He doens’t give any opening paragraph, and jumps right in. Here is number 1:
Walmart will make another competitive knife.
You don’t get to be the God Emperor of Logistics at random. Even though we are a tiny, tiny niche hobby, the OT has sold well enough for long enough that I am sure the data miners at Walmart have noticed and my guess is we will get another well-made knife with decent materials for super mega cheap. The days of knife-shaped objects with mystery meat steel are over at the King of Bentonville. Making a knife as nice as the OT is not particularly hard, especially for a company with annual revenue of more than $600 billion. They can basically crap out a decent knife, sell it for 1/4 what even the cheapest competitors are, and still make a profit on it. If they release onesies and twosies I think the knife market will be okay. If they get aggressive and release a whole line including a “high end” knife with some crazy good steel for like $30, then I think the knife market as we know it is over. But fortunately, the former is more likely than the latter.
I really liked the “thinner stock” prediction (#3). Number 1, partially excerpted above, is probably the most contentious.
Read the whole thing at everydaycommentary.com
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