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price increase?!

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 12:19 pm
by ladybug93
knifecenter just told me that spyderco prices are increasing january 1st. is this true? are we really expecting another price increase already? does this happen every year?

Re: price increase?!

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 12:35 pm
by PanChango
Yes it happens every year.

Unfortunately, it has priced a number of the models beyond my range as my pay does not follow.

Re: price increase?!

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 1:08 pm
by ladybug93
i was here for the last price increase, but somehow was under the impression that it didn’t happen that often. many of the prices are already on the line of, “that’s not a great price, but i like spyderco as a company, so i’ll pay it.” i remember when the shaman went from “that price doesn’t make sense based on the market or even other spyderco models with the same materials,” to, “well, i guess i’ll never own the shaman.”
some of the prices toward the middle are fine, but it seems the bottom and top don’t make much sense. i hate to question spyderco and their business model, but costs don’t just rise with the new year just like we don’t all get a raise with the new year. i remember thinking $65 was expensive for a delica; i’m certainly not paying $80 for one.

Re: price increase?!

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 2:01 pm
by sal
Hi Ladybug,

When our costs go up, we have to raise our prices or lower the quality. We usually opt to raise the price. A drag for all involved. If the price exceeds the market demand, we end up discontinuing the model. It's a challenge any way we go.

We all but stopped G-10 and carbon fiber from Japan and most models coming from Seki will be FRN, primarily to keep the prices down. We're also making more FRN in Taiwan, Italy and Golden for the same reasons. Not too many options?

sal

Re: price increase?!

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 2:28 pm
by michaelm466
At least there's not a MAAP increase on top of it, I think...

Re: price increase?!

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 2:38 pm
by Daveho
Gotta maintain those margins.
Bit of a shame to see it every year however.

Re: price increase?!

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 2:39 pm
by bearfacedkiller
Bummer...

I have a lot more to say but I will just wait and see. In the end I will let my wallet do the talking. I am a steel junkie so I will always be hungry for certain Spydies and some of the recent sprints/exclusives have been priced well.

Re: price increase?!

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 2:46 pm
by Spyderman91
Honestly,

Prices increase roughly 3 to 5% every year for everything due to inflation. I agree with Sal, maintaining the quality and standard the company is known for is important. It is definitely a balancing act, if you keep the prices low and compromise the quality than people would think "Spyderco's losing it".
If you raise the price (like in this case) to cover the increase cost of manufacturing, you keep the products the same but pass a little cost to the consumer.

Not much you can do about inflation I am afraid, aside from trying to price / plan accordingly. I will still buy Spyderco products because of what they are, and how they are manufactured but I might debate more depending on prices. To be fair... I bought my PM2 in brick and motor shop (I wanted to support my local Military Surplus Store). 175 bucks out the door for a DLC PM2, at the time I was willing to pay that much because it was an American made product and it blew me out of the water the first day. When I got home and saw they were selling roughly for 40 bucks less online everywhere I was a little heated... but took it as it is because when you buy local you do pay a little more.

I think it will be up to the consumer to decided whether or not a model fits them based off of price versus materials, as that is usually my first train of thought when considering a new model. I am quite happy with the models I have accumulated, I pretty much have a knife for every occasion and don't need more... but this isn't about what we "need", price increases only anger those that "want" and when it comes to Spyderco... there is a ton to want!

Re: price increase?!

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 2:55 pm
by Deadboxhero
I'd never let $20-$50 more keep me from a good knife.

For me it's either I don't want it bad enough or I'm not working hard enough or I simply don't need to have it.

The saying goes, good work isn't cheap, and cheap work isn't good. :D

This is one of my favorite jokes. :D

Image



ladybug93 wrote:
Mon Dec 24, 2018 1:08 pm
i was here for the last price increase, but somehow was under the impression that it didn’t happen that often. many of the prices are already on the line of, “that’s not a great price, but i like spyderco as a company, so i’ll pay it.” i remember when the shaman went from “that price doesn’t make sense based on the market or even other spyderco models with the same materials,” to, “well, i guess i’ll never own the shaman.”
some of the prices toward the middle are fine, but it seems the bottom and top don’t make much sense. i hate to question spyderco and their business model, but costs don’t just rise with the new year just like we don’t all get a raise with the new year. i remember thinking $65 was expensive for a delica; i’m certainly not paying $80 for one.

Re: price increase?!

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 3:26 pm
by FCM415
Yearly 5% appears to be universally accepted and understood.

It’s those MAP increases that burns. To me it’s disgusting. Trend so far is every two years. We’ll see if this continues Xmas of next year.

Re: price increase?!

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 3:46 pm
by sal
If you have any great ideas on how to best deal with increased cost, I'm all ears. We make knives in Golden, Japan, Italy, Taiwan and China. They vary from country to country, but in the end, they all go up in cost. China is the least expensive due to the dollar/Yuan exchange rate and we do try to take advantage of that when we can, but we really don't want to make all of our knives in China as some have suggested.

sal

Re: price increase?!

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 3:55 pm
by ladybug93
sal wrote:
Mon Dec 24, 2018 2:01 pm
Hi Ladybug,

When our costs go up, we have to raise our prices or lower the quality. We usually opt to raise the price. A drag for all involved. If the price exceeds the market demand, we end up discontinuing the model. It's a challenge any way we go.

We all but stopped G-10 and carbon fiber from Japan and most models coming from Seki will be FRN, primarily to keep the prices down. We're also making more FRN in Taiwan, Italy and Golden for the same reasons. Not too many options?

sal
sal, i appreciate you taking the time to respond and be transparent. ultimately, i love the knives you all produce there and i’m happy to own a handful of them. i understand that costs do go up and that will make its way to us. i’m sure you’re not in danger of losing customers as there seems to be a healthy amount of people falling over themselves to have more spydies. just know that eventually, you will lose more and more of us as you price knives out of our reach.

Re: price increase?!

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 3:57 pm
by knivesandbooks
I'm not stressing over a little price increase. Also, I'm glad Spyderco just does it once a year instead of whenever they feel like it / need to. Remeber, Spyderco is probably losing money at certain points in the year because they only increase the prices once a year.

Also, remember, every knife company is increasing costs. Sure, Knifecemter is just advertising Benchmade and Spyderco cost increases but all of them are going up. I've been noticing it in other brands this past month. Great Eastern Cutlery and others.

Also, in the case of the Shaman, that price increase was due to unexpected manufacturing costs. The main increase in that was not with inflaction increase.

Re: price increase?!

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 3:58 pm
by ladybug93
FCM415 wrote:
Mon Dec 24, 2018 3:26 pm
Yearly 5% appears to be universally accepted and understood.

It’s those MAP increases that burns. To me it’s disgusting. Trend so far is every two years. We’ll see if this continues Xmas of next year.
maybe this is what i was thinking about. did this just happen a few months ago?

i wouldn’t call it disgusting. these guys have families to feed and a large company of employees to care for. i just saw the last increase move several models out of my consideration and am sad to think that might happen again already.

Re: price increase?!

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 4:01 pm
by Spyderman91
ladybug93 wrote:
Mon Dec 24, 2018 3:55 pm
sal wrote:
Mon Dec 24, 2018 2:01 pm
Hi Ladybug,

When our costs go up, we have to raise our prices or lower the quality. We usually opt to raise the price. A drag for all involved. If the price exceeds the market demand, we end up discontinuing the model. It's a challenge any way we go.

We all but stopped G-10 and carbon fiber from Japan and most models coming from Seki will be FRN, primarily to keep the prices down. We're also making more FRN in Taiwan, Italy and Golden for the same reasons. Not too many options?

sal
sal, i appreciate you taking the time to respond and be transparent. ultimately, i love the knives you all produce there and i’m happy to own a handful of them. i understand that costs do go up and that will make its way to us. i’m sure you’re not in danger of losing customers as there seems to be a healthy amount of people falling over themselves to have more spydies. just know that eventually, you will lose more and more of us as you price knives out of our reach.
Sounds like you are referring to the "Law of Diminishing Returns" Ladybug, let's continue to ride the good wave in the meanwhile. Things change all the time and nothing is fixed, so only time will tell!

Re: price increase?!

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 4:08 pm
by ladybug93
okay... for the record, this post comes off as much more whiney than i intended it. it hurts to see the price go up, but i’m not trying to talk bad about spyderco. i still love the knives and there are at least three that are still on my list.

again, i really appreciate sal being here to talk to us and be transparent about their side of things. i love that about spyderco.

Re: price increase?!

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 4:10 pm
by FCM415
ladybug93 wrote:
Mon Dec 24, 2018 3:58 pm
FCM415 wrote:
Mon Dec 24, 2018 3:26 pm
Yearly 5% appears to be universally accepted and understood.

It’s those MAP increases that burns. To me it’s disgusting. Trend so far is every two years. We’ll see if this continues Xmas of next year.
maybe this is what i was thinking about. did this just happen a few months ago?

i wouldn’t call it disgusting. these guys have families to feed and a large company of employees to care for. i just saw the last increase move several models out of my consideration and am sad to think that might happen again already.
Yea disgusting is my kind way of putting it. We all have to eat and people to care for. MAP in this case is used as an artificial price increase to keep online retailers in check. Sounds good but is terrible for people who dont live anywhere near a full stock dealer, let alone that online sales is the way of NOW. MAP wont bring back dealers or open more stores.

Re: price increase?!

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 5:53 pm
by ChrisinHove
C’est la vie. In a world of rising costs it strikes me that such price rises are the least bad option.

Re: price increase?!

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 7:04 pm
by embry386
ladybug93 wrote:
Mon Dec 24, 2018 4:08 pm
again, i really appreciate sal being here to talk to us and be transparent about their side of things. i love that about spyderco.
Yes to this. Thank you Sal for keeping us updated on how things are going, it's really nice to have forewarning about stuff like this. :)

With the price raises, Spyderco won't necessarily be getting any more or less of my money; I have a certain amount I can afford to put in the knife fund every paycheck, and so it'll just take me longer to save up for the knives, but they'll be getting a larger chunk of my money at a time. Although these days I am more into buying and/or trading for old used Spyderco models from the 90s, I'm probably going to at least try the FRN Police, and the Chief when/if it comes out in FRN.

Re: price increase?!

Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 7:12 pm
by SpyderEdgeForever
sal wrote:
Mon Dec 24, 2018 2:01 pm
Hi Ladybug,

When our costs go up, we have to raise our prices or lower the quality. We usually opt to raise the price. A drag for all involved. If the price exceeds the market demand, we end up discontinuing the model. It's a challenge any way we go.

We all but stopped G-10 and carbon fiber from Japan and most models coming from Seki will be FRN, primarily to keep the prices down. We're also making more FRN in Taiwan, Italy and Golden for the same reasons. Not too many options?

sal
sal, as an "off the cuff" estimation, what would a 100 percent Italian-made Spyderco folder be like, pricewise and also quality-wise, say a backlock with a basic Endura-type shape, with Italian made stainless steel and FRN?