Any FFLs here do NOT do transfers?

[Bubba613]

I am curious about this.
I am a one man shop. In the beginning I did them cheap. But now the business has grown. I raised prices. I am still doing them. I have limited time and transfers are pretty time consuming. It would be a good way to cut down on time spent if I simply stopped doing them, except for good customers as a service.
Any one else have this experience?

 

[Claude Clay]

perhaps some 'good' customers occure because of services you offer.

 

[Bubba613]

Interestingly most of the good customers never asked for a transfer until they had already purchased multiple guns.
Conversely the customers who did multiple transfers never bought anything from me.

 

[Lone_Gunman]

I am curious, how long does it take you to do a transfer?

 

[Ridgerunner665]

If you notice they are just using you for transfers...raise the price.

If they ask why....tell them.

You may gain more "good" customers that way, while at the same time, weed out a few "not so good" ones.

 

[Hoppy590]

as a customer who has done transfers i dont see what takes so much time. i show up, and ask if you do transfers. you can either give me a signed copy of the FFL or i can bring an addressed and stamped envelope. you drop a signed FFL into it. and recieve the item when it ships.

25-30$ for dropping a letter in the mailbox and doing a NICS check seems like a good deal.

i can understand trying to protect your market. but if you dont have it, you don't have it. im going to find some one that does.

i try to buy local even if its a little more. but for say surplus arms, or a specific item theres really no way you could stock it all. iv run into a couple FFL's who take it as offensive that i would dare order a Mauser when they have a perfectly good Mosin in the racks.

 

[BenReal]

You are not required to do a public service.

You are providing a public service at a cost to you and the cost has to be passed on.

People that won't be facing a ATF audit if every -t- is'nt crossed or -i- is'nt dotted and don't understand that you will,don't need to be doing business with you.

Raise your prices or simply stop doing transfers.

As a one man shop,you are barely making a good profit anyway.

 

[gunlocators1]

I certainly do not mind doing transfers but I would rather try to price match when possible. Sometime its just not possible to acquire the exact gun so you do the transfer. $25-$30 for 5-15 minutes on the phone is pretty good money. When I had my retail shop I did lots of transfers as well as consignments for people. Between the two it leeped me busy and the stock stocked with many more guns that were actually mine.

just My .02

 

[Lone_Gunman]

I don't see why some FFL's consider transfers so much work. My understanding is that all that is involved in the a transfer is that the FFL faxes his license to the shipper of the gun, and when the gun arrives he opens the box and logs it into his bound book. They when the buyer comes, a 4473 is filled out, background check is done if required, and the gun is handed over to its new owner. I really don't see how this could take longer than about 20 minutes.

The other thing to consider is that the store owner has none of his own money tied up in inventory. He doesn't have to buy a gun from a distributor and have it sit on the shelf for a month till someone buys it. He still has overhead of course, but he would have this whether he does transfers or not.

 

[Guns and more]

So you're saying that you don't have gun xyz in stock. I buy it online and then you don't want the transfer? Maybe you should have xyz in stock then! My experience in FFL transfers is that I use them when I can't find the gun locally.
(price is a whole other discussion.)

 

[Lone_Gunman]

One more thing to consider is that not everyone lives in a huge city. In the average town of 15,000, there is probably one or two gun shops at the most, and they are not going to be megastores with huge inventories. The chances they will have some uncommon variation of a specific gun model is very unlikely. So transfers are even more important if you live in a small town.

 

[Bubba613]

So you're saying that you don't have gun xyz in stock. I buy it online and then you don't want the transfer?

Right. Either someone else in town will have the gun or someone else will do the transfer. If you say, but you're giving up business, that is correct. I have more to do right now than I can handle. I would have to hire another person and the cost to do that far outweighs any revenue I would get.
As for "but you don't spend any time doing it" I'd suggest working a gun shop sometime. It takes a total of 1 hour to do all that start to finish. And that doesn't count time to correct the mistakes that come up. Nor does it account for the very real liability each transaction incurs.

 

[BlacklabelOP]

FFL who doesn't do transfers.. worthless

But if you can do it go for it..

 

[Lone_Gunman]

It takes a total of 1 hour to do all that start to finish. And that doesn't count time to correct the mistakes that come up. Nor does it account for the very real liability each transaction incurs

I would agree that if it is taking you an hour to send a fax, log a gun in your black book, and do a 4473 and possible background check, it might not be worth your while. Are you in a state where there are a lot of other requirement to sell a gun? You don't think there is anyway to speed that up? I don't think most dealers are taking that long.

What kind of liabilty does a transfer cause? I have never thought about that.

 

[JohnBT]

I recently had a gun tranferred through a local dealer - an indoor range.

An employee had to stop waiting on range customers to take my info and then go in the back and fax their license.

Four days later, with no tracking info in hand, somebody had to answer my call and then go look to see if the gun had come in. Nope.

Three days later I dropped by and somebody had to stop waiting on customers to go in the back and look in the safe and check the log. Nope

Two more days and they made an exception and called me at work to say it was there. I had asked and they don't call when a gun comes in because they do too many transfers and don't have time to call. I'm glad they made an exception.

And they have full auto rentals.

I went by after work, did the paperwork, and got delayed. After an hour or so I went to dinner and then home. According to the employees, if I only get delayed every other time I'm ahead of most people these days. Doesn't feel that way.

Finally, the next day after work I dropped by, stood in line(it's a range remember) and got the gun. Someone had to stop and retrieve the paperwork and the gun and then get me to sign the form again and date it.


I just think it's a lot of time and agravation for a lousy $25 transfer fee.

 

[Cannonball888]

As I once told an FFL dealer who won't do transfers on gun models he sells in his shop because he erroneously believes he is "protecting his business" you are NOT protecting your business! Just because you won't do a transfer certainly doesn't mean I'll just buy the gun from you, because I'll go somewhere else and you've just lost out on a good fee for a few minutes work (not an hour, BTW). He then gives another excuse that he can't be bothered with such small money because he has all this overhead as a shop owner unlike an FFL dealer who does business out of his garage. I told him a profit is a profit and you can't be bothered with a few minutes time for a good fee, so then why are you selling these gun logo pencils for 2.00? He had no further argument.

 

[biggiesmalls]

if i had an ffl and a little business, i'd gladly do transfers for people to establish good relations. people will start to take notice of my inventory more and i could move more stuff that way. also, i'd do transfers for free for friends and long-time customers. it just puts a smile on my face to put guns in good peoples' hands. please continue to do transfers. and please do them at a reasonable price. i understand that you might be extremely busy, so do it on your own time and pace. i'm sure people won't mind waiting an extra few days if they know you're busy and still willing to help them out.

 

[pmeisel]

I was doing a little research in our area recently -- I am fairly new here and learning my way around. Here's a few things I found:

Only a few of the local FFL's advertise that they do transfers (e.g. listed by gunbroker, have it prominently displayed in shop, etc.), but most will do them. Prices vary from $15 (a shop that does have a lot of inventory, is more pawn shop than gun shop) to $50 (shop with a lot of inventory, one of the better shops around here). The shop that I use most often is $40, they have a small sign; from what I can tell from visiting is that they would rather sell you a gun they have or special order for you, but if a transfer is what you really want, they will do it.

For most weapons, by the time you pay the shipping and transfer, it has to be a pretty big price savings to make it better than buying their gun, and I believe from listening to conversations that they would negotiate some if that was the only issue -- so that the main reason to do a transfer would be availability.

I think each FFL just has to decide what price to charge to fairly compensate them for all the business issues that transfers cause them (not just the few minutes the customer sees). In a one man shop that's busy that might be significant. In others it might be easy to accommodate.

 

[Six]

Keep in mind sales tax too when buying locally. That can quickly exceed both shipping and transfer costs.

While customers have filled out the 4473 and are waiting for NICS, why not take the opportunity to direct them to your accessory section - where I'm sure the profit margin is significantly higher than on the guns anyway.

 

[BBQLS1]

I was shopping for my first hunting rifle recently and was in a local shop. I had $700 worth of stuff lined up (A used Winchester Model 70 in .30-06 and a new scope). As a side note, they wanted to do the paper work before I looked at scopes, being an idiot, I said yes. After everything was picked out, I then asked about doing a transfer on a used SA Mil-Spec. I was told, they don't do transfers on stuff they can get. I walked out having to pay $32 for the paper work. This was the second time I tried dealing with them (The first was a no negotiation on an over priced 1911). I'm not even going to walk in the store again.

That same day, I went to a shop that mainly does reloading, but sells a few guns and I know does transfers. I had bought two guns from them this year already (XD Tac in .45 ACP and Kahr CW9). I asked about doing this transfer for me and they did it for $20. After they set it up, They asked if there was anything else they could do for me. I told them I had been looking for a hunting rifle in .308 or .30-06 and lo and behold they had a Ruger Scout in .308 that I had talked myself out of because most hunters told me it wouldn't be ideal with a scout scope setup. They had a good price too. Bought it on the spot and killed my first deer (7 point, 17 inch inside, 19 inch outside at about 200 lbs, scale was broke) a few week later with it. I'm going to continue buying from these guys.


Edit: I should add, that if I can get it for a reasonable price locally, I do. They can even order it.

 

[searcher451]

I've bought a fair number of guns from my local FFL guy during the past two years or so. I've also used him as a transfer point on occasions where I'm buying things that he can't match prices on: P.38s or PPKs and such. I like Mick; he's a good guy. But if he announced one day that he was out of the tranfer business, I would be forced to find another shop and another dealer who performed that service. Simple as that.

 

[Roadwild17]

My thoughts:

1. Your busy now, is that because of the "gun buying panic"? What happens when that business goes away?

2. Liability? Dont you have the same liability if I buy it from you or have you transfer it? Does that mean your inventory is also overpriced to cover there liability also?

3. I can understand if I wanted to transfer the exact same gun that you have on the shelf for a few hundred dollars more, but if its something you would never stock and would have to wait months if you ordered it for me, get over it. Im not going to get something comparable to what I want to just satisfy my FFL.

4. The time. If it takes an hour and your charging $40. go find another job that you can bring home $40 an hour.

Now I have never worked at a gun shop, but if one didnt do transfer because of some BS reason, that would deter me from going into that shop again. There is a shop here that I wont go into because he said he only did transfers for "good costumers". I frankly dont want too be a good costumer of a shop like that.

 

[cowart]

It takes a total of 1 hour to do all that start to finish. And that doesn't count time to correct the mistakes that come up.

Where is the 1 hour being spent: on the paperwork, or the background check? BATFE is now allowing some use of computerized system to replace these items. Also, how does a mailorder based transfer take more time than a sale from inventory?

Nor does it account for the very real liability each transaction incurs.

How is that liability greater than the liability on a sale from inventory?

 

[Walkalong]

I have bought items from both FFLs who do transfers for me, both used and new, and have had them order me a few things. If they have something I want, and the price is anywhere close to reasonable, I try to support them. Thing is, I could wait 20 years for that nice XYZ used gun to show up around here.

I have been stocking up for two years getting ready for bad times. My sweetie would look into the the second safe occasionally as it filled up, or at the components piling up, and just get that strange "look" on occasion, but has not fussed about it.

There are still things on the "list", and you can never have enough components/ammo to hold you through tough times when they are not available.

 

[jackdanson]

For most weapons, by the time you pay the shipping and transfer, it has to be a pretty big price savings to make it better than buying their gun, and I believe from listening to conversations that they would negotiate some if that was the only issue -- so that the main reason to do a transfer would be availability.

Yeah between the 2 gun shops I frequent I've gotten anything I've wanted at a fair price simply by having them order it... if their prices were steep I might buy online, but they are usually either the same price or 2-3% more.. definetly not worth the hassle.

It's your business, do what you want. I would still do transfers, but charge enough that I am making something off of them. People will get whiney if you don't do transfers.