Support your local gun shop
Just heard today that he is closing shop after the first of the year. That make four LGS within 50 miles of me in the last three years. But at least two were due to health reasons.
https://imgur.com/gallery/Sq0KEiF
https://imgur.com/gallery/Sq0KEiF
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Bump for edit. 0 -
I think one of the problems small stores have are the inability to alter the way they do business to compensate with how the industry and market has changed since the internet has taken hold of everything. If they stop just stocking things, taking repairs, and barely doing anything different from the 80's and 90's way of doing business its doomed. 0 -
Local Shop started as a Pawn Shop 15 years ago. then Changed over to a Gun Shop . They moved and expanded 3 years ago. Now a Rural King has moved in. The Local Shop has has now thrown in the towel. Can't compete with pricing.
I stay in Business with mostly Used items and special orders. But 50% of my business is from my Gun Parts
Got to find a niche market to keep going now a days.0 -
If it wasn't for my good looks and sunny disposition I would never have made it. 0 -
Ricci Wright wrote:If it wasn't for my good looks and sunny disposition I would never have made it.
Cough, cough, choke, gag.........................................................................Bro. Your killin' me.
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Ricci Wright wrote:If it wasn't for my good looks and sunny disposition I would never have made it.
Now that is funny0 -
Ricci Wright wrote:If it wasn't for my good looks and sunny disposition I would never have made it.
to where?????????????0 -
Very nice guy, I met him when I was in Salem for the girls softball world series a couple years ago.
Had a good laugh that I'm from CT & couldn't even buy a gun from him.0 -
One of my best friends is closing his shop due to no traffic. I am getting ready to go to his auction now. I hope for his sake alot of people show up. it kinda worries me that he did not advertise it . just put it on facebook. I guess we will see. 0 -
I would love to support my local gunshop.
They are close, convienent, quick, and my neighbor....but I ain't intetested in putting their kids thru college by myself.
A long time ago I figured it out, 5 sales with $100 profit each was, at the end of the day, the same as 1 sale with $500 profit.
A lot the dealers around here apparently think I won't drive 45 miles roundtrip to Rural King just to save $200. My wife had a doctor's appointment in town anyway.
Spare us the excuses, we have heard them.
Dealers that can't work the small profit sales might be better off selling cars or houses.
I have made a few deals with my local guy but I have walked away from many more.
He says things like, "If you can find that gun that cheap on the net,THAT'S LESS THAN I CAN BUY IT FOR!"
My answer is, "Howabout I order 1 for me and 2 for you and you can do my paperwork for my finder's fee?"
It never happens.
Personally, I think an energetic guy could make a living selling guns and put the other guys out of business.
GoGetter's Gunshop.
You locate the gun on the net-pay me.
I order it with my FFL.
When it comes in-you pay me $50 for background check and my time.
Just 10 guns a day comes to...lets see...naught plus naught is naught...carry the naught....
This guy would get all my business.
Order me another S&W M&P 22 compact.
Oh, and a Walther PPK .22 and while I'm on the net a Ruger 9mm carbine.
What about a 308 AR?
I worked hard for my money I just despise having the "I just got screwed" feeling.
The whining starts ...NOW!0 -
No one can compete with the big box stores. The little guy has to try every way possible to make money. 0 -
I use to ( when younger and pre internet ) of course only went to local GS or gun shops
over the last 10 + years I have tried hard to support the some what local GS, but they refused to deal or even budge one shop even the 3% most take off for cash refused to do it . I even tried to get them to get with in 50.00 of the price I could get on the internet and showed them the gun listed trying to support them ,, nope for me it came down to buying the gun(s) on line even with shipping and transfer fee was still way cheaper to buy on line . I did try many times but never worked out
so I have never been back I do feel for the shops trying to make it . but with the money I have saved = more ammo or guns for me
my youngest son has his FFL now to do any transfers so more cost savings0 -
I seldom buy new guns. There?s just nothing new out there I?m interested in. Three of the four shops that closed carried at least some reloading components. That go me in the door. Then I?d see a nice old Remington.22 and we?d start dickering.
There?s still a couple of shops within 50 miles that carry reloading stuff and used guns. I?ll try to get to those more often.0 -
Local gun shop I am employed in has specialized in ar15 parts kits and build tools .We carry the largest selection in a several county area . We still have problems competing in the marketplace . And yes we will order for you from about anywhere and we will not charge you a transfer fee . Usually we charge about a $50 markup over wholesale
. We cannot touch the big box store prices so we try to stress the personal touch in all of our customer dealings . All we want to do is make a living not a killing off of anyone .0 -
I don't care if they go under, most bring it upon themselves with crappy attitudes,.........why in the Hell do they turn price tags over so you can't see the prices, then get a pissy attitude as they have to actually do some work flipping the tag over when you ask the price ?? They all cry it's the customers fault, the nets fault, Gunbrokers fault ....I beg no man to take my money 0 -
I try. Sometimes they make it hard.
I respect places that have an identity. I know they have to make living- but damn I don?t need a 19 yr old kid with Open Carrying a Glock 19 in a Serpa holster trying to explain what ?I need? instead of what I asked him for.
On the flip side I can only imagine what the poor guys behind a counter have to deal with.
The truth is- when I go into a LGS im looking for a crotchety old guy that knows alot of stuff and will carry on a useful or at least entertaining conversation. Typically this guy has a 1911 in a Milt Sparks holster on his hip.0 -
As a dealer I subscribe to Shooting Industry, a firearms business magazine which has been in publication since before I was born. All through the 1980s and into the 90s there were cries of how the "kitchen table dealers' were killing storefronts due to the kitchen table low to zero overhead. When the big purge of FFL reduced the numbers of Type 01s from 265,000 to below 100,000 you'd think that the storefronts would be happy. Nope. Now the cry is how the big box stores are killing then due to their volume buying power. No matter what happens, there are guys who claim that they can't make money. Guess what; owning your own business is hard work, much harder than being an employee who takes home their paycheck every two weeks and doesn't think about work until Tuesday morning (many small gun shops are closed on Mondays).
There is no point in playing the blame game. If you can't make money selling guns...well, no one is going to wave their magic wand and make your competitors disappear, or force customers into your shop. The reason that my friend Ron and I closed our gun shop was that we were both old school and weren't willing to adapt to the new marketplace with its websites, apps, social media and...well, who the hell knows what else. The old school customers are also dying off and new buyers have new levels of expectations for shopping. Walking into a brick and mortar store to look around and chit-chat about politics with the owner- or discuss anything else for that matter, isn't among them.
Today's business climate is fast paced. If you can't keep up, you're toast.0 -
I guess it all depends on where you are located, type of operation and many other factors.
The gun store I manage has ups and downs basically depending on the farm economy. Typically we sell somewhere between 2500-3500 guns a year. We are in a town of 2200 people. Our prices are less than the big box stores typically and we charge $10 for transfers. Due to our remote location we carry a HIGH level of inventory(2000 guns or so depending on the day). We draw people from all over the state to come shop with us, we pretty much always have some sort of special running, most of the time we advertise though facebook as our only real regular place except when we have a big sale we will through in some flyers and radio ads.
For the last 12 years or so we also run "best price pricing", meaning we do not deal but our typical markup is like this: We don't sell a gun for less than $40, so on new guns $0 to about $400 we make right at $40. Above that we do about 12% or so. Used guns $0-500 we make $50, $500-750 we make $75, above that we do roughly 10% rounded up to the nearest $25. We have low markups but we have huge traffic unlike many stores. We do not have room to "deal" and don't. We hear it all the time "If you knock $100 off this gun(priced at $475) I'll take it". We also here "Wow, that is the cheapest I've seen that pistol for sale...could you do any better on it?". You get the idea, some people would be happier I think if I had the same $475 gun marked $575 and gave them $50 off, some just think they HAVE to dicker the price down. Those customers usually get the hint when we stop paying attention to them and go help other customers. We have many, many loyal customers that know our system and know that any gun in our store they buy will be a fairly good deal. Yes, if you compare every gun we have to the entirety of the internet in price we will lose almost everytime, almost every gun made you can find on the internet somewhere for $5 over the best dealer pricing.
As for keeping up with the changes, different times in the past we have done alot of selling on GB but just don't have alot of time lately to do so, we are getting a glut of used guns right now so we want to get cranked up soon to move a bunch on here in the next few months. For now we may be old fashioned but I would say we are pretty resiliant and able to change. We are in a pretty good position, we own our building, have a busy restaurant occupying half the building that we charge rent to and they help draw customers into us.
We are pretty promotion driven too, during our Fall Sale we usually get hammered with people the first day, this year I think we sold about 180 guns the first day. We are also known for giving good prices for used guns, we buy several whole estates out a year and we buy/trade at least 2-3 guns everyday.
The people mentioning some of these stores making $500 per gun??? Places like that deserve to be out of business but what do I know about their operation, maybe they are in downtown San Fransico and paying $10,000 a month in rent. Every place is different.
Sorry for the long post but I just wanted to add my comments to the post about local mom and pop gun stores. We appreciate and are humbled by the customers we have and the sheer number of people that are sent to us by our customers.0 -
Junkballer wrote:I don't care if they go under, most bring it upon themselves with crappy attitudes,.........why in the Hell do they turn price tags over so you can't see the prices, then get a pissy attitude as they have to actually do some work flipping the tag over when you ask the price ?? They all cry it's the customers fault, the nets fault, Gunbrokers fault ....I beg no man to take my money
Are you saying there are stores that purposely hide the prices by flipping tags over?0 -
shootuadeal wrote:Junkballer wrote:I don't care if they go under, most bring it upon themselves with crappy attitudes,.........why in the Hell do they turn price tags over so you can't see the prices, then get a pissy attitude as they have to actually do some work flipping the tag over when you ask the price ?? They all cry it's the customers fault, the nets fault, Gunbrokers fault ....I beg no man to take my money
Are you saying there are stores that purposely hide the prices by flipping tags over?
Yes,.....and pissy attitudes will get bad bottom line results on their businesses then they want to blame everyone else for their loss of business except themselves. Consumers are smart these days, we can walk out the door with our money ....a free market does exist in America and we love it 0 -
had a local shop open up run by a few young men who only had interest in AR type rifles, their used rack was full of them and the newer synthetic rifles, only wooden stocked ones used were a couple of model 97's and price of them was $850 apeice, same shotgun you could go to anyweekend gunshow and get for $500. I ask them once about their used guns, and they said there was no money in used guns, that was enough for me didn't go back and I think they made it about 3 months...... 0 -
It seems like a nice sentiment, but in the end, why? They certainly don't support me. I can shop pretty much nation wide on Gunbroker, find better prices than the local brick and mortar stores, and a far greater selection of uncommon items. I collect WWII military handguns. How many of those will I find locally in a year? I can find many in a month on GB, like driving around the country stopping at most of the stores, without the driving. Large volume dealers on GB can often retail new guns that interest me for less than my FFL can get them wholesale. He always gets first shot, but understands when I can get it below his cost here. He gets the transfer fee. Ricci Wright wrote:If it wasn't for my good looks and sunny disposition I would never have made it.
Uh, didn't you just close the shop? Does that mean you got mean and ugly?0 -
hillbille wrote:Ricci Wright wrote:If it wasn't for my good looks and sunny disposition I would never have made it.
to where?????????????0 -
shootuadeal wrote:Junkballer wrote:I don't care if they go under, most bring it upon themselves with crappy attitudes,.........why in the Hell do they turn price tags over so you can't see the prices, then get a pissy attitude as they have to actually do some work flipping the tag over when you ask the price ?? They all cry it's the customers fault, the nets fault, Gunbrokers fault ....I beg no man to take my money
Are you saying there are stores that purposely hide the prices by flipping tags over?
I would say they hide the prices. Every gun on the rack has the tag turned so the price can't be read.0 -
My input is this: Small gunshops work for your business (if they don't, find one that will), the employees at large chain stores are high turnover and couldn't care less about you. Small dealers will get you any gun you want, as long as it's available, and most do transfers. Chains will bow to pressure from loud and obnoxious anti gun groups and decide what you can and can't buy from them (Walmart, Dicks etc). If all the small dealers disappear and all the large stores cave to the anti gun groups, well then I guess we got what was coming to us.
I turned in my FFL when I moved to TN a couple months ago, may or may not reapply for one. Most small guys are lucky to average a 10% markup on guns, and when you look at the liability, capital investment, and volatility of the market, that is a pretty poor ROI. You have to have a love for the business and the products.0 -
This is my thinking which is why I get acquainted with the owners of small shops, hang-out a bit make small talk with him & the other employees and when I am interested in something I give him first shot at ordering it so he's more inclined to negotiate on things they have in stock ... maybe I do pay him a bit more, but I dont feel like I'm being raped. He's more convenient than another dealer on the other side of town ... bottom line is I don't want either to go out of business, but if its not a serial numbered item I that I need their services for, I typically order from a seller on GunBroker, Amazon or other vendors unless the cost of the part & shipping is more than my local shops' price ... in other words, I try to save when I can too but see the necessities of keeping our small shops in business.Cling2myguns wrote:{snip}
If all the small dealers disappear and all the large stores cave to the anti gun groups, well then I guess we got what was coming to us.
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