In Business Since 1986
One key to successful sales is knowing what your customers want. Trust us; over thirty years in this business have allowed us to say that your customers wish to fold knives unequivocally. Not carrying them is to ignore a credible source of revenue. Thankfully, you don’t have to. You can purchase your wholesale knives from us before turning around and making a good profit selling them in retail.
We are going to assume you have a basic understanding of knives. You should, especially if you plan to sell them. But for the record, a folding knife is any knife that includes a blade that can be folded away into the handle. This doesn’t necessarily mean a jackknife. For example, our credit card folding knife is different from a jackknife.
Folding knives perform several vital functions. At the top of the list is self-defense. Some of your customers may not be comfortable carrying a firearm, taser, or pepper spray. And depending on where they live, some other options may not even be available by law. Folding knives are legal in every jurisdiction in the U.S. – at least as far as we know.
Your customers might want folding knives for work. A warehouse manager in your town may always have a knife in his pocket for opening boxes and shipping containers. You may have a delivery driver who depends on her knife for cutting straps and plastic wrap. The point is that there are plenty of jobs for which having a handy folding knife is helpful.
Of course, remember the outdoor enthusiasts. A good folding knife is indispensable for fishing trips, hunting expeditions, or just camping with the family.
We are confident that you will love our folding knife inventory. As part of a more extensive selection of knives, the pieces in this category are ideal for customers who need something that can fit in a pocket. They are small enough to stay out of sight yet handy sufficient to deploy quickly.
Another reason you’ll love our folding knives is that they sell. Plenty of products go with retail fads, but knives are not one of them. Humans have been making knives for as long as we use tools. Artisans have been making and selling knives to others since recorded history began. That hasn’t changed in thousands of years, and it is not likely to.
The simple fact is that a knife is a unique tool that is difficult to replace. Your customers can use a folding knife for everything from cleaning fish to repairing a laundry line – and everything in between. Knives are so essential for survivalists that they would never think of going out into the wilderness without one.
If you are still trying to convince yourself that selling knives is in your best interests as a retailer, we challenge you to look at your competitors. Find out what they are selling. The most successful among them have a complete inventory of knives. They have folding knives in a variety of formats and price ranges. It would help if you were competing directly against them.
So, how do you compete? By adding folding knives to your inventory and then aggressively marketing them. It would help if you also found a way to differentiate yourself from your competition. There are many ways to do this, including a selling strategy that takes advantage of volume rather than unit price.
Look, Safety Technology is often criticized because of our low wholesale prices. That’s fine with us. We have offered our lowest prices for 30+ years because we want our dealers to succeed. We are content to make our money on volume. We sell more products than our competitors by keeping our prices as low as we do. We make just as much money – perhaps even more – by competing on volume rather than price.
That is a good strategy for you as a retailer, too. You can price folding knives slightly below the average price. All other things being equal, your lower price should attract a good percentage of the total market share. You move more products than you otherwise would with higher prices. It is simple economics.
We have you hooked on selling folding knives by now. Assuming that’s the case, you must know how to buy them from Safety Technology. Relax. The process is pretty simple.
The first thing you need to do is complete and submit our online dealer application. Our application is one of the simplest you will find online. You can complete it in just a few minutes and then send it to us electronically at the click of a button. We will instantly receive a notice letting us know your application has arrived. We’ll review it and get back to you with further instructions. Provided everything is in order, you could be approved as a Safety Technology dealer within 24 hours.
Once approved, you can access our entire inventory through a wholesaler’s account, which we will set up on your behalf. You will receive your username and password in an email welcoming you to the Safety Technology family. Use that account to log in and buy wholesale folding knives.
By the way, all our dealers also receive access to our current price list, full-color catalog, and helpful marketing tools. Dealers also receive our commitment to outstanding customer service and support.
Before you sell your first folding knife, you must decide on a retail price. Thankfully, our current price list gives you the necessary information to figure it out. You’ll find three prices in that document:
You can increase or decrease the suggested retail price to meet your needs. Just don’t do so on a whim. Take into consideration all the costs you incur for doing business. Remember, you must make some money for this enterprise to be worthwhile.
It would help if you looked at the principal aspects of retail, known as ‘margin.’ What is margin? It is simply the percentage of the total price of a product that constitutes your profit. You buy a folding knife from us for $5.00. Let’s say it costs you $2.50 to market and sell that knife at a retail price of $15. When you subtract the knife’s cost and other business expenses, your profit is $7.50. You have just achieved a 50% margin as a percentage of the sale.
This is explained by seasoned retailers establishing a margin they shoot for each product. They may not always make that margin, but the goal is whatever margin they have chosen. Having an established margin is like creating a budget. It gives you a general target to aim at.
Wrapping all of this up are the various ways of selling folding knives—there are many. We recommend you immediately start looking at local gun shows, flea markets, hunting shows, etc. These are the kinds of venues that attract people who are most likely to buy folding knives. You can sell numerous models of folding and stationary knives alongside other products in our inventory.
Next are local flea markets and pop-up vendor fairs. There are mall kiosks, strip malls, and storefronts in the middle of downtown. And remember selling online. Some of our most successful dealers sell online exclusively or combine internet sales with a more traditional retail setting.
If all this sounds intimidating, maybe you’re worried because you don’t have a lot of cash to sink into starting your business. Well, no sweat. We drop ship wholesale folding knives at no extra charge. When your customer orders from you, you order from us. We ship the order directly to your customer in packaging that bears your name. All you pay, plus the wholesale price is our shipping and packaging cost.
Folding knives are a must-have item for every retailer of personal safety and self-defense products. If you still need to sell folding knives, why not? Knives have consistently been one of the best-selling items we’ve carried since our earliest days as wholesalers. They sell at the wholesale level because people are buying them at retail.
