Spyderco Forums

I was talking to one of the Spyderco crew yesterday. I asked about the number of sales in the 2020 Seconds Sale. Last year was the best turn out for the in-person Seconds Sale they've had. (According to the November 2019 Byte Newsletter there were 863 people that attended the sale.)

He estimated they did 4x-5x that number in the 2020 online sale. That's probably why they sold out on Friday.

It is undoubtedly a huge, HUGE moneymaker.

Pokey wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 06, 2020 8:40 pm

I was talking to one of the Spyderco crew yesterday. I asked about the number of sales in the 2020 Seconds Sale. Last year was the best turn out for the in-person Seconds Sale they've had. (According to the November 2019 Byte Newsletter there were 863 people that attended the sale.)

He estimated they did 4x-5x that number in the 2020 online sale. That's probably why they sold out on Friday.

And I'm betting they only sold a fraction of the seconds they had on hand. The ones they had enough decent quality ones of in each model to justify the time to create the model listing on the page. I'm sure there were hundreds of models with only a few seconds available that didn't make the cut and will be held until next years sale. I bet not even 5% of the model #s from Seki were represented in this years sale. Probably a good thing or I'd be broke...but knife rich!

steelcity16 wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 06, 2020 11:16 pm

Pokey wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 06, 2020 8:40 pm

I was talking to one of the Spyderco crew yesterday. I asked about the number of sales in the 2020 Seconds Sale. Last year was the best turn out for the in-person Seconds Sale they've had. (According to the November 2019 Byte Newsletter there were 863 people that attended the sale.)

He estimated they did 4x-5x that number in the 2020 online sale. That's probably why they sold out on Friday.

And I'm betting they only sold a fraction of the seconds they had on hand. The ones they had enough decent quality ones of in each model to justify the time to create the model listing on the page. I'm sure there were hundreds of models with only a few seconds available that didn't make the cut and will be held until next years sale. I bet not even 5% of the model #s from Seki were represented in this years sale. Probably a good thing or I'd be broke...but knife rich!

Before the sale I was talking to the same employee above and he and at least one other employee were tasked with sorting through the inventory. He said that with the vast majority of the knives he wondered why they were rejected. They did find and withhold some of the knives for safety reasons, but the rest were perfectly usable.

I only had the time to look at the website every now and then. I would have been interested in some of the Seki models, too.

steelcity16 wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 06, 2020 11:16 pm

Pokey wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 06, 2020 8:40 pm

I was talking to one of the Spyderco crew yesterday. I asked about the number of sales in the 2020 Seconds Sale. Last year was the best turn out for the in-person Seconds Sale they've had. (According to the November 2019 Byte Newsletter there were 863 people that attended the sale.)

He estimated they did 4x-5x that number in the 2020 online sale. That's probably why they sold out on Friday.

And I'm betting they only sold a fraction of the seconds they had on hand. The ones they had enough decent quality ones of in each model to justify the time to create the model listing on the page. I'm sure there were hundreds of models with only a few seconds available that didn't make the cut and will be held until next years sale. I bet not even 5% of the model #s from Seki were represented in this years sale. Probably a good thing or I'd be broke...but knife rich!

The Seki models are never as prevalent as others. They actually had more Seki made models for the sale online than I would have expected to see at the normal sale. We probably didn't see any Dragonflies or Ladybugs because they had so few and it wouldn't have been worth it for Spyderco to list the 3 or 4 models they had.

I wasn't able to score anything but I appreciate the fact that Spyderco did this.

Pokey wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 06, 2020 8:40 pm

I was talking to one of the Spyderco crew yesterday. I asked about the number of sales in the 2020 Seconds Sale. Last year was the best turn out for the in-person Seconds Sale they've had. (According to the November 2019 Byte Newsletter there were 863 people that attended the sale.)

He estimated they did 4x-5x that number in the 2020 online sale. That's probably why they sold out on Friday.

It's really not rocket science...not near as many people are willing or about to be there in person vs buying online. It would be crazy to not have it online in the future.

Evil D wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 07, 2020 10:08 am

Pokey wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 06, 2020 8:40 pm

I was talking to one of the Spyderco crew yesterday. I asked about the number of sales in the 2020 Seconds Sale. Last year was the best turn out for the in-person Seconds Sale they've had. (According to the November 2019 Byte Newsletter there were 863 people that attended the sale.)

He estimated they did 4x-5x that number in the 2020 online sale. That's probably why they sold out on Friday.

It's really not rocket science...not near as many people are willing or about to be there in person vs buying online. It would be crazy to not have it online in the future.

Let’s wait and see what the feedback is when folks actually get their knives. The aftermath will likely determine the future of these sales. I still see value in folks being able to physically inspect them before purchase.

bearfacedkiller wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 07, 2020 10:13 am

Evil D wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 07, 2020 10:08 am

Pokey wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 06, 2020 8:40 pm

I was talking to one of the Spyderco crew yesterday. I asked about the number of sales in the 2020 Seconds Sale. Last year was the best turn out for the in-person Seconds Sale they've had. (According to the November 2019 Byte Newsletter there were 863 people that attended the sale.)

He estimated they did 4x-5x that number in the 2020 online sale. That's probably why they sold out on Friday.

It's really not rocket science...not near as many people are willing or about to be there in person vs buying online. It would be crazy to not have it online in the future.

Let’s wait and see what the feedback is when folks actually get their knives. The aftermath will likely determine the future of these sales. I still see value in folks being able to physically inspect them before purchase.

Oh absolutely but if they do a good job hand picking I think the majority will be happy. I would definitely prefer to be able to pick my own but there's about 1200 miles between me and Golden and a 60 hour a week job that has no down time so it's not likely I'll ever be in person.

I hope they don't do it online again. Everyone acts so entitled. People are just nasty selfish creatures.

Dano1987 wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 07, 2020 11:30 am

I hope they don't do it online again. Everyone acts so entitled. People are just nasty selfish creatures.

Oh, that's going too far, Dano. There were a lot of supportive "thank yous" as well, even from folks who didn't get a thing. I think humanity breaks roughly into thirds: 1/3 are wonderful people; 1/3 will go either way depending on the situation, and the other 1/3 are congenital jerks.

But yes, it was upsetting to see the entitlement mentality of that last third, I agree with that.

I believe Spyderco really values the dedication and loyalty they get to see from people during the normal seconds sale. They definitely didn't get the same kind of praise and affection from this online sale. I wonder if the Spyderco crew prefers chatting with nearly 1000 enthusiastic customers all day or spending their weekend picking and packaging 4000+ orders?

Of course, the increased revenue is great for Spyderco though. They had thousands of orders from people willingly, and blindly, buying factory seconds online. Without knowing the reaction from everyone receiving their orders, I would still guess the online sale will happen again.

In my opinion, an online sale takes away so much of the excitement of attending a normal seconds sale. Although, limiting what was available online and knowing what can be available in person definitely helped keep the interest up and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't planning to attend next November.

One thing I'm curious to know is how much of the seconds inventory was preselected for the online sale and to what extent? I'm mostly curious to know if the normal seconds sale will now be deprived of these "lightly blemished" models? I also wonder if their inventory of factory seconds can even keep up with two sales annually?

cabfrank wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 06, 2020 10:40 pm

It is undoubtedly a huge, HUGE moneymaker.

I doubt that. It's like a garage sale - you sell a bunch of stuff that you paid retail for at 2 cents on the dollar and think you made money. Seconds Sale prices may be a little over manufacturing cost, but they aren't much over. Factor in the huge amount of (overtime) labor that goes into a sale and I doubt there is any profit left. They are lucky to simply recover most of their costs.

Dano1987 wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 07, 2020 11:30 am

I hope they don't do it online again. ...

I hope they do it online every year. It gives an opportunity to many more people to buy products from company they like at amazing price, but cannot attend sale in person because of a distance or pandemic. And it doesn't have to be exclusively online either.

yablanowitz wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 07, 2020 12:05 pm

cabfrank wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 06, 2020 10:40 pm

It is undoubtedly a huge, HUGE moneymaker.

I doubt that. It's like a garage sale - you sell a bunch of stuff that you paid retail for at 2 cents on the dollar and think you made money. Seconds Sale prices may be a little over manufacturing cost, but they aren't much over. Factor in the huge amount of (overtime) labor that goes into a sale and I doubt there is any profit left. They are lucky to simply recover most of their costs.

And, as many business owners know, "breaking even" is actually losing money. Research, design, ordering materials all come out of profit. No profit, then none of the others happen.

Don't forget though, there is no distributor or retailer in the middle.

Garage sales are usually just personal stuff. I've done pretty well having a couple. Ultimately, I suppose you aren't "making money", but if you have a bunch of stuff you don't need, or you are moving, it sure can seem that way.

Still waiting on my 2 shipping notifications...they are undoubtedly busy, will likely wait till Wednesday before I start to wonder...

yablanowitz wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 07, 2020 12:05 pm

I doubt that. It's like a garage sale - you sell a bunch of stuff that you paid retail for at 2 cents on the dollar and think you made money. Seconds Sale prices may be a little over manufacturing cost, but they aren't much over. Factor in the huge amount of (overtime) labor that goes into a sale and I doubt there is any profit left. They are lucky to simply recover most of their costs.

The discounts, at least in this iteration, were not that huge. I imagine it's pretty close if not more than the wholesale price that they sell to retailers, meaning they just sold otherwise unsellable inventory at about normal prices. There's more labor involved in moving the inventory, but I think this was absolutely worth their while.

S20 wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 07, 2020 12:25 pm

Dano1987 wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 07, 2020 11:30 am

I hope they don't do it online again. ...

I hope they do it online every year. It gives an opportunity to many more people to buy products from company they like at amazing price, but cannot attend sale in person because of a distance or pandemic. And it doesn't have to be exclusively online either.

Doing it online also created a ton of animus as there were many many more potential buyers that had the perception they would get to buy something, other than the Parata, but could not. I'm watching closely to see how people are reacting once they start receiving their knives. There were a ton of buyers in the facebook/reddit groups I follow who were not aware the sale was no returns, for factory seconds. They got a shared link, clicked through to see the prices and then went wild because everything was so cheap.