Knife companies are pretty small operations, comparatively speaking. KAI (which runs Kershaw and ZT), Victorinox, and Fiskars (which owns Gerber) are the biggest in the industry. Benchmade, Buck, and Case are a bit smaller. Then you have companies like Spyderco, CRKT, and TRM. They are quite small. Cold Steel and SOG are brands in a stable owned by a big company.
But all of these companies are small potatoes compared to Wal Mart. As of 2022 there are 10,586 stores. I don’t think any knife company has that many employees. Those stores are staffed by 2,100,000 people. Wal Mart would be 37th most populous state, pushing New Mexico out of that slot. It would have 3 electoral college votes, but be on the cusp of getting a 4th. If we equate revenue to GDP, Wal Mart is much higher on the list—14th, pushing Michigan down the list. Suffice to say Wal Mart is a titan of a company, perhaps unrivaled in human history.
Now what happens if Wal Mart, the gigacorp, decides to make a knife?
Hahahahaha…they are legit terrible (or at least they have been). Like feces-on-your-dinner-plate bad. The only Ozark Trail (Wal Mart’s store outdoor brand) knife I have reviewed was a piece of garbage. The steel was mystery meat. The handle was atrocious. The fit and finish was unfinished. To call it a knife-shaped object was to insult other knife-shaped objects. It was awful.
That was years ago. Since then the Ozark Trail brand has undergone some direction changes. The first place I noticed was their mountain bikes. I love Seth’s Bike Hacks and he has had some go rounds with Ozark Trail bikes. Recently they started using real parts from real companies (Shimano shifters!). And while they don’t rival great bikes, they are good enough and for the money they are amazing. Well, that same mentality has been applied to Ozark Trail knives. Get ready, because this thing will be a case study in business school one day. Because, for the first time, all that business power, all of that market leverage has been brought to bear on a knife and it is GOOD.
Wow. I am going to need to check this one out. Not that I want to support it, but because if it is as solid as Sculimbrene says it is, then I agree it is going to put a hurt on competitors.
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