Konosuke Kaiju

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I have several of their knives. Their quality is excellent. You do end up paying more for steel and handle type depending on the vendor, but I have not found that they are unreasonable for what you get
 
I'm not sure what the point to this argument is other than, "markets change." When Kosuke took the reins of Konosuke, there were probably fewer wa gyuto manufacturers in the entire world than there are small-batch instagram artisans in the united states alone today. It's tough being an established business with several employees competing against single-man operations with zero marketing or sales costs thanks to social media. Especially when the currency in this market is rarity and hand-crafted-ness. If they didn't resort to these tactics, they'd be dead in the water. If you're going to be upset, be upset at people like us who have popularized this market to the saturation point.
 
Matus said:
Value of certain product (and especially in such a non-essential product category) is very subjective and for me when look at Konosuke I see a brand, not the craftsmen and in this regard it is little different from many other brands that just did not market themselves in such an exklusive manner.
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As a maker I think you can understand the value of marketing your brand. One of the things I appreciate about Konosukes’ direction in recent marketing efforts is giving credit to the craftsmen behind the brand. I think this and the in-house polishing step they are taking on the workhorse blade is going to be looked at by some potential buyers as more care taken to make something and that may hold more value for them.
 
I don't think we as a community can complain about hype markets we create. Its kind of like NYC night club owners saying how awful Colombian Coke cartels are.
 
nwshull said:
I don't think we as a community can complain about hype markets we create. Its kind of like NYC night club owners saying how awful Colombian Coke cartels are.
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I like hype—it brings knives to my attention. TBH, pretty much every knife I've bought has been either influenced or informed by hype in some form—from friends that have used them; from trusted vendors that are excited about a particular knife; from forums and social media; from press on a maker. If not for hype and reviews, it's unlikely I would've landed Raquin, Kato, Shig, Yanick, Takada, etc. I didn't have the ability to tryout any of those knives before acquiring—thus needed to depend on hype, along with my judgement and preferences. Hype adds a bit of excitement to buying a knife. Buying any knife is a calculated risk against one's expectations—I'm currently batting about .800 with my choices.
 
DitmasPork said:
I like hype—it brings knives to my attention...I'm currently batting about .800 with my choices.
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I gonna go out on a limb and guess that shig and kato don’t have a marketing team or an IG acct or a brand strategy or slick packaging or a website or new exotic wood and horn offerings or hip new profiles aimed at catching all the kiddies lunch money. Just a guess tho.
 
Gregmega said:
I gonna go out on a limb and guess that shig and kato don’t have...
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Do they need to? If they had inventory sitting at dealers that hasn’t moved for a while and is causing orders to stop flowing then I could see a business case behind investing resources to create more demand. From what I can tell both Shigefusa and Kato seem to be priced at the higher end of the market likely due to demand being greater than supply, so they are doing something right without investing in demand creation.
 
Yeah man, mine was a mildly facetious response to the previous post to light the landscape of false equivalence in his post. A bit of the ol’ tongue in cheek if you will.
 
zizirex said:
Hype for Konosuke / Hitohira is "wrong" but Hype for Kato / Shigefusa is "right"?

Well, it's so KKF...
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I want to apologize for steering the discussion the wrong way. This would be a fair point for a separate thread.
 
simar said:
Do they need to? If they had inventory sitting at dealers that hasn’t moved for a while and is causing orders to stop flowing then I could see a business case behind investing resources to create more demand. From what I can tell both Shigefusa and Kato seem to be priced at the higher end of the market likely due to demand being greater than supply, so they are doing something right without investing in demand creation.
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Depends on the business philosophy of the seller. Even with Katos/Shigs, my business sense would be to move inventory as quickly as possible, market aggressively while there is interest, free up room for more—'strike while the iron is hot,' as they say.
 
DitmasPork said:
Depends on the business philosophy of the seller. Even with Katos/Shigs, my business sense would be to move inventory as quickly as possible, market aggressively while there is interest, free up room for more—'strike while the iron is hot,' as they say.
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I agree. I think that it is the business philosophy driving these decisions along with capacity limitations given the limited number of artisans available.
 
DitmasPork said:
Depends on the business philosophy of the seller. Even with Katos/Shigs, my business sense would be to move inventory as quickly as possible, market aggressively while there is interest, free up room for more—'strike while the iron is hot,' as they say.
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When you have 3-5 years of orders in the books, marketing is just an unnecessary distraction.
 
Corradobrit1 said:
When you have 3-5 years of orders in the books, marketing is just an unnecessary distraction.
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Perhaps, but marketing an unavailable product can bring buzz and attention to the business, visits to the website, for potential customers to buy other knives. It's a strategy. Traction.
 
DitmasPork said:
Perhaps, but marketing an unavailable product can bring buzz and attention to the business, visits to the website, for potential customers to buy other knives. It's a strategy. Traction.
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This only works for dedicated buyers that want that specific product. If there is competing products in the marketplace, the consumer will move on.
 
esoo said:
This only works for dedicated buyers that want that specific product. If there is competing products in the marketplace, the consumer will move on.
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Many business, like mine try a number of different approaches.
 
esoo said:
True - Konosuke lost me on the Kaiju as I wanted a 210 and they said not this year, but I bought a MM instead.
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Figure they're just doing one size to see how it goes. I am curious on how many Kaijus are bing produced and if they will sell out or not.
 
Kaiju.. the lil’ sebastian of workhorses.

Do look pretty nice. It reminds me of when these guys sand and then polish their katos. Was never a konosuke guy. Just not a fan of their grinds etc so i’ll probably skip this one. Seems a ton of people are interested though and I doubt ToGo has a ton. I love the hype of this kono. Leaves other blades for me😄
 
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