So how should the forum handle re-sellers or "flippers"?

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labor of love said:
I think I would be a lot cooler if Kato just sold his knives for hundreds more.
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I thought about this years ago. I too wish there was a Japanese ecommerce group that catered to these craftsmen and set them up to maximize their dollar potential. But then again, who knows if many of them would be discovered? All the custom guys do their own thing set own price.
 
Chef Doom said:
I have come to accept that most people are hypocrites one way or another and people will find any means necessary to justify their double standard and even triple standard mentality
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My multiple personality disorder doesn't feel like there's a need to justify my triple standard mentality! Unless we do, so there.
 
labor of love said:
I think I would be a lot cooler if Kato/Shig just sold knives for hundreds more. Flippers are potentially making more in profit from these knives than the actual bladesmiths.
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oh absolutely, but this may prove my point. forgive me for not being educated on the matter, but have they not increased their prices after the secondary market prices went up?
 
Am I the only one that's thinking those that buy from "flippers" are for the most part buying for the "next Kramer" and are motivated by the flipping (they would call it investment) potential themselves?



labor of love said:
I think I would be a lot cooler if Kato/Shig just sold knives for hundreds more. Flippers are potentially making more in profit from these knives than the actual bladesmiths.
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I think the issue comes from people using it to make a buck out of it, like being a highly sought after knife off of BST just to resell it for more. For me it's important to differentiate between those and people who buy to try and then quickly sells
 
daveb said:
Am I the only one that's thinking those that buy from "flippers" are for the most part buying for the "next [brand x]" and are motivated by the flipping (they would call it investment) potential themselves?
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No, you're not the only one that sees this,
it's perceived as ~risk-less arbitrage.

On the topic of transparency,
its also important to think about
these things.

cheers
 
Whatever side of the fence you're on or even straddling the subject, you have to ask yourself what kind of community you're comfortable perpetuating. While there's no way to enforce it realistically, you certainly can do something to help protect the gentlemen's agreement, or trust factor, that many have spoken so highly of in the past of the good people of this community.
 
daveb said:
Am I the only one that's thinking those that buy from "flippers" are for the most part buying for the "next Kramer" and are motivated by the flipping (they would call it investment) potential themselves?
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There are probably many different motivations, although I'm sure there's at least a few who fit the profile above.

I'm also sure there's some people who are just interested due to hype and rarity. When something gets good rep and is scarce, it tends to drive up demand. Knife nuts are a relatively small community, but look how just getting some hype sells some knives -- which may be great knives to be fair, but probably others that are just as nice aren't in as great a demand. How many pages are there on the Mazaki forged knife thread which was started less than 2 months ago?

I know it's approaching beating a dead horse territory... But I think the best way to discourage activities against the spirit of the forum or for better community is already under the current restrictions on kkf. Basically, small number of private message storage allowed, no posts to b/s/t until 50(? or whatever number) of "good" forum posts allowed, no resellers/retailers without proper membership level, etcetera. I know these restrictions are waived for site supporters, but that's fair for paying customers so to speak, in my opinion. BTW, how many of y'all complaining have that little banner under your name, eh? :scratchhead: ;)

Maybe an additional case-by-case restriction that the privilege of posting to b/s/t can be suspended for abusing it. There is some grey area on who is a reseller/retailer. One might not have a brick and mortar store or even a website, but if somebody is regularly buying knives and reselling knives, in my opinion that is a reseller. The grey area may be where somebody likes to catch and release just out of curiosity as a collector or enthusiast. But in those cases, it's probably at a level less than a dedicated flipper, plus the knives will probably be from a wider variety of blacksmiths.
 
Gregmega said:
Exactly. Buying 3 or 5 Masamoto KS and immediately selling them here for 100$ more is flipping. There 10 people in his forum that would have genuinely liked to have ONE of those knives in their collection for USE.
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Must stress the overall integrity of this forum. When the KS hype hit, a forumite secured one for me at below current retail. Not only did he not make money on the deal, he helped me get an exceptionally good deal. Kudos to you kind sir!
 
It would be pretty ****** if somebody bought all the collectible knives and then just sold them all at inflated prices.
I guess when the car community does it, its ok on the down low. But the guys that make it a business with high volume of purchases/Sales, register it as a business.

I know people also, myself included go out and hunt down the blades. Then they go and sell them here at the inflated price. This practice should be fine, hourly it pays less than minimum wage and is really just good at trying different blades.

Would everybody agree that selling over say 6 knives a year at OBVIOUS profits should be a business account?
Problem is sellers would just sell on Ebay, or other forums. All any enforcement would do is push profiteering sellers to other platforms.
 
LucasFur said:
It would be pretty ****** if somebody bought all the collectible knives and then just sold them all at inflated prices.
I guess when the car community does it, its ok on the down low. But the guys that make it a business with high volume of purchases/Sales, register it as a business.

I know people also, myself included go out and hunt down the blades. Then they go and sell them here at the inflated price. This practice should be fine, hourly it pays less than minimum wage and is really just good at trying different blades.

Would everybody agree that selling over say 6 knives a year at OBVIOUS profits should be a business account?
Problem is sellers would just sell on Ebay, or other forums. All any enforcement would do is push profiteering sellers to other platforms.
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Exactly...push them somewhere else...please.

I still think that what PT posted is a good solution...at least let them be called out here.
 
Looks like a vendor to me.
Back in the day this type of behavior would be unacceptable.
The fact that there is even a debate about it boggles my mind.
Just my two cents.
 
It seems to me that management needs to set some sort of mental threshold and once someone's passes that for selling nib stuff, they have to justify not being charged the vendor price for membership. Note I'm not saying there should be a hard and fast rule though and people offering lots of nib stuff for trade obviously are different. (Heck, I'm thinking of offering most of the shig single bevels I've acquired over the years for trade for interesting double bevels. I just never used most of them-turns out except for yanis I'm a double bevel guy!)
 
Maybe we just need a 'flipping alert' smiley and re-wrtie the BST rules that make FS threads basically untouchable.
 
I dont know guys. You guys with 1000's of posts have invested more time into this community than i have.
BUT, as soon as you push the flippers away, it will push the buying traffic market to another location. And im very happy with this forum being among the top places for knife purchases. I wish it was THE world wide undisputed top admittedly (might be) . All kato/shig/kono sales will just be held somewhere else. You cant stop them, inevitably the forum runs the risk of being killed like the fora because people purchasing will go somewhere else for their knife inquiries, and information sharing. If we are going the route of stopping flippers, which is a fair idea, please let me and others know so i can start building my reputation on other sites.
Maybe Taxing them? But then how do you track it? ... bad news all around.
 
The very people here complaining about flippers will never call their cable company to have infomercials removed from your favorite network nor would you have the cops remove the Jehovah's witness that knocks on your door every morning.

I remember when food trucks first became popular, the general public was in an uproar that any city official was hassling these hard working people. Even though they were not paying property taxes, sales taxes, and any other tax that burdens the common brick and mortar establishment.

Nobody really cares about the evils of Amazon, Wal-Mart, or kitchen knife flippers.
 
Let's get real, this thread will have reached six digit page count in twenty years time and still nobody will have made an actionable decision on the matter. Just hot air. These flippers don't hurt anyone other than people too naive or impulsive to do their due diligence.
 
StonedEdge said:
Let's get real, this thread will have reached six digit page count in twenty years time and still nobody will have made an actionable decision on the matter. Just hot air. These flippers don't hurt anyone other than people too naive or impulsive to do their due diligence.
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The admins can easily lock threads for technical but non-toxic technical errors,
like "please pay my paypal fees" and "WTT, no price specified"...

Not sure what is so hard about this? :)
 
HRC_64 said:
The admins can easily lock threads for technical but non-toxic technical errors,
like "please pay my paypal fees" and "WTT, no price specified"...

Not sure what is so hard about this? :)
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I guess the upside is that it gives some an avenue to wave their fists

What I'm getting at is that this thread is literally useless unless a decision is reached.
 
StonedEdge said:
What I'm getting at is that this thread is literally useless unless a decision is reached.
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This thread is a Q&A thread for discussion





Better to fix properly
than be in a rush.





cheers
 
This thread is a microcosm of how governments function. That in itself is worth the price of admission.
 
Spipet said:
I think we should make a clear distinction between people who flip knives, and people who do not. I see people here giving examples like 'I bought this knife in 2014 for 300$ but will sell in 2018 at fair market value'. This is NOT flipping. Flipping is buying a Shig from JNS, and selling it within a very short period. And I am the first to admit that there will be situations where it is not clear cut like this, but lets take this as an example.

Now for the question of whether to allow this or not. To me, the 'flipping' example is a clear sign of someone acting as a business and/or selling for a profit. In my opinion, this behavior should not be supported by KKF (through BST) as (i) it ruins the opportunity for people to buy a knife at a decent price (I think most of the time this regards knives that are generally available) and (ii) it leads to an unequal treatment of 'normal' vendors on KKF (who do pay a fee for being on here).

Finally, to everyone who is using the 'free market' argument: that may be true for eBay or some other auction site, but I like to think that KKF is a more close knit community where we can help each other out, instead of trying to make money at every opportunity. I know it may be hard to understand for some, but sometimes a little guidance is not too bad for a market.
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Way late to this thread, but this is all that needs to be said, IMO. There needs to be a distinction between flipping (buying and immediately selling for a profit) vs buying a knife for his or own use, then deciding to sell later at market prices. If the seller buys the knife for the sole purpose of selling it, then it shouldn't be allowed, based on the goal of BST. As was said, it's not always easy to determine, but there's a pretty clear line to be drawn, IMO.
 
ashy2classy said:
Way late to this thread, but this is all that needs to be said, IMO. There needs to be a distinction between flipping (buying and immediately selling for a profit) vs buying a knife for his or own use, then deciding to sell later at market prices. If the seller buys the knife for the sole purpose of selling it, then it shouldn't be allowed, based on the goal of BST. As was said, it's not always easy to determine, but there's a pretty clear line to be drawn, IMO.
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Not that I am arguing with these statements as I am still neutral on this subject. But what do you base it on to decide if one is flipping? Are the admins going to start requesting proof of purcahases to verify the date and amount paid for the knife to make sure the member is not flipping the knife? If not, then all we’re doing is speculating and accusing the member. I’m sure there a few examples out there that are pretty obvious. But some are hard to discern if they are filppers or just honestly trying to sell the knife and recoup what they invested without much loss.
 
Numerous people have commented that flipping isn’t obvious, but it is. Anything that is purchased usually very recently and is then resold on BST listed as “brand new inbox” with a significant markup of $100 or more is flipping. The reason the item is sold as brand new inbox is no accident. It’s to maximize profit from the resale.
 
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