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The Newbies Arena Are you new to knife making? Here is all the help you will need.

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  #1  
Old 07-20-2014, 05:19 PM
Soda Pop Cowboy Soda Pop Cowboy is offline
 
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: New Mexico
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New to knife making, need help!

Hello Friends, I made about 100 knives 20 years ago, business got so time consuming that I quit. Now that I'm retired I've started making them again and have about 10 that I want to sell. I sold most of my knives before when I lived in Lubbock. But now I live in a small town. My question is: Where can I advertise my knives or should I go to gun shows, craft shows, etc.? I don't even know if there are free classifieds where I can advertise. Can anyone help? Thanks, Bernie
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  #2  
Old 07-20-2014, 05:41 PM
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Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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Bernie,

Welcome to our forum! There are free classifieds here on KNET, and there's always eBay. But, don't expect much from either of those. It isn't difficult to sell knives that way providing you price them cheap enough. Some times guns shows work, certainly the knife shows can sell knives so you should probably try them.

I was a full time maker for 10 years (20 years making knives) with knives as my only source of income and the ONLY way I sold knives was through my website. If you're serious about selling your knives you need a website that you can update easily as you make new knives. The downside to websites is that it can take several years before they really start to work for you.

The Chat Room will be open in another hour or so, you should drop in (see the Chat Room invitation thread at the top of this forum for details)...


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Old 07-21-2014, 10:17 AM
Soda Pop Cowboy Soda Pop Cowboy is offline
 
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Thanks guys. I looked on ebay & they are advertising "custom, hand made" knives at $30-$35. I'm wondering if there is money to be made since I have that in belts & materials??? I'm confused. Bernie
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Old 07-21-2014, 10:59 AM
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Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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Bernie,

Well, there isn't any money to be made in hand made knives as we know them on eBay. Besides that, there is a wide leeway on the meaning of 'custom' and 'hand made' in some people's dictionaries.

What do you mean when you say 'if there is money to be made'? If you can make a knife and sell it for less than $50 at a profit then eBay might get that done. If you need $150 - $300 to make your knives pay off then you aren't likely to sell many on eBay.

Out in the rest of the market place though there is money to be made if you simply need to sell your knives at a reasonable profit no matter where your price point might be. That is to say, you can make a profit on each knife which is not the same thing as saying you can make a living at knife making. The first part means simply getting more for the knife than you put in it in materials and labor. The second part means selling enough knives fast enough to pay your bills and very few makers actually do that. That's why you see so many of us old guys in here - you pretty much need to be retired or have some additional form of income to support yourself while you make knives.

A few years back, I saw a statistic that said there were about 3000 knife makers in the USA but only about a couple hundred working full time. Of those couple hundred only about a dozen made all their income from their knife making. I was one of them for about 10 years and it worked for me only because I have a unique financial situation (meaning I can live on almost nothing).

The main obstacle to a young person (anyone not retired) making a living at knife making is that it takes a decade or so to build a reputation. Also, you have to realize you're running a business and actually making knives is only a small part of it. Most fail on that last part.

There are exceptions, of course, but not many. Guys like Allen Elishewitz who have obvious and exceptional talent that gets recognized publicly. Then there are guys like Ernie Emerson, Daryl Ralph, and Chris Reeve who are more knife manufacturers than makers in the same sense as most of us. They started out as we did but paid extra attention to that business part and now they can make a decent living from knives but it took each of them decades to do it.

So, there's your money from knife making. Mostly we don't do it for money, not that we don't want it, but for the majority of us it simply isn't there at the level of a living wage ....


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Old 07-21-2014, 11:49 AM
jmccustomknives jmccustomknives is offline
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I personally stay away from ebay unless I have something that I consider "second"tier and occasionally put one one. More to have a search engine cross ref than anything. For the best results money wise, plan to do gun/knife shows. Flea market/trade days can also be good but don't expect to get more than $50 with most people willing to spend around $30. I don't do the latter any more. A web site is ok, but really people buy you and they can't get to know you from a web site.
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Old 07-21-2014, 12:21 PM
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ranger1 ranger1 is offline
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I agree with Ray. You need a website. Gun shows are hit and miss. I have done good at some and bad at others. I have done well on Blade Forum, but they do charge an annual fee to be able to sell there. Most knife shows are a good place to get your knives noticed. But again tables are not cheap. A table at the blade show is $500 0r $600 . The South-Eastern knife show is around $285 . It's a hard market to break into quickly. So many makers come and go only the ones that stick around really make it.


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Old 07-21-2014, 12:52 PM
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Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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Here's an eBay story that illustrates how eBay buyers look at custom knives. A couple years ago one of my knives showed up on eBay. About 5 years earlier I had sold that knife for $400. The knife appeared to be pristine and unused, exactly as I had sold it. The auction ran for a week with a starting price of $200. No one else bid and I bought it back for $200. When I received it, it looked as perfect as when I had made it so I did a little cleaning and polishing and then I contacted the next guy on my waiting list and sold it to him for $650.

This was the most popular model of knife I make and I can sell as many of them as I can make for $650 or more (current price) as fast as I can make them but on eBay nobody would even bid on it. To those people $200 was too much for any knife, they didn't know my name or didn't care. But to my customer base - built up over 20 years by my website - the knife was worth much more. As James said, its you they are buying but getting to know you takes a lot of time and a lot of effort getting your name out there ...


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Old 07-21-2014, 05:59 PM
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DanCom DanCom is offline
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That's a great one Ray! Imagine buying your own knife (and selling it twice).

I have generated a fair amount of interest by talking to people. I had some color business cards with photos printed for very reasonable. I put the link to the web site on there. I take some cards with me in my wallet and raise the topic at every opportunity. This offline promotion is essential as the Internet is so vast and it's easy to be buried in the search engines.

Good luck!

Dan
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Old 07-21-2014, 06:58 PM
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Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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The real key to beating the search engines is to buy your own domain name (rayrogers.com) , build the website, and then keep it active. After a few years your website will start to move up in the search rankings. Put as much information relating to what you do as you can on the website so the search engines have relevant text to find. You can spend money to have your search position improved but I've seen only minor improvement from that. Having that same url without interruption seems to help the most with random searches.

But the absolute dead-on way for people to find your website and see your work is for you to have your name or your business name on your knives so that it can be clearly read. If someone searches for Ray Rogers they will find several guys with different businesses but we're all on that first page. This is why you must have a logo with a readable name on it that never changes .......


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Old 07-24-2014, 10:28 PM
Soda Pop Cowboy Soda Pop Cowboy is offline
 
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Thanks guys, I'm retired so I don't have to make a living on knives but I'd like to make enough to cover materials and a little extra to build an inventory of say handle material, etc. I really appreciate the input, thanks for taking the time. Bernie
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  #11  
Old 07-26-2014, 07:09 PM
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MVPeterson MVPeterson is offline
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You could do a facebook page very quickly and easily. Not sure how much it will help, I only made mine a couple of weeks ago. But certainly can't hurt to try.
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Old 07-28-2014, 06:26 PM
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ranger1 ranger1 is offline
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I have a facebook page for Sharpe=Knives. Seems to generate a lot of interest. Also its free. My advice would be to make a good product, charge a fair price. The rest will happen faster than you think it will.


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