Sometimes it seems like the firearms industry is pretty much the only one in the world where no one who dosen't work directly for a manufacturer has even heard of marketing. Either that or every real dealer has given up the gun show for dead.
It's probably wierd because it's such a heavily regulated industry, and manufacturers, retailers, and distributors aren't cutting deals at gun shows; they really are like a flea market.
In any other industry, you'd have a raffle, and you'd hand out pens, coffe mugs, business cards that turn into sponges when submerged in water, magic 8-balls with your logo on them (and maybe "buy a gun!" as an option) and so on, hoping to capture sales leads. Then you'd email them all when you get a big lot of police trade-ins, Bulgarian Makarovs, whatever, etc.
Clearly, the manufacturers know better than I do, and have people studying this. My one and only set of free gold Colt 1911 cuff links and tie tack were actually gotten by my father at a trade show, (ETA: before I was born! By the time I came along, I got a free plastic Colt King Cobra pin) so I'm going to go ahead and make a general statement to the effect that the gun show is dead to the majors.
I don't doubt that there's money to be made there by savvy folks like Correia, who approach it in the right way, and if there was more of that I'd be all over the event, building relationships with retailers and planning future purchases. But as long as it's mostly moldy crap that's only been out of the CTD box long enough to get hit with a 30% markup, the gun show is pretty much dead to me.
It's probably wierd because it's such a heavily regulated industry, and manufacturers, retailers, and distributors aren't cutting deals at gun shows; they really are like a flea market.
In any other industry, you'd have a raffle, and you'd hand out pens, coffe mugs, business cards that turn into sponges when submerged in water, magic 8-balls with your logo on them (and maybe "buy a gun!" as an option) and so on, hoping to capture sales leads. Then you'd email them all when you get a big lot of police trade-ins, Bulgarian Makarovs, whatever, etc.
Clearly, the manufacturers know better than I do, and have people studying this. My one and only set of free gold Colt 1911 cuff links and tie tack were actually gotten by my father at a trade show, (ETA: before I was born! By the time I came along, I got a free plastic Colt King Cobra pin) so I'm going to go ahead and make a general statement to the effect that the gun show is dead to the majors.
I don't doubt that there's money to be made there by savvy folks like Correia, who approach it in the right way, and if there was more of that I'd be all over the event, building relationships with retailers and planning future purchases. But as long as it's mostly moldy crap that's only been out of the CTD box long enough to get hit with a 30% markup, the gun show is pretty much dead to me.
Last edited:
) of the 2 ladies selling beanie babies.
