Too good to be true?

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joneb

joneb

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https://www.wish.com/product/5f583f9706a379036a3ac4aa?share=web
I was gifted a Benchmade 535 Bugout with cpm s30v blade steel today, he paid around $22 for it.
So I joined wish and ordered the 940 with the cpm s90v blade, could be a sucker thing but the s30v steel in the 535 seems good, so I hope it works out. If the 535 is a knock off it was well done.
Not sure if I will get a 940 with CPM S90v or D2?
 
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I don't see how that could be real for those prices. Granted Benchmade can buy materials cheaper than me but where I shop, the bugout has about $7 dollars worth of steel in the blade, $10 for the pivot pin, lockbar and screws, handle material would be a couple bucks minimum and you haven't even gotten into heat treating or manufacturing. I'd be surprised if benchmade can even make that knife for $22.
 
Too good to be true?
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Of course it is.

Pretty clearly that there's no way to make a $220 MSRP knife available to us for around $26 and Wish has a terrible reputation. MSRP is twice what the dealer pays for a knife. The distributor that sells to the dealer paid 20% to 30% below half the MSRP. That puts the cost from the manufacturer at .5x.7 of MSRP ($77). Production knife companies are not high profit businesses so even if we grant 30% profit to Benchmade (usually closer to 15%) it ends up costing them around $53 to produce using all the standard industry markups. At least you know you're buying a Chinese knockoff when you buy from Dhgate and other in-the-open Chinese marketplaces. https://www.dhgate.com/product/benc....LIST...NDBADF|0|0.#s1-6-1;searl|0490578795:7

What's worse about places like Wish is they conceal that they're a Chinese knockoffs market where you can't even compare which of the theft of intellectual property :fire: producers make a better knockoff. At least on Alibaba, Dhgate, etc. you can comparison shop the stuff (language rules at THR prohibit me from using the word I started to type).

So, yeah, you know.;)
 
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I was not happy with the 20 degree'ish edge grind on this suspect Bugout, so I reprofiled the edge to about 15 deg. and put a secondary 17 deg on the knife. Well this knife is stamped S30V but it seemed just like D2 when I sharpened it. I don't have another knife in S30V to compare it to but I do have Spyderco with CPM S35VN, and resharpening the suspect Bugout did not feel like a CPM steel.
 
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hso said:
You get what ya pay for.
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"I was gifted a Benchmade 535 Bugout"
The real box of chocolates is the 940 I bought on Wish, this be will interesting.
 
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Here is a pic of the $22 suspected 535 Bug out clone, from it's appearance and function it seems like the real deal.
 
There's no "suspected" to it. It's a clone if it came from Wish or any other Chinese site. The problem with these clones is that unscrupulous buyers will resell them as the genuine article, and then these counterfeits get introduced and devalue the genuine articles.
 
hso said:
Of course it is.

Pretty clearly that there's no way to make a $220 MSRP knife available to us for around $26 and Wish has a terrible reputation. MSRP is twice what the dealer pays for a knife. The distributor that sells to the dealer paid 20% to 30% below half the MSRP. That puts the cost from the manufacturer at .5x.7 of MSRP ($77). Production knife companies are not high profit businesses so even if we grant 30% profit to Benchmade (usually closer to 15%) it ends up costing them around $53 to produce using all the standard industry markups. At least you know you're buying a Chinese knockoff when you buy from Dhgate and other in-the-open Chinese marketplaces. https://www.dhgate.com/product/benc....LIST...NDBADF|0|0.#s1-6-1;searl|0490578795:7

What's worse about places like Wish is they conceal that they're a Chinese knockoffs market where you can't even compare which of the theft of intellectual property :fire: producers make a better knockoff. At least on Alibaba, Dhgate, etc. you can comparison shop the stuff (language rules at THR prohibit me from using the word I started to type).

So, yeah, you know.;)
Click to expand...
Are those numbers pretty standard for the quality/non-custom knife industry? 100% margin for retailers when selling at MSRP? 20-30% for distributors? No wonder I see so much variation in online pricing for the same goods! I was really curious about that.

I'm curious if large legitimate online retailers skip the distributor tier altogether and buy directly from the manufacturers? I know that in most cases (except for Wal*Mart and such), major firearms manufacturers limit their sales to a distribution channel as a means to limit liability. Is that true for knives as well?

One thing that has literally become a hobby for me is shopping for knives. The $$$ saved can be substantial -- without going the clone route of course.

Speaking of DHgate. The local HS instructor in charge of drama asked about procuring four "foot long switchblades" for a production of West Side Story a few years back. I rolled my eyes and ordered them (13 inchers!) through DHgate. They arrived at my house, no big deal. But I could have ordered clones and they still would have arrived. How can this be? Why is it allowed? Is it really that easy to ship contraband into the US?
 
hso said:
You get what ya pay for.
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Not always.

There are some high-priced Rolex clones that are literally the same (or better) than the real thing. The actions themselves are different, but they would require a bonafide expert to tell, and they are of at least the quality of the Rolex. Bracelets, watch bodies, crystals etc. ARE the same.

The value of the ROLEX name, and the $$$ Rolex SA pumps into advertising are both huge. Cheaters stealing a free ride on their coattails have a HUGE cost, and thus price advantage, while maintaining margins.

There are even more mundane examples of not getting what one paid for. I recently bought a CS Magnum Tanto XII VG-10 San Mai for $186.46 from CS through Amazon. They're still available for that price through Amazon as far as I know. Yet CS now has the same knife advertised on its website for $379.99. (BladeHQ is "only" $279.99 right now.)

Those paying nearly 51% more aren't "getting what they paid for." They're not getting a better knife. They're getting stroked, given the current alternatives.
 
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joneb said:
View attachment 964161
Here is a pic of the $22 suspected 535 Bug out clone, from it's appearance and function it seems like the real deal.
Click to expand...

Bro you got a clone 100 percent. Tear it down, you'll see, or send pics to Benchmade they will let you know.

The blue especially is well documented, here is just a few videos:





I hate clones, and the people that choose to support them. I'm letting Benchmade know the link tomorrow so they can start going after them. Theft in the knife world costs good companies alot of time and money.
 
My uneducated guess is that $22 is probably not that different from the cost of the raw steel required for that knife if the blade were S30V. Uncut, not shaped/beveled and not heat treated.
 
Solomonson said:
I'm curious if large legitimate online retailers skip the distributor tier altogether and buy directly from the manufacturers?
Click to expand...


Retailers used to buy at half MSRP from both manufacturer and distributor to ensure inventory, but manufacturers didn't want to undercut their distributors because the distributors bought enough volume and on a schedule that the manufacturers didn't want to cross them. Retailers placing large enough orders to match the distributor volume requirements used to get a few points discount on dealer price from the manufacturer as an incentive for the volume. Retailers still needed to have accounts with distributors AND the manufacturers to keep inventory under control. Now many manufacturers now sell on a volume schedule to any business for discounts below half MSRP. If a retailer is ordering as much as a distributor like Blue Ridge they now can buy at the same price as distributors and make more profit on "discounted" prices to the public. That's one of the significant changes over the past 30 years.
 
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joneb said:
seems like the real deal
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Nope

As pointed out if you know what you're looking at, or you view/read the threads on counterfeits, you can spot the fakes. The thumb stud is the first indication it is a fake. Fiber reinforced nylon (FRN) handle material is stronger than the polymer used in the fakes. If you have the box there are clear indications with the inserts. If you use it side by side with a real one you'll see the differences in edge retention. A $22 knife might be a good $22 knife, but it won't be a $100 knife regardless. Give us some pictures of the clip side and the box interior if you can.

As also said, anyone that buys American knives from Wish is contributing to counterfeiting. You know that a $22 "bugout" from Wish isn't the real Benchmade.

ugaarguy said:
The problem with these clones is that
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they're theft of an American company's investment in design, intellectual property, marketing, reputation.

If you were buying a well designed Chinese brand knife at Chinese knife prices it would be one thing, but impersonating another company to get your money at a price you know is "too good to be true" is just crooked. For $22 you won't expect a warranty for when the mechanism fails or the edge chips or rolls, but for folks that think Benchmade turned out a defective knife ... well, that just injures the honest manufacturer's reputation.
 
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The ironic thing is that the patent on the Axis lock is now expired. So anyone can design a knife that includes it as long as they call it something else, like Hogue does not that they're making Doug Ritter's RSK.

But literally any knife from DHGate or Wish is a clone and no one should willingly support their intellectual property theft.

Also, if you send a fake to Benchmade for warranty service, I believe they'll destroy it.
 
hso said:
Nope

As pointed out if you know what you're looking at, or you view/read the threads on counterfeits, you can spot the fakes. The thumb stud is the first indication it is a fake. Fiber reinforced nylon (FRN) handle material is stronger than the polymer used in the fakes. If you have the box there are clear indications with the inserts. If you use it side by side with a real one you'll see the differences in edge retention. A $22 knife might be a good $22 knife, but it won't be a $100 knife regardless. Give us some pictures of the clip side and the box interior if you can.

As also said, anyone that buys American knives from Wish is contributing to counterfeiting. You know that a $22 "bugout" from Wish isn't the real Benchmade.


they're theft of an American company's investment in design, intellectual property, marketing, reputation.

If you were buying a well designed Chinese brand knife at Chinese knife prices it would be one thing, but impersonating another company to get your money at a price you know is "too good to be true" is just crooked. For $22 you won't expect a warranty for when the mechanism fails or the edge chips or rolls, but for folks that think Benchmade turned out a defective knife ... well, that just injures the honest manufacturer's reputation.
Click to expand...
In the long run it also costs good paying jobs. I don't know what Benchmade pays or what benefits that they offer, but I strongly suspect that working in a factory that makes high quality knives to exact standards pays a lot more than flipping burgers. Trying to compete with the cost of Chinese clones can in the long term force them to move some of their production to a place with a cheaper labor force.

Nothing wrong with buying a $20 Chinese knife in fact a have a few laying around myself. Buying a $20 fake of an expensive knife is just wrong.
 
This is a good example of why I typically buy everything for respected vendors like BladeHQ. If I but anything on ebay the seller needs to have a lot of very positive reviews. Like thousands.

Even then, ebay is a big gamble. there's a lot of fake ZTs on there.
 
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