Spyderco Selling Direct on Ebay

jbmonkey said:
so you work for bladehq, or are using them as a random example?
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He said - in the passage you quoted - that they're a mom & pop shop which can't complete with larger dealers. His reference to BHQ was specific to their "exclusive(s)" being offered by spyderbug before they were live at BHQ & a recently sold out exclusive offered at a lower price than BHQ charged.
 
Iirc spyderco have a member club that gets all exclusives before they release. Is it possible that the knives they are selling are from this avenue?

And I'll be honest. If your ebay only and not advertising elsewhere that's on you. You could be like the other knife retailers that recently popped up. Or that had greater viewer ship in recent times.

Regardless it would seem that not many people even knew about spydierbugs, I sure didn't. I'm sure it's so small it wouldn't really affect you if you had other avenues and more advertising etc. But hey what do I know.

Did you recently have a marbled cf manix 2 sprint? I know why it didn't sell well, there was a thread here about it.

All you have to do is get a pm2 sprint run in m390, 20cv, M4, rex45 etc. And they will sell out fast.
 
hhmoore said:
He said - in the passage you quoted - that they're a mom & pop shop which can't complete with larger dealers. His reference to BHQ was specific to their "exclusive(s)" being offered by spyderbug before they were live at BHQ & a recently sold out exclusive offered at a lower price than BHQ charged.
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missed that. thanks.
 
GreenTeaKiller said:
I've personally seen BladeHQ exclusives made available to the public by user Spyderbugs before they were live at BladeHQ. This surely has to be some breach of contract... and then factor in another that comes to mind - the Para 3 natural/M4 BladeHQ exlcusive that sold out in 3 days. I'm sure BladeHQ would have bought more if they had known they were available - I mean, a 3 day sellout... But then instead, a few weeks later they pop up being sold by none other than Spyderbugs for $39 over what BladeHQ was asking.
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Ever heard of dealer returns? Of course you haven't because you are not a dealer, nor have you ever worked at management level in retail. Dealer returns are a huge burden to a company and if this is a way to re-coop some loses I say all the power to them.

Do you actually have a single piece of evidence that spyderbugs sold a blade HQ exclusive before hand? I'm not a lawyer either but without any evidence I'm pretty sure that's slander and you could be liable here.


GreenTeaKiller said:
..and - to everyone who keeps saying that it's not an illegal store, I'm not a lawyer, but in July, 2017, Spyderco stated in a legal court document that they did not sell on Ebay. Spyderbugs was active and in full swing at that time. Regarding the nature of the relationship of the seller and the owner of the company, I believe that it falls under the same statutes that keep the lotto guys in check - No employees or family. I'm not accusing Spyderco of anything, as Sal in all likelihood didn't know. I truly believe that he wouldn't allow such a thing to happen and I'm certain that he's not involved.

I only speak the truth and the truth hurts sometimes, but please, stop looking for a reason to hate me.
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Please tell what a statute that has been broken, and why the heck you would assume that statutes that regulate gambling would have any meaning to the private sector?
 
G GreenTeaKiller

The SFO here in Golden has always sold sprint / exclusive overruns and extra collector club knives to folks in-person. I have a few myself. It's likely that's all these are, but open to a wider audience. And it wouldn't surprise me one bit if the profits from these go to a charity.

You're assuming an awful lot here. Sal IS an honorable man, and so is Eric, so I highly doubt there is anything nefarious going on here. That you suspect something is tells me that you either have ulterior motives here, or you do not believe Sal is honorable as you say you do.
 
GreenTeaKiller said:
I give up. People keep repeating themselves yet no one addresses the facts that I stated. There's a reason why whenever there's a sweepstakes or lotto, for example, workers and family members of the lotto company, or companies who endorse sweepstakes are not allowed to participate for a reason. We have certain laws in place that protect both the people and businesses to whom they're catered by. Once again, why has no one addressed my question on sprint runs and exclusives? We're led to believe that a sprint run of 500 or 1000 means just that, or a store exclusive is a special model that only a particular store who paid for the sprint run to be made is allowed to sell (not including flippers on Ebay). I've personally seen BladeHQ exclusives made available to the public by user Spyderbugs before they were live at BladeHQ. This surely has to be some breach of contract... and then factor in another that comes to mind - the Para 3 natural/M4 BladeHQ exlcusive that sold out in 3 days. I'm sure BladeHQ would have bought more if they had known they were available - I mean, a 3 day sellout... But then instead, a few weeks later they pop up being sold by none other than Spyderbugs for $39 over what BladeHQ was asking.

I could go on and on... but if you get it you get it, if you don't, then you don't. Stop blaming me for pointing out something, that is in mind, ethically questionable. I have presented all of my information truthfully and to the best of my knowledge. Make of it what you will. Like I said, we've been Spyderco dealers since 1999 and yes, we are a mom and pop shop, and no, we absolutely cannot compete with larger dealers due to the volume that they're able to purchase at. We've more than likely made Spyderco more money than any of you will ever spend on your collections. I have nothing against Spyderco and as I said earlier, I think Sal is man of great integrity. I do not believe that he knew what was going on, and after it was brought to his attention, he told Eric or Bethany to pull the listings. Because he is an honest and ethical man.

..and - to everyone who keeps saying that it's not an illegal store, I'm not a lawyer, but in July, 2017, Spyderco stated in a legal court document that they did not sell on Ebay. Spyderbugs was active and in full swing at that time. Regarding the nature of the relationship of the seller and the owner of the company, I believe that it falls under the same statutes that keep the lotto guys in check - No employees or family. I'm not accusing Spyderco of anything, as Sal in all likelihood didn't know. I truly believe that he wouldn't allow such a thing to happen and I'm certain that he's not involved.

I only speak the truth and the truth hurts sometimes, but please, stop looking for a reason to hate me.
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For Pete's sake... implying that laws are being broken when you have no clue is "speaking the truth?" How does sweepstakes law have anything to do with this discussion?

I work for a large manufacturing company. I buy products at a discount. What I do with them after buying is my business. It's not illegal, unethical, or against company policy for me to sell them.

Car companies let execs drive cars. They then sell these to employees at a discount. The employees can do whatever then want with them, including selling on eBay. Maybe you want to get a class-action going against them? (Source: my father-in-law worked as an engineer at GM and Ford for a total of 35 years).

Keep digging. You're almost there.
 
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Damn, spyderbugs isn't selling anything right now, thought that would be a good way to get my first spyderco
 
I didn't know about Spyderbugs. Now I do, will keep an eye on it for something nice to add to my Spyderco drawer :thumbsup:

Thanks to those who have taken the time to explain what it's about.
 
The OP may have been successful in getting Spyderbugs shut down for good, but IMO there was no "wrong" committed here.

There are probably ~5,000 listings for Spyderco knives on Ebay on any given day. The OP's assertion that one private seller's listings caused their sales to dry up strains credulity (not to mention the other assertions posited).

I get that retail is tough. Margins are razor thin. The little guys and brick and mortar shops are fighting for their lives, etc, but that's just the reality these days no matter what you're selling. Blaming Spyderbugs or Spyderco ain't gonna change it or solve your problems.
 
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Casinostocks said:
I don't understand the ad hominem hostilities toward the OP. What his is presenting here has validity, IMHO. I looked up the seller's ID: spyderbugs whose listings have now been incidentally withdrawn in the interim since this thread was posted. The ID has been active on eBay since mid 2002 and having sampled about 10 pages out of the 50 pages of feedback going all the way back to the registration of this ID, it appears to me that the merchandise offered on eBay were by and large Spyderco products. As already stated, I find validity in OP's concerns and I am not surprised about the expressed grievance.
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Just re-read the OP. It's not a calm collection of accurate facts. There is zero mystery about why people reacted to it negatively.
 
inkynate said:
The OP may have been successful in getting Spyderbugs shut down for good, but IMO there was no "wrong" committed here.

...
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As a matter of curiosity, why and by whom? This is not a rhetorical question!

The more I delved into this matter after my initial post or two, I now believe that Spydersbug was not in violation of eBay's policies, so there is no way that eBay would or should remove the listings or indefinitely suspend that account. Are you inferring that the account holder may have decided to shun selling on eBay or are you suggesting that someone within the Spyderco brass may have instructed that it was just not worth the hassle for a handful of obsolete patterns here and there?
 
Four pages into this thread and we still have no clue which dealer the OP works for (there were speculations of bladeHQ or fradon lock) or if he/she is just a sour flipper?
 
Casinostocks said:
As a matter of curiosity, why and by whom? This is not a rhetorical question!

The more I delved into this matter after my initial post or two, I now believe that Spydersbug was not in violation of eBay's policies, so there is no way that eBay would or should remove the listings or indefinitely suspend that account. Are you inferring that the account holder may have decided to shun selling on eBay or are you suggesting that someone within the Spyderco brass may have instructed that it was just not worth the hassle for a handful of obsolete patterns here and there?
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Just a guess that the "squeaky wheel" made enough noise that they, (Spyderco or the Glessers involved,) decided to pull the plug. Could be wrong but I doubt Ebay had anything to do with it, or really any reason to be involved.

There's a lot we don't know. Were the knives bought direct and resold for profit as private property? If so, is that really a problem? Were the listings auctions or buy-it-now? A mix? Were the sales authorized by Spyderco with proceeds donated to charity? Who knows.

It appears though that we're talking about maybe an average of ~5.25 sales a month over the 16yrs the account has been active? Seems like a relative drop in the bucket to me. Many here had also never even heard of Spyderbugs until now, myself included (and I've bought a bunch of Spydies off Ebay over the years).

If you want to say "hey, this seller is closely associated with Spyderco and shouldn't be allowed to sell any non-disco'd knives below MAP," I wouldn't necessarily agree, but it would've been a fairly rational position to debate. To S sparky2016 's point though, that really isn't what was presented here.
 
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sharp_edge said:
Four pages into this thread and we still have no clue which dealer the OP works for (there were speculations of bladeHQ or fradon lock) or if he/she is just a sour flipper?
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My vote is a sour flipper. If he actually worked for a knife shop they would have quite a few other brands then Spyderco. So selling a couple less Spyderco's wouldn't be tanking the whole business.
 
inkynate: I can subscribe to the "squeaky wheel" theory. Occam's razor ;)
 
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