Grendizer138
NES Member
Suddenly those ZHA gift cards I requested for Christmas don't seem like such a great gift...
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Zero Hour Arms - moving on...
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icyclefar
NES Member
I'm sure that he'll make good on them, but also know that there is a law about that stuff as there was a lot of problems wrt gift cards in general some years ago.
Mass gun shops BLOW, and the reason is because of prices and selection. Granted handguns are limited to "the list" but there is a plethora of rifle brands and parts on the market that never see a mass gun shop, its ridiculous. For crying out loud, people start threads looking for lower receivers, that's friggin pathetic.
Maybe if a shop would actually stock enough parts to build a damn rifle they may see more business. Its sad, I cant even hop in my truck on a whim, on a Saturday, and find a shop that stocked enough parts to build a damn Ar-15, (Americas most popular Sporting rifle), if i did find a shop that had any parts, they would have one on the shelf with 5 inches of dust on it, why?, cuz its way over priced, and its over priced cuz there is only one....
These shops have the bare minimum for selection, selection and price is key if u want business.
What shop in this sad state has a GOOD selection of bolt carrier groups, triggers, hand-guards, lowers uppers, stocks, Muzzle devices etc etc?.....NONE. For God sakes...
I cant even buy a Colt 6920, or a BCM etc etc... without driving 50 or 100 miles, and then get butt raped on price. There is absolutely no reason it should cost me $300+ dollars more because i live in mass... Yes i know it cost money to massify a gun... well maybe if they didn't charge so much for a massified gun you would sell more of them and still make a profit, its called volume.
For crying out loud, u cant sell a box of Golden Sabers for nearly $40 and expect to get business, not happening, and it didn't cost the dealer any where near that price to justify the mark up, no way no how.... its called greed.
Look how much money is spent in group buys on this website where the money goes out of state, it should be the exact opposite, im sorry but the gun shops here do it to themselves, they whine and cry about the AG blah blah blah... when it has nothing to do with them. There is plenty of product on the market to make profit on, u just have to make it worth someones trouble to get them to go for a drive.
Then i hear this folk tale firearm BS... " ooh thats tuff to find in mass, oooh ooooh" ...Please!!! The reason its tuff is because no one stocks the damn thing, and there is no reason not to, its just a BS story to charge a higher price... it's a crock of ****.
Mass gun shops are filled with miserable old fudd salesman, who are probably miserable due to lack of business. Mean while the shelves are empty, or covered in dusty old crappy parts, with over priced ammo and guns behind them and in the glass cases.
We need some fresh young blood shop owners that know whats on the market, who know how to stock a store, then sell at the right price. If u do that, u'll see plenty of business, happier customers and happier less miserable gun shop owners.
Maybe if a shop would actually stock enough parts to build a damn rifle they may see more business. Its sad, I cant even hop in my truck on a whim, on a Saturday, and find a shop that stocked enough parts to build a damn Ar-15, (Americas most popular Sporting rifle), if i did find a shop that had any parts, they would have one on the shelf with 5 inches of dust on it, why?, cuz its way over priced, and its over priced cuz there is only one....
These shops have the bare minimum for selection, selection and price is key if u want business.
What shop in this sad state has a GOOD selection of bolt carrier groups, triggers, hand-guards, lowers uppers, stocks, Muzzle devices etc etc?.....NONE. For God sakes...
I cant even buy a Colt 6920, or a BCM etc etc... without driving 50 or 100 miles, and then get butt raped on price. There is absolutely no reason it should cost me $300+ dollars more because i live in mass... Yes i know it cost money to massify a gun... well maybe if they didn't charge so much for a massified gun you would sell more of them and still make a profit, its called volume.
For crying out loud, u cant sell a box of Golden Sabers for nearly $40 and expect to get business, not happening, and it didn't cost the dealer any where near that price to justify the mark up, no way no how.... its called greed.
Look how much money is spent in group buys on this website where the money goes out of state, it should be the exact opposite, im sorry but the gun shops here do it to themselves, they whine and cry about the AG blah blah blah... when it has nothing to do with them. There is plenty of product on the market to make profit on, u just have to make it worth someones trouble to get them to go for a drive.
Then i hear this folk tale firearm BS... " ooh thats tuff to find in mass, oooh ooooh" ...Please!!! The reason its tuff is because no one stocks the damn thing, and there is no reason not to, its just a BS story to charge a higher price... it's a crock of ****.
Mass gun shops are filled with miserable old fudd salesman, who are probably miserable due to lack of business. Mean while the shelves are empty, or covered in dusty old crappy parts, with over priced ammo and guns behind them and in the glass cases.
We need some fresh young blood shop owners that know whats on the market, who know how to stock a store, then sell at the right price. If u do that, u'll see plenty of business, happier customers and happier less miserable gun shop owners.
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Hetzer
NES Member
I agree with what you're saying about Mass gun shops although Northeast Arms in Peabody has the full range of AR parts you mentioned. Best selection I've seen in a store.
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You put up all the cash on the wall and tell us how many of them you sell, with a healthy markup that makes it worth stocking the product. Protip: If you're not making money on something, it's not worth selling it. Having capital tied up in product for a long period of time means that money is effectively not making you money. Giving things away doesn't work either, the rifle you moved at $25 over cost is now costing you money when joe fungohead comes back into the
shop and wants you to show him how to clean it (or insert some other stupid thing here that kills your profit).
Yeah cause some people don't want to **** around with inbounding one, they just want to run out and buy one. Not sure what's so "pathetic" about
that.
Precision Armament Works usually has everything, or nearly everything, required to build an AR. I know they're not the only one, either. Will it be the
cheapest? Maybe, maybe not. . Gun shop has to eat too.
Then again you're not the guy who should be talking about "driving somewhere", considering you wouldn't even go to NH to buy ammo from one of the most aggressive discounters in like a 200 mile radius, so you shouldn't be talking to people about "driving somewhere on a whim." then bitching about prices.
Good luck selling a "large volume" of Tier 1 product in MA. Good luck doing that, while making a profit.
![[rofl]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/013.gif "ROFL [rofl]")
There are too many skinflints in this state to buy volume of Tier 1 product. That said depending on the crowd that visits your shop, you can probably move some of it. For example four seasons never seems to have any problem moving the LMTs they get in and out of the shop pretty rapidly, but their customer base is probably exponentially larger than most other shops in MA.
It doesn't help matters that the distribution model of the industry is biased against the shops that have less money. That's why there are "haves" and "have nots" in the industry. If you got lots of cash laying around (6 figures+) you can get into buyers groups and bypass the shit eating mid level distributors and save some real money. If you don't have that luxury you have to play the game like every other dealer, getting shit prices from the same dozen or so distributors that every other small gun shop in the US uses.
BTW the "50 to 100 mile" thing is sometimes necessary. Putting gun shops in the right places is 60% of the battle. You put one in the wrong place and it will be convenient for the locals but you also might not get a lot of business.
For example in north central MA we've had like 3 or 4 gun shops in the past several years and most of them have sucked, the only one that hasn't is IDC... but part of the reason they're still
around and the others aren't, is because their location is a lot better, in terms of being closer to "people with money that want to buy guns".
That problem has very little to do with the shops.... the entire " 20, 25 round box of defense ammo" bullshit is the biggest ****ing rip off in the industry. Right now some ******* execs from camfour and remington are probably playing golf in FL together, drinking beer and ripping huge farts while giggling at the prospect of some johnny 2 boxes of ammo on sundays type of dolt buying a box of that shit, knowing they're raping everyone below them in the food chain. If gun owners were smart they would boycott that shit until it goes away. Demand and only buy 50 round boxes of defense ammo.
Most of the crap that gets sold in GBs around here is stuff that most gun shops can't justify carrying, or even if they can, they're not going to make money on it selling it at the GB price. NES's population is not completely analogous to the population of people buying stuff at gun shops, either. Like say for example we had a Trijicon RMR group buy where everyone gets an RMR at 100 bucks off the normal price. Even if a local gun shop gets a similar deal, lets say, at $75 bucks off, and he buys like 10 of the things to have in inventory, he's still going to have like 6 or 7 of the ****ing things on his shelf probably a year later because from the perspective of an LGS, that's still a niche product.
And some of them are making at least something resembling a profit, otherwise they'd all mostly be out of business.
No, there is a reason not too, and that's because in a lot of cases joe fungohead won't buy it because he's a skinflint *******. This state is loaded with ****ing
skinflints. I otherwise agree with you though, lots of shops make dumb excuses for that stuff, though, rather than just saying "We don't sell those because we end up losing money trying to sell them" or some other realistic excuse.
I won't dispute that this archetype exists, but that scene's all over the place, not just MA.
Yeah, and they should have at least a half million bucks just laying around, because that's probably what it will take for them to have what "you want". Don't get pissy with them though when they choose not to give the product away.
Anyone who is price sensitive isn't buying from locals anyways, so not sure what your problem is. The amount of steep discount shops in the entire new england area, even outside of MA, can be counted on one hand... and even those shops can be beaten by going online. So pick one.... skinflinting vs convenience... but don't bitch about the fact that you can't have it both ways, please, we all know you want unicorns, but they don't exist.
-Mike
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Ya, my point is, you cant just run out to any shop and grab a lower receiver, you have to start a damn thread to find one, that's pathetic.
HAHAH, The point is i shouldnt have to drive all over creation to get what the rest of America pays for ammo. Damn right im not driving 3-4 hrs round trip to save $.50 on a box of 5.56. So i saved $25 for a 1k rounds, now i have to buy a Prius to get my gas money back.....AND.. that's if the miserable fudd even decides to sell me the ammo, and if he decides to even sell it to me (mass resident) he's gonna limit the quantity. No thanx, i have better things to do then drive 3 hrs for 1k rds of ammo. Plenty of "aggressively priced" ammo online.
Good luck selling a "large volume" of Tier 1 product in MA. Good luck doing that, while making a profit.
MA.
Pricing wise Colt and BCM are hardly tier1, as far as price goes they are at the lower to mid range in pricing for AR's. FS sells LMT's like hot cakes cause nobody else has them, so people will naturally pay. Another point i made was, if shops actually had a selection there might be enough competition to drive prices down
RMR's cost between $4-$600, But 90% of the group buys are items of much less money, items that should be a dime a dozen when i take a quick spin to the local gunshop. I dont see a high demand on RMR's for any local dealer, that i agree with, like i said thats due to the price, and its a much more specific item.
True, but there are also plenty of smart buyers that arent afraid if spending some money, IF the price is reasonable. The issue is, they have a hard time openning their wallet cause a gunshop owner decides the price needs to be higher because i live behind the iron curtain, which is still no excuse.
For example, I paid $2700 for my SCAR 17 in NH, in this state it would cost me EASILY way over 3k, WHY? why can a tiny little shop in NH sell the same gun for atleat $4-500 less and still make a profit? It's horseshit....the mass gunshop owner is greedy and they use fantasy land BS folklore to justify marking it up. Sorry, u can call me a skin flint all u want but i'm not dumb enough to pay that much of a premium for NO reason.
I see the Italian is weak here!
First word I learned from some Italian schoolmates at age 7!
![[laugh]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/012.gif "Laugh [laugh]")
Have you given consideration to what the cost of doing business in this state is? Average retail space, taxes, average wages for employees vs other locations in both this state and NH / ME. Considering much of the firearms markup is at best, 20%, and the amount of capitol required to stock inventory people may or may not be interested in in 5 minutes it's an often tough environment when many consumers, like yourself, will likely just go online anyway.... Given a level playing field of dealer size, volume discount and stocking, in mass the dealer is already at best, at a 6.25% disadvantage
Also, look at your average customer that actually spends money in a local store. Your not it. New shooters, people looking for advice or intrinsical value that a brick and mortar store bring are going to be return customers, and on average they are. To looking for what you are. For the dealer cost of a SCAR, you could stock 10 M&P shields, items new shooters are looking for. In return you'll make $70 bucks a pice and sell out in a few months, all while the scar collects dust because it's the wrong color, or some skinflint can save $125 buying it online. Even at $3000, your not going to see the same return on your initial inventory investment for what you have into at dealer cost.
While I could keep going, it's seems most of your comments are completely lacking any basis in the reality of both running a small business and running a firearms based business in Mass. I also find it rather comical that someone that's lists themselves as part of a union is upset at the possiblity of localized price fixing or inflated rates. In the end, stores will continue to leave or go under for two reasons. The laws here suck and the gun buying community as a whole are a bunch of cheapskates.
JRT
NES Member
You love to eat your own in Massachusetts. Sometimes I think you are your own worst enemy. I've lived all over the country. I've never seen people complain about gun shops so much.
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what is the reasoning to label people cheapskates or skinflints? is it fashionable to pay more? if people were sacrificing quality, reliability, craftsmanship, etc just to get a bargain, then sure; they are cheap. however if it's the exact same product, why pay more? the convenience of putting it in the safe a week sooner?
boscru
NES Member
I still think there's more to it, I went to this shop on almost a weekly basis for years as I work right down the street. 9/10 times the place would be busy and almost always saw people buying guns. I probably bought almost 10 from them myself.
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No, he hasn't given thought to the total cost to run a business. He would rather bitch and moan than actually take the appropriate metrics into consideration. If he would stop bitching for 45 seconds, and actually think things through, he would actually answer his own question as to why he can't get the same ammo deal here that others can get in other parts of America. But hey, it's easier to bitch and moan than to actually think nowadays.
Is it wise to put actual brick and mortar stores out of business to save 15%? Yes, that is cheapskate. Yes, I'm guilty of it too.
Why pay more? Becuase I'm supporting a business I believe in, that employes people I believe in, that is there when I need it and offers value beyond "savings". This goes well beyond gun dealers.... And yes, it is the definition of cheapskate. The modern day consumer has gutted the service and sales of local business for the promise of a few percentage point off. The long term ramifications are severe.
How many threads are there on NES about stupid gun shop employees? Yet how many threads are there where people mention beating up a dealer for an extra 5% off? How many threads are on NES for group buys circumventing dealers to save $20 on a product.... All these things are fine, and as I said, guilty as charged, bit they all have ramifications.
Sorry but I don't believe in any business that tries to mark up a price just because I live behind enemy lines. And I'm not talking about small Mark ups, I'm talking about ridiculous mark ups, like 3 or $400 markups on certain firearms. When I see that crap it makes me not want to spend money there. I'm a smart shopper, not a dumb shopper, smart shopping doesn't make me a cheapskate. Guys who go in and splurge on a 20 yr old glock are dumb shoppers.
We are all in this together, so let's fight together, not use ridiculous mass BS against eachother.
Your still not getting it. It's not a mass markup, it's a "I'm a low volume dealer" I can't afford to give this away to you at a 5% over cost markup ". The only thing I've ever seen at a " mass markup" are hard to find handguns. And in that case, it's not a mass markup it's current market value.
Your other rambling about AR parts is almost laughable. Parts and accessories are where inventory dollars go to die
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I just love this,some of you people are crying because the FFL dealer is making a few bucks of you,but you go to a BAR,and pay for one beer what you could have picked up a six pack for.Go to a ball game,and pay five to six times more than what the food is worth.Not to forget next time you take your wife to the jewelry store,and buy your wife that lovely ring for $500 and they tell you it's a great deal.Well it was a great deal for them,they most likely only paid $75.
icyclefar
NES Member
Most of my money I've spent on boats, guns, and fast cars, the rest of it I just wasted.
Some shops don't sell lowers because it's not profitable for them to do so. It's that simple. BTW I can think of like 4 dealers that have lowers sitting around, right now, so it's not really that hard. That thread is more of a symptom of lazy buyers, not anything else.
You really believe that? You'd be surprised what some shops in other parts of the country charge. Friend of mine lived in southern FL for awhile and he bought all his guns online and all his ammo online because the pricing sucked. Walmart was the only place with cheap ammo. This "problem" isn't an MA only thing.
You really need to get out from under the rock that you live beneath.
You buy one box of ammo at a time? protip: When you drop $1000 on some ammo you save a lot of money.
Somebody call the whaambulance, you bitch/whine about gun shops/pricing but you're still not willing to get off your ass. If it takes you "3 to 4 hours" not sure what you're driving, a bus limited to 40 mph? Typical lazebag NES price whiner. I just hate this mentality. People bitch here about $700 glocks then I send them a link for one for $450 and they whine like a bunch of pussies because "it's in western mass" and they're too weak to drive that far. Sorry but having a "gun shop down the street with cheap ammo" is NOT REALITY for most people and it never has been in new england. Not in the past 10 years. Well, unless you happened to live down the street from the 3, maybe 4 market floor shops in the region.... of course in the Bush era, there was a lot more surplus... and a lot of shops had better priced ammo because there was just tons of it sitting around. And tons of milsurp. Because of Obama, the entire market has changed at this point. I used to buy tons of cheap ammo right at Four Seasons. Those days are gone. And never coming back.
Most of those guns at retail are going over a grand. That's Tier-1 gun level in my book. You can't get most people to buy those guns.
There's a lot of dudes with cake walking through the doors at FS, too. Try doing that down in the armpit or central MA, good luck with that. Maybe in the rt 9
area. Maybe.
Should be a dime a dozen? To do what? Make $5 in profit on something that costs like 50 bucks or more? Waste of shelf space.
Also you must be a terrible negotiator. If you're a regular somewhere it's not really that hard to get a discount, particularly if you have a wad of
cash.
You're paying a premium for convenience. Weren't you the guy just bitching about driving to NH a couple paragraphs ago?
Pick a side and stick with it, you can't have it both ways. Then don't buy it if it's too expensive. Buy it somewhere else. Bitching about the price ain't gonna make it go down. I agree some places do charge too much for some shit, but don't buy it. It's that simple. You must not want it that badly, or you can wait for it. People who are skinflints are not buying shit direct from dealers anyways, that's passe at this point for uber skinflints. Of course there's a line between skinflinting and trying not to get robbed. I wouldn't pay $300 in overage either, but I know a shitload of people (some close friends even) that go through all kinds of gyrations just to save ****ing $20, it's hilarious. Then they end up in a situation with a perpetually broken gun or something that someone like smith & wesson won't fix adequately If they had bought it from a good local dealer, a lot of those dealers would have gone to bat for them and gotten them a brand new gun, but no, they had to buy it from puds or ****stick tactical or whoever, so they could get a boner off saving $40.
They saved $40... but they're stuck with a ****ed up gun. -Mike
The fun thing about all of this at least as far as guns go, most of the time with the MA and NH dealers I use I end up with a cash price that's within like $50 of gunbroker. I paid a little more than that on the last gun I bought, but I wanted the thing yesterday" and pressed the button even though my guy was like $125 over gunbroker, but I didn't give a shit because it was going to take a lot longer to get it "the skinflint way" and if something goes wrong in the middle it would have been a ball of shit I had to straighten out... not worth the agita when I can just hand the guy a pile of cash and I know I'm going to get what I want. On top of that he paid extra and had it overnighted so I was able to get the thing by the end of the week, so I can't bitch too much.
-Mike
To further the example of "all mass dealers are greedy capitalist"
Take a walk outside a gun shop and take a look at the cars in the driveway.... Yours is proabaly nicer... No one is getting rich in this state selling guns, even in the extreme bubble of growth.
Now, let's take a look at shops that I would consider quality shops.... IDC, Pullman as an example of two. The owners of both these shops are owners of other businesses making actual money. FS is the only real volume dealer, and they do so via buyers groups and massive discounts. That type of buying power and capital required to do is very very rare.
We could look at a company like SO in NH, who have a ton of inventory, accessories, ammo and components, but even then the NES collective will find a reason to bitch about pricing, policies, or employees
Most shop owners get into the business because they love guns, otherwise, you wouldn't bother. It's a waste of time and not very profitable in most cases. As an example, one of my favorite brands operates on inventoryn only a 20% markup from dealer cost to full MSRP. So, that dealer stocking 10 pistols or Carbines from X MFG would have to sell all of them at full MSRP just to see a $2k return of $10k worth of store inventory... All in hopes that he will have order the "right" color or the popular configuration that is "in" with the shooting community this week, and hope the customer that walk through the store is going to be willing to pay full MSRP, becuase there's some online retailer selling for 3% over cost that only has to employ t2 people to run their business as all of those product is drop shipped from distributors....
As further example, even if small gun shop owner has enough capitol to stock his store, shops that have been around long enough to be part of a buyers group will still be able to buy at far great discount than they could ever see for years. Many shops dealer cost on a M&P is more than what FS sells them for. Not because of greed, but becuase of liquid cash, business capital and tenure, and shop volume. It's really, really basic business here.
Take a walk outside a gun shop and take a look at the cars in the driveway.... Yours is proabaly nicer... No one is getting rich in this state selling guns, even in the extreme bubble of growth.
Now, let's take a look at shops that I would consider quality shops.... IDC, Pullman as an example of two. The owners of both these shops are owners of other businesses making actual money. FS is the only real volume dealer, and they do so via buyers groups and massive discounts. That type of buying power and capital required to do is very very rare.
We could look at a company like SO in NH, who have a ton of inventory, accessories, ammo and components, but even then the NES collective will find a reason to bitch about pricing, policies, or employees
Most shop owners get into the business because they love guns, otherwise, you wouldn't bother. It's a waste of time and not very profitable in most cases. As an example, one of my favorite brands operates on inventoryn only a 20% markup from dealer cost to full MSRP. So, that dealer stocking 10 pistols or Carbines from X MFG would have to sell all of them at full MSRP just to see a $2k return of $10k worth of store inventory... All in hopes that he will have order the "right" color or the popular configuration that is "in" with the shooting community this week, and hope the customer that walk through the store is going to be willing to pay full MSRP, becuase there's some online retailer selling for 3% over cost that only has to employ t2 people to run their business as all of those product is drop shipped from distributors....
As further example, even if small gun shop owner has enough capitol to stock his store, shops that have been around long enough to be part of a buyers group will still be able to buy at far great discount than they could ever see for years. Many shops dealer cost on a M&P is more than what FS sells them for. Not because of greed, but becuase of liquid cash, business capital and tenure, and shop volume. It's really, really basic business here.
The other problem is mid level distributors. These people interfere with the profit margin between the factory and the consumer. This is why some product on midway is cheaper than at the local gun shop, because midway isn't buying shit from a mid level oxygen thief.
The gun shops with the best prices, nearly always are doing everything in their power to NOT have to buy anything from those ****ing *******s. This unfortunately takes a lot of cash lying around to pull off...
-Mike
icyclefar
NES Member
Mid level distributors (2 step distributors) are needed in that industry. Most shops are small mom and pop operations, they can not buy enough volume, of a single manufacturer, in a single order to make any sense, done properly the 2 step distributor sells them small amounts from 20 different manufactures the sum of which totals a decent order.
The real problem is that the manufacturers pricing structure does not allow the 2 stepper to be competitive to the customer in comparison to the big boys buying direct.
Smart manufacturers understand this, and want to see their product sold competitively all the way down the sales channel. They structure a pricing scheme so that all end retailers are capable of selling their product in a "competitive price range" while providing reasonable margins along the way.
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