Wal Mart surprise

[J Smith]

We may all take comfort in the fact Wal Mart is looking for USA made knives to sell.If their shoppers are not asking about higher quality stuff I am sure they would not care.

[Hannibal Lecter]

My Dear Zenheretic,

...but like I once said to the honorable Hannibal, if I have to explain my joke it must not be funny.

Not always true, my friend; sometimes sarcasm is even lost on me (hard to believe, I know :p ). There are times I read a post and truly wish I could be there to see the face of the poster to discern the underlying reasoning.

Keep the faith, my friend, and take care. :D

--------
Hannibal

[JBE]

Just got back from my local Wally-world and guess what...they have the PE S30V Native. I'm gonna run back and pick one up this afternoon (hard to pass up for $40). I also noticed 2 CRKT knives (M16 and Snap-Loc), several nice Kershaws (Whirlwind and Blur). and a Buck Mayo (don't remember the exact model). I wonder if this is just a one-time deal with the Native or will there be other models to follow? I remember once upon a time Academy used to have a decent selection of FRN Spydies then slowly each year they would carry fewer then fewer models until now they don't carry them at all anymore (and it seems like their prices were a bit lower than my dealers prices back then too).

[ront]

I checked one of our local Walmarts yesterday. They did not have any Natives and did not know anything about them. I told them it sounded like a deal iin the works and once they got them that they would have a great knife at an awesome price.

Ron

[denny]

I just picked one up at the Marion IL Walmart, I think it will get people to want the more expensive models and will be good "word of mouth" advertising.

[redhawk44p]

I read these post about Wal Mart eating Spyderco with some humor. Papa Spydie would be a wooly mouthful to get swallowed. He thinks more than twice before he leaps. I think the Wal Mart cutlery department is caught in his web.

[thombrogan]

ZenHeretic,

The funniest part of the joke is that it was socialist policies in the USA that made it unable to compete with a largely socialist country such as China.

[spyderknut]

No Natives at my local store. This city has been preventing WalMart from building a supercenter for years.

[zenheretic]

ZenHeretic,

The funniest part of the joke is that it was socialist policies in the USA that made it unable to compete with a largely socialist country such as China.

Mr. thombrogan,

One thing I truly enjoy about this forum is the vast myriad of differing opinions on a subject, enjoyable as they broaden my perspective. Kinda off topic but I wish for some details should you care to elaborate in a pm, I would truly appreciate it...not to argue but to understand your comment better. :)

[Stormdrane]

Just got home from wally world and wouldn't ya know, they had the sporting goods section roped off to wax the floors. So I didn't get to see if they've added anything good to their knife selection.

[DanS]

Walmart is certainly an interested entity. I bought a Kershaw knife there for $30 that sells for $45 at REI... this is regular price at both stores.
The delica is $48 in VG-10 at walmart vs. $67 in ATS55 at REI.

I like shopping at REI and appreciate their great customer service, but I just couldn't spend 50% more for the same thing.

Whats the point? I dunno... For consumers this is a great thing, but surely this must have an impact on the other dealers of spyderco knives. I don't know anything about the dealer side of the knife business so I don't know what the impact of this really is, but they can't be happy about it. If anyone on the dealer side has any input please chime in.

[zenheretic]

Just got home from wally world and wouldn't ya know, they had the sporting goods section roped off to wax the floors. So I didn't get to see if they've added anything good to their knife selection.

Ouch that is the adult version of if a child went to Walmart to see if the hot new "X toy" was in the toy section... :D

[pjrocco]

Ahhhh, a marketing stunt to see how they sell.. Smart move. :)

I'm going to the local Wall-nazi after work.. I also have the fiance' and mother-in-law on the look out as well.

Thanks for the heads up. :)

[butch]

what if we look at it from a different side of things
so walmart sells spydercos
walmart askes sal to find a way to make them cheaper when sal tells walmart he cant/wolnt walmart orders no more spyders or leaves things be with just a few knives
if spyderco is "kicked " out of walmart so what think about all the people that did get to see the spyderco brand that would not have seen it before driving more sales to the dealers then before
just how many millions of people go to walmart and just how much advertising will spyderco get back
butch

[redhawk44p]

I just came home from Wal Mart. I told the clerk how superior the S30V was compared to the other steels in the case. If people only understood blade steels the Native would out sell all of the Wally World knives.

[ront]

I agree with you. I also told the person working at the counter that when they got the Native in stock, that I thought, it would be their best knife. And especially for the price.

Ron

[startat2]

Somehow I don't think Sal will become a multi millionaire by selling to wal mart with the discount that their buyers demand.Many companies only sell to wal mart so thier name will be in the store.I have also heard that Smith and Weson was going to pull out of Wal Mart because Wal Mart kept demanding lower prices.IMHO it is a good move for a company to sell only one or two items to Wal Mart to get people interested in the products and when they look for other items made by that company they have to go somewhere besides Wal Mart.
I am not saying that low prices are bad but when a giant like Wal Mart pushs so hard to get the things they sell so cheap that the manufacturers have to go to China and then even after that must reduce the quality to get the price even further down is a bad thing.
Still good to see Spyderco in a national chain store.

On that note, im not sure if any of ya'll are familiar with old timer, but the rep I talked to told me that Wal-Mart was the primary factor in Schrade going outta buisness.

[Lost Jaguar]

Wal-Mart can kiss my Spyder-butt. I'll stick with the good guys.

+1 and Amen.

[Daniel]

Schrade was the primary reason for Schrade going out of business.

They failed to develop new products that people wanted. If you cannnot change or lead the market through innovations, you will be left behind.

[sal]

This was posted on the other" Spyderco forum.

I certainly appreciate all of the input. As usual, your opinions are valued. That's how we learn about our market.

Walmart was interested in a model that very few or our long time dealers and distributors even carry. John, if you check your history of Plain edge Native purchases for the past 12 months, I think you will agree that my point is taken.

The test is to see how well the model will sell in some of the Wal-Mart stores. If they well well, they will add them to the rest of the stores.

Wal-Mart offers low prices, same as NGK or any other of the dealers that you choose to patronize for their "low price" offering. They just do it bigger and better.

Many companies cannot compete with Wal-Mart. It is sad, Reality is a firm, but honest teacher". Many companies cannot compete with China either.

From my perspective, I worry more about oil money supporting terrorists.

If Schrade could have kept Wal-Mart, they might have had a better chance of surviving. Schrade used to make up the Wal-Mart board and they put many of their own items on the board. Gerber took their Wal-Mart board. I don't think that Wal-Mart had anything to do with causing Schrade's failing.

Lil Coo Coo, Welcome to the Spyderco forum. Spyderco will treat Wal-Mart honorably as we would any customer. We can only do what we can do. We have offered them only one model. It still has an S30V blade. The ELU will still get a good knife.

Wal-Mart certainly forces a company to be more efficient. Gerber, Kershaw, CRKT, Leatherman all sell to WAl-Mart.

I am open to any dialogue on this issue. We believe we've done our homework and we believe it will be a good thing. Only time will tell for sure.

sal