as a retailer i think it is customary to give your frequent purchasers some sort of discount. that's not to say slash it down to wholesale, but i think there is something to be said about a combination of: good prices and good customer service.
you can have the best prices on Earth but be a jerk to your customers, and gun buyers on the most part will take their business elsewhere.
most recently i was at a gun show in San Antonio. a person came up to our tables and we had about a dozen AR-15's on the table. i asked him if he had any questions and he said, "Tell me about Bushmaster."
i spent a few minutes with him and only him, while other customers were around, dealing with other employees. i told him that they were a major military contractor for military rifles, and that the big 3 were FN, Colt, and Bushmaster. FN does not make a civilian (semiauto) AR-15 style rifle so they are out of the possibility. Colt, by internal policy, does not sell to civilians. the remaining choice, if you want a milspec rifle, is Bushmaster.
i continued on to talk about barrel twist, the M4 vs. the A3, the forged receiver, 6-position collapsible buttstock, chrome-lined barrel, etc.
i'd say i spent about 7 minutes explaining everything there was to know about the rifle. at that point the guy said, "You know, you just earned my business. I talked to two other dealers before I came here, and while they had better prices, neither of them gave me the time of day."
the guy pulled out his Amex platinum card and we did the deal at asking price, no negotiating on price.
i probably would have lowered the price on his request, since he was pleasant to deal with. i think there is something to be said about friendliness, both ways. if a customer is friendly to me, and politely asks for a discount, and has a valid reason for it (the guy over there is selling it for less, can you match his price? or something like that) im much more inclined to do so.
if the customer is rude to my staff, or myself, and demands a discount simply because, then i am less apt to offer a discount. but i am still open for negotiation.
i think it goes both ways. if i, or my salespeople are jerks, then i wouldn't expect anyone to buy anything from us at all.
there are some very big dealers i compete with that can sell a gun for less, but people have bought from me instead because they say:
(1) they don't know anything about the gun they are selling
(2) they don't know how to repair it, and they refuse to repair it if something is wrong, "mail it to the manufacturer" they say
(3) they don't say hello, recognize me from past conversations or sales, shake my hand and just spend a few minutes to say hi to me, regardless of whether or not im buying today
i suppose when you sell 150+ guns in a weekend at a gun show you don't really have a whole lot of time to spend talking to prospective customers. you are operating on volume vs. margin per sale.
i prefer to sell less per show and spend more time talking to each customer, to ensure that i can build a relationship with them and they feel comfortable doing business with us vs. someone else.
with the Internet these days, if you do a customer wrong, it is much easier to get a bad reputation. it is my opinion that in gun sales, if you get a bad reputation, gun buyers tend not to do business with you, regardless of your prices.
