S&W sales plummet

Mr_Irritating said:
At my last job we built tons of guns daily, literally and this was normal. When the market exploded the company hired a bunch of full-time employees, rather than temps which would suggest they figured the market was simply growing and the frenzy wasn't temporary. When things slowed down, they didn't just slow down, things came to a screeching halt. This is absolutely because the market was flooded when the frenzy died down.

Now, there are hundreds of full time employees who lost their jobs because of all this.
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Welcome to the business world. If you think it sucks for the employees, try being on the owners side. Sure some of the large corporations have tons of cash put away for disaster recovery, but they piss through it pretty fast. I'm not a financial guy so my numbers may be off, my info is from their investor relations. As of the close of the 2014 fiscal S&W has $68,100,000 in cash. Their operating expense for 2014 Fiscal was $108,100,000. So if sales totally stopped for all their operations, they would be able to survive for about 2 quarters. Now since they are a public company, they stock would drop and they would loose even more money..... so I would imagine that cash would dry up in what 2 months.... if that.

Take all this info with a grain of salt, like I said I'm no finical guy and I don't really understand the numbers. I pay my CFA to do that for me.
 
Mr_Irritating said:
At my last job we built tons of guns daily, literally and this was normal. When the market exploded the company hired a bunch of full-time employees, rather than temps which would suggest they figured the market was simply growing and the frenzy wasn't temporary. When things slowed down, they didn't just slow down, things came to a screeching halt. This is absolutely because the market was flooded when the frenzy died down.

Now, there are hundreds of full time employees who lost their jobs because of all this.
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The semiconductor industry I work in did this for decades, and eventually learned to spread things out, and not overbuild capacity and then have to lay off everyone a couple years later.
 
Varmint said:
The semiconductor industry I work in did this for decades, and eventually learned to spread things out, and not overbuild capacity and then have to lay off everyone a couple years later.
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I machine parts , my company is mainly semiconductor . We had to branch off in to bio work to keep work comming in . Semi conductor seems to slow down during the summer. Last 3 months no over time .
I've clean the shop 20 times to keep busy .
I took last week off and I come back this Monday and work 50-60 hours for the next few months .
 
tpm said:
What sucks more is being a temp for 1-2 years with no benefits. I would much rather be hired full time then work for a temp company and not get vacation, holidays, sick time, 401k or health insurance.
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Temps don't get unemployment either right? That's a huge one - in mass you can get hired full time, laid off and get 1-2 years unemployment at $700/week.
 
Moderator said:
I disagree, most shops I have talked to have said that gun sales have been falling. I would refer to this as more of a correction. Sales are just returning back to pre-panic days.
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I agree with your statement about a market correction. This does make logical sense when I think about it. Very well played sir! I just wish they would ramp up the metal frame guns again and surprise us with that next hot item that we had gotten so used to seeing.
 
part of free market is that the market goes both up AND down.
it blows my mind how many americans shit a brick anytime certain areas of the economy take a downswing....things can't always be on the up and up.

and WRT S&W, perhaps their shareholders would be better served by something more interesting than swapping a laser or thumbsafety on the same old design...boring.

an M&P shield in .45acp would help their business.
 
Squib308 said:
part of free market is that the market goes both up AND down.
it blows my mind how many americans shit a brick anytime certain areas of the economy take a downswing....things can't always be on the up and up.

and WRT S&W, perhaps their shareholders would be better served by something more interesting than swapping a laser or thumbsafety on the same old design...boring.

an M&P shield in .45acp would help their business.
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I don't know why they don't still offer it, but everyone I know who had as CS 9, 40, or 45 loved it. That would be a great gun to bring back!
 
Squib308 said:
part of free market is that the market goes both up AND down.
it blows my mind how many americans shit a brick anytime certain areas of the economy take a downswing....things can't always be on the up and up.

and WRT S&W, perhaps their shareholders would be better served by something more interesting than swapping a laser or thumbsafety on the same old design...boring.

an M&P shield in .45acp would help their business.
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Yeah, a small .45 ACP handgun that would annoying to shoot with shitty muzzle velocity, the industry really needs another one of those. [rofl] Ask Kahr how well the little .45s sell. [rofl] Smith already has a nice .45, the M&P .45 Compact... that they don't make nearly enough of.

I'd settle for S&W just having better quality control and getting rid of the stupid locks on the revolvers.

-Mike
 
I have the 45c and agree its an awesome size. But for whatever reason it doesnt seem so popular.

While the short barrel .45s may have poor ballistics, theres no arguing with the market demand for them...the xds 45 has it owned hamds down and clearly owners of it seem happy with it. S&W just seems behind the ball WRT what consumers want.
 
I know s&w lost a sale for me after having to send my bodyguard back after one day...my fathers and buddies have also made trips back to the mother ship....Next time I bought a gun I went gp100 over the 686. Still like the m&ps though. Hopefully with demand going down, quality control will come back up because most of the problems I've experienced/heard of were quality control issues.
 
drgrant said:
I'd settle for S&W just having better quality control and getting rid of the stupid locks on the revolvers.
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S1991 said:
Hopefully with demand going down, quality control will come back up because most of the problems I've experienced/heard of were quality control issues.
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Yep. I'm a Smith & Wesson guy going way back... and Lord knows I'm still doing my part to keep the mothership afloat. But the stories I read about so many new (mostly plastic) S&W guns having to go back for warranty work are depressing at best... scary and business threatening at worst. It can't go on like that.

Truthfully, I don't give a damn about sales returning to a more normal pace. You can read that as a good sign or a bad sign but it couldn't go on forever at the "Barry the best gun salesman ever" pace. I think most people realize that. I'm not surprised at all.

Like the two posts above, in the face of tightening demand, I am hoping that S&W takes a long, hard look at quality control, customer service, customer support (think: parts/mags/accessories/etc.) and what new products (or product changes) it's loyal, longtime customers really want.

In my opinion, S&W has made a lot of mistakes in reading its customers over the years. There is a lot of potential demand there that is not being satisfied. Plus lack of quality control is now driving away newer, younger customers. Time to reassess everything at this point and figure out how to succeed in the tighter, more competitive post-Barry marketplace.
 
Spanz said:
An M&P Shield that does not go Kabloom might help too.
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i have approx 1500 rds through my 9mm shield and i am happy w it....not a single failure. I dont know anyone who has had a shield go kaboom but im sure w any handgun there are such reports.

also, what exactly are you suggesting is the failure leading to "kaboom" WRT the shield?
 
Squib308 said:
i have approx 1500 rds through my 9mm shield and i am happy w it....not a single failure. I dont know anyone who has had a shield go kaboom but im sure w any handgun there are such reports.

also, what exactly are you suggesting is the failure leading to "kaboom" WRT the shield?
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The Shield kaboom problem is only happening with .40 S&W models... and almost always caused by bad reloads or super-hot boutique ammo. No problems with the 9mm models that I'm aware of.
 
Lame chart of ATF Background check chart, showing a lower bar for 2014, with headline questioning if gun buying is tapering and declining. No mention of using 8mo of 2014 data vs 12mo for other years. September - December will catch it up for 2014.

The point being, the media mislead without outright lying. When they are not outright lying, that is...
 
Moderator said:
I wish I did the same. I bought in at $4.... Maybe I'll just ride it out.
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I'd cash out now. If this is what happened when they found out the market is saturated with ARs, just wait until they find out that it's saturated with polymer striker fired handguns and 1911 clones too! Long term they'll be fine but I think it will get worse before it gets better, subject to politics.

If we see a real flood of used guns back into the market at competitive prices (rather than the 5% 'discount' from panic price highs that still seems common) it could get ugly indeed.
 

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