Mule Team flipping

[angusW]

Increasing demand would stop or slow the flippers but a few of the Mules in the past were slow to sell. Beyond that I have no idea.

[Cujobob]

I can see that actually making flipping more profitable.

In all seriousness there is no solution.

Sure there is. K390 and S110V are barely available and they're desired. Any super high end steel will have this effect. Make larger runs or plan other knives with the same steel. Many people want the mules because they don't know if they'll be able to get other folders or their personal favorite Spyderco option in that particular steel. Since the mule team is for testing, the best solution is larger runs on the very in demand steels. To gauge demand, they could make a sticky poll asking people how many they'd order to get an idea. Maybe even put a few dollars down ahead of time to show they're serious.

[MountainManJim]

So what defines a flipper? I've thinking about selling some of my extra mules, been collecting them from the beginning, to make some room in the collection. Am I a flipper??

Jim

[3rdGenRigger]

There's no easy solution beyond the existing measures in place for sure...that much is obvious. The expanding (Or rather exploding) number of fake Spydercos seems a more prevalent issue, at least to me. That said, beyond limiting to 2 per account I'm not sure what would be really doable legally to prevent sale from people who organise group buys beforehand. Perhaps it's being organized by someone working for a dealer, which would presumably make it easier to track than a group operating completely independently which seems more unlikely...all wild speculation of course though, and I'm far from the most informed person on the subject...REALLY far.

[yablanowitz]

Good to hear you chiming on Sal. Honestly I'm not sure much can be done for those that amass a few friends together to collect a handful or more and then flip them. I think your policy of 2 per customer is very fair but the case I mention is unavoidable. I'm not sure how or if anyone could grab a large quantity single-handedly, do you allow any larger batches out to dealers beyond ones we're sure about their upright reputation (e.g. the likes of Jim Howe, etc)?

No. Sales are through the Factory Outlet only. The dealers and distributors don't get Mules (other than CC pieces), so there is no middleman markup. That's why they are inexpensive enough to be attractive to the profiteers.

[bdblue]

So what defines a flipper?

If you bought the knife with the intention of immediately selling it for a profit, you are a flipper.

[RadioactiveSpyder]

No. Sales are through the Factory Outlet only. The dealers and distributors don't get Mules (other than CC pieces), so there is no middleman markup. That's why they are inexpensive enough to be attractive to the profiteers.

Thank you, that's what I figured was the case, so it certainly seems to be flipper-based gangs grabbing up the quantities. Boo to them.

[paladin]

If you bought the knife with the intention of immediately selling it for a profit, you are a flipper.

So what defines immediately...just kidding, but seriously there is a huge gray area here

[paladin]

How about an amalgam of some of the previous suggestions?

1. Create Mule Team Collector's Club with yearly membership fee

2. Club members must be registered users of this forum

3. Club members preorder 1 or 2 (max.) Mules at discounted price

4. Sal produces enough Mules to cover Club orders

5. Sal then produces additional Mules and sells them for 100% MSRP to public at large

6. Whatever Mules do not sell at public release are then offered to Club members at original discounted Club prices

7. This idea kind of mirrors what was recently implemented for the 2013 Forum Native

[MachSchnell]

[deleted]

[bdblue]

So what defines immediately...just kidding, but seriously there is a huge gray area here

I think it's pretty obvious. There were green PM2's on ebay before Knifeworks even started shipping them. That is definitely immediately. It has been roughly a week since most people received their MT18's, right now I counted 13 of them on ebay. I would say that counts as immediately.

But seriously- there is a lot of demand for certain Spyderco products- PM2's are in demand, PM2 sprints sell like magic, Mules in exotic steels are selling even better than anybody could have predicted. Making enough of the product to meet the demand would certainly reduce the success of flipping. It would take a crystal ball to know how many to make though, and who has one of those. A person could predict that K390 and S110V would sell a lot since those steels are so uncommon. There has been discussion of MT14 eventually coming out in 204P. This is a high performance steel but seems to be a step down from S110V so it might not be in as much demand, but if it came out in the next 2 months there is a chance that it would sell very well. Other exotic steels such as 3V and 4V have been mentioned, those would probably sell pretty well too. I would not be the one to ask Spyderco to produce huge quantities of Mules and then hot be able to sell them. That's where the crystal ball comes in. I would suggest that they produce a little more of them next time to explore the limits of the demand, and I don't know if that limit is 800 or 1,000, or 1,500 or whatever. Once they know better what to expect with demand, that would pull the rug out from under the flippers. But it is a catch-22 also- if the secondary market demand was significantly reduced, a lot of people would buy fewer of them to start with, maybe the initial sales would be less than they are right now. Another solution would be as suggested- produce multiple runs of them. I don't know how many can be produced in a run to maintain production efficiency, but if the flippers knew than another 300 knives would come out in a month until demand was met, they would not try to sell them for high markup.

[ugaarguy]

Would a two knife limit sold only to actively participating forum members slow it down?

[ManixFan]

I am pretty much a lurker almost 100% of the time but have learned an incredible amount just by lurking both here as well as on BladeForums, I was also incredibly lucky in coming a little late to the party for the last two S110V offerings from Spyderco. The 1st time was for the 2013 Forum knife by watching the same thread religiously but not realizing that the announcement would arrive in another thread. I was completely brand new to Spyderco Forums and actually joined a couple months beforehand because I thought it was a requirement to purchase the 2013 Forum knife. The second time was because as a new collector whose obsession was still growing I was more into collecting folders and hadn't yet realized the beauty of customizing a MT and only stumbled across the release of MT18 while looking for something else and had seen the beautiful custom scales that people had dressed their MT's up with and thought Wow - that kind of personalization is pretty awesome.

But as a new collector I hadn't had an opportunity to collect any prior hard to get knives that weren't going on eBay for incredibly high markups so I did use one of the 2013 Forum Knives to trade for a hard to find blade from someone who had doubles of what I wanted and yet was lusting after the 2013 Forum knife that they missed. Although I got what I wanted I no longer had a user if I wanted to keep one NIB for my collection - solution was to keep the one I had left as NIB and order the CF S110V that KC tells me should arrive in about 2-3 mos to have as a user.

But I think that the only way to defuse the highly inflated secondary market prices would be a commitment on Spyderco's part to re-release the high demand MT's. Perhaps take a poll of what people are most demanding in past MT releases and then every year along with the new MT releases - re-release one of the most "in demand" previous releases - since these are the MT's that end up being obscenely priced on the secondary market due to "flippers". Most people who really, really want to add a MT to their collection that they missed due to a very high demand release would also most likely be willing to wait until the MT was re-released instead of going to the secondary market as they do now because there is no other way to get that MT - but only if they knew beforehand that they would get a second chance of getting the identical MT directly from Spyderco in a re-release. I think that approach would go a long way to defusing the secondary "flipper market" since no one would pay the high prices if they knew that the knife they wanted would be re-released in the future. If the demand dries up then the secondary market prices would deflate to more reasonable levels and perhaps only be a modest premium for those that can't wait for the 2-5 years for their favourite MT to be re-released by Spyderco.

Just my two cents.....actually 5 cents.....since I'm from Canada and we no longer use pennies up here. I'm not sure how feasible or practical my idea actually would be from the business standpoint though since I'm not in the business of selling knives.

On another note - I just picked up the blue CF Domino from KW's (along with the CF S90V Manix 2 XL) and am absolutely in love with this knife! If this was ever released in S110V in the same beautiful CF setup either in the same blue or perhaps green or deep maroon replacing the blue in the exact same pattern I'd probably buy AT LEAST two of them.

Thank you Eric Glesser for designing such a beautiful knife.......it was so beautiful that I almost decided to keep it as a "safe queen" until I cut myself while playing with it (God did it ever come sharp! :) ) and then decided that was a sign that it should become my new EDC.

[PMBohol]

Someone earlier mentioned the idea of a Mule Team club. That has some merit IMO. If a member decided to pass on a knife or decide later on after getting the knife they didn't want it then it could be sold to another member on the forum. But as many have stated already, there is no sure way to stop flippers.

[RevDevil]

I guess I will add my 2 bits on the matter. It's a bummer to see this happen, for many reasons already stated. I guess adding another run might help those that didn't get in on the first one. I guess that a prepayment method might work. I have no objection to prepaying 100% in advance, for the couple I could get. I missed this run, when they went on sale, I had a tremendously stressful week at work. I had little to no time that day to place the order, and the following days were followed up with some travel, classroom training, and other aspects where I was away from the web long enough to miss out. I'd love a better designed collector's club, with options to buy specific knives (not all or variants only, and certainly no attachment to serial numbers.) as for this run, better luck next time I guess.

[ManixFan]

Oh yes, while I'm still in the "begging" mood. Please, please, please; pretty please, release an indestructible MT in 4 to 4.5mm 3V.

[Spyder-fan]

Limiting to 2 knives isn't helping. People won't like it but I think they should be limited to 1 knife. That will spread the Project out more. These knives are meant to be used to test the steel.

[Joshua J.]

How about an amalgam of some of the previous suggestions?

1. Create Mule Team Collector's Club with yearly membership fee

2. Club members must be registered users of this forum

3. Club members preorder 1 or 2 (max.) Mules at discounted price

4. Sal produces enough Mules to cover Club orders

5. Sal then produces additional Mules and sells them for 100% MSRP to public at large

6. Whatever Mules do not sell at public release are then offered to Club members at original discounted Club prices

7. This idea kind of mirrors what was recently implemented for the 2013 Forum Native

This plan sounds pretty good to me, though it is more work behind the scenes.
I might add that members need to be active forum users, like, one post every six months or something.

I think the next best option is just to sell them as regular limited items. The only reason people flipping them is a problem is that they are taking advantage of an act of generosity. If Spyderco takes their cut on every one then flipping them isn't a problem, and then it makes sense to continue making them until demand runs out.
Selling the same product through retail should still come close enough to the original intentions.

[WorkingEdge]

When I first learned of this program I thought who would do something like this? Makes no business sense.
It's the Mule's artificially low price that's the problem, affecting normal supply and demand.
This is a gift from you for which most of us are grateful.
I'm saddened that you have to waste your time trying to police those willing to cheat, lie, and steal instead of spending your time producing cutting edge knives.

You should make all of them hence forth your sole property, on permanent rental. Maybe legally it can no longer be sold on eBay or anywhere else online. Regardless of what solution you decide, THANK YOU, SAL!

[jabba359]

Limiting to 2 knives isn't helping. People won't like it but I think they should be limited to 1 knife. That will spread the Project out more. These knives are meant to be used to test the steel.

If limiting to 2 knives isn't working, what would limiting to 1 solve? :confused: Scalpers would still get around the 1 limit just like they get around the 2 limit.