly the knives jumped in price as soon as the policy was enacted. I hope your dealers think as much about you as you think about them and protect your reputation and business as much as you're defending theirs.
 
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I hope it works. I'm just concerned that the whole "buy American" thing will be completely gone by the time my kids are my age. I'm betting most Chinese manufacturers, good, bad, or indifferent, will not cap what someone wants to sell their products for. You can go onto alibaba and see the exact same products selling for $20 and $100. They make the product, figure out what it takes to sell it for profit, sell it to dealers, and move on. As noble as what it may be, I think, in the end, it's futile. Without congress imposing some pretty severe tariffs on Chinese/Indian/Mexican/whatever imports and without congress severely reducing tax liability for the American manufacturing base, things will not get better for America's manufacturers. Putting a false floor on American made products isn't breeding competition with China, it's giving them the win. That's my concern.

The Government could shut it all down if they really wanted to by imposing huge tariffs on both the foreign companies large tax penalties on those US Companies (Like 80%) who have major interests etc in foreign countries. That would defiantly start to bring the trade deficit more in line if they could find a balance and it would go a long way to bringing manufacturing back to the US along with jobs.

100 Million plus US citizens out of work is not tolerable in anyway and should have never happened in the 1st place.

There also needs to be some serious thought to the Corporate laws and how much Corporate welfare there is.
 
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For sure. But too many people in politics have too many fingers in that pie.
 
And that's why nothing positive really ever happens for the general public that is.

That and the general public wouldn't stand for the shortage of goods for the next 30 years while the American manufacturing base rebuilt itself. Not to mention the kids of those 100 million un/underemployed people having no idea what it means to hold a stable job so thered be a bigger demand for foreign workers further lowering the middle class standards. I wonder if it's too late to do anything and we should just be getting ready to ride the wave that's coming.

Some people are on the front lines trying to do their best to keep the illegal crap (both goods and people) out of the country but it seems like most people up high are actively working against the enacted laws and slapping Americans in the face while they're at it.

It sucks that failures of our representatives force guys like Sal to step in and enact policies that should never need to be in the first place. It sucks for guys like me who go out every day trying to protect companies like Spyderco. All the way around it sucks.
 
That and the general public wouldn't stand for the shortage of goods for the next 30 years while the American manufacturing base rebuilt itself. Not to mention the kids of those 100 million un/underemployed people having no idea what it means to hold a stable job so thered be a bigger demand for foreign workers further lowering the middle class standards. I wonder if it's too late to do anything and we should just be getting ready to ride the wave that's coming.

Some people are on the front lines trying to do their best to keep the illegal crap (both goods and people) out of the country but it seems like people up high are actively working against the enacted laws.

Well it took more than 30 years to screw it all up, so it makes since that it will take time to fix it.

The middle class is not what it used to be and hanging on by a thread anyway at this point.

The people up high only care about their own pockets and not anyone else's or the Country for that matter.
 
It sucks that failures of our representatives force guys like Sal to step in and enact policies that should never need to be in the first place. It sucks for guys like me who go out every day trying to protect companies like Spyderco. All the way around it sucks.

Sal is a class act and if most Corporate CEO's had even half of what Sal has this country would be thriving.
 
And lawyers indeed.

What do you call a lawyer buried up to his neck in concrete? Not enough concrete! (I heard that one from a lawyer. ;) :D )
 
And lawyers indeed.

What do you call a lawyer buried up to his neck in concrete? Not enough concrete! (I heard that one from a lawyer. ;) :D )


That's funny. :D

Heard one back when I was still young:

One lawyer in town and he starves, two lawyers in town and they both are driving caddies.
 
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?

Any thoughts?
 
It's not going to help dealers in the scenario where a discontinued model isn't selling with the full 40% discount. Not all of their models are going to resonate with the public, and it's not doing the dealer any favors to be stuck on inventory they can't legitimately move because of MAP. If the old model favored the big dealers, then I worry the new model is going to favor the big dealers for a different reason: they can absorb losses on the unpopular models. I worry that the smaller dealers are welcoming MAP without understanding all the implications.
 
Also bear in mind that Amazon sells a great many items that it's not an authorized dealer for. It can sell those items for whatever tickles its fancy. I've bought several watches from them where Amazon reminds me that it's providing the warranty itself or through a third party, and they are good about giving me the consumer a heads up. All they need is a shady dealer to sell them stuff, and since all dealers are equal under MAP...

So, my prediction is that Amazon will continue to use its deep analytics to determine the prices, and just do an end run around manufacturers who try to impose their will like it always has. It'll be that or a high profile battle like what happened between that one huge luxury watch manufacturer and that one huge discount retailer. I just can't think of any scenario where Amazon has any less power as a retailer.
 
I am not Sal, but you are thinking about this from a customer view.

The problem with your logic is as follows.

If the large retailers squeeze out the smaller ones then what happens next is they jack up their prices, that always happens.

Then what happens next is with the lower sales volume, higher prices equals lower volume in general until the prices are so high on the retail end they stop carrying that brand and sell the cheaper brands.

The retailers have no interest in the makers in general, their interest is only to sell to the public, they don't care what they sell as long as they are making money.

Extremely on point post, very well stated.
 
Tell ya what sit and watch what happens. If MAP isn't working for you or goes in the direction Sal said they would watch. Then STOP buying their knives. Consumers have a lot of impact when as a whole we stop buying things.
 
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