I'd been watching a number of knife reviews as of late, mostly having been recorded over the past 3~9 months. In many of them, I note the prices indicated and then when I check online, those prices are a good bit higher. like 15~35%. Is this a product of the supply chain issues caused by the pandemic, or are knife sales on the rise and makers are finding they can charge more while maintaining the same sell through rate?
It's probably a combination of factors. Some have likely held prices back for as long as they've been able, and are currently raising them to accommodate the increased cost of materials and labor.
Steel prices alone could account for this price increase. Prices are up several hundred percent since January. Then there’s everything else messing up the supply chain atm. It’s not surprising to me that we’re starting to see a price increase on the consumer end.
There is definitely inflation happening, largely due to the supply chain disruption whiplash effect from the COVID lockdown days. Some things have gone up only slightly while others have mushroomed quite a lot. I sort of expected it would take longer for knives to be affected given how inventory turnover is slower than many other hard goods.
From here on in, all of the increasing prices that we see will be attributed to covid-19 and it's various related socio-political-economic "reasons". Hang on tight! It's going to be quite the ride!
My acquisitions have been greatly curbed by dealers and sellers now charging 50% more than they did a year ago for items that are obviously old stock. Discontinued items used to be marked down, now, more often, I see them selling at a premium.
I think some of it is supply chain related and some of it is companies taking advantage of the situation to raise prices. As far as old stock is concerned, many companies like Spyderco and Leatherman have Minimum Advertised Pricing in place with sellers. The retail seller doesn’t have any discretion about pricing and even old stock prices have to be increased. Frankly, I think this should be illegal but courts have let it stand in the USA. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Bingo!!! That's 90% of it right there! Covid, aside from being the greatest HOAX ever perpetuated on mankind, is also the greatest EXCUSE ever given to mankind for just about anything imaginable!
The price increases are a great reason for me to stop buying knives for awhile. It's not like I really need anything.
Gasoline Jan 1, 2021 $1.79.. same gasoline Jan 2022 $3.29. I think it would be difficult to find anything at the same price as it was a year ago.
I do agree that plenty of manufacturers and vendors seem to have used this plague as an excuse to raise prices, however I think it's most likely they did so to prevent being sold out of inventory. More dollars chasing the same amount of goods necessitates product rationing or there will no longer be any inventory to buy. So, either you physically limit purchases (1 per customer or such), or you raise prices so the customer does the rationing themselves. That's inflation in a nutshell. That said, I also understand that the supply lines have been screwed over hard by various and sundry politically-motivated decisions on the part of makers, vendors, unions and governments, so it's hard to say what specifically is the cause of the price increases. I wager there is no one outstanding cause. Inflation was coming regardless of the plague: the government's fiscal irresponsibility over the last several decades has made that a foregone conclusion. It was just a question of when.
I heard a story this morning that Proctor Gamble is raising prices another 8-10 percent because they think the buying public is willing to pay more? This while they are seeing record prices and as we all have a tough time just getting much of what we need. Where do they even come up with this stuff?
That's disgusting, untrue, and political. You act as though there's no economic momentum from the previous administration, which this is, as well as a total botching of handling the pandemic. [/RANT]
Stimulus packages have increased the total money supply several times over. Inflation is just starting...
I was going to write exactly this. Supply and demand. Lots more dollars floating around, no great increase in manufacturing combined with low inventory levels, equals higher prices. Sadly you'll probably look back on the 'pandemic time' as when things were cheap in years to come.