Good idea? Bad idea?

[Howa 9700]

So in this time of shortages, when even the folks making all the stuff we are looking for are out.....(how can that be when they are making it????)............the idea is for those same folks to retain all or at least a significant amount of production and sell it in house. Most of them have online shopping.....so don't have to setup anything new, simply retain what they make and sell it themselves at full retail in small manageable lots (say 1 brick of primers or one case of ammo). They get a windfall of sorts, and could then use their excess profits to finance expansion of production. Hoarders and resellers won't buy it all as they would get killed on shipping if they have to buy small limited lots.

The alternative strategy......and one I see posted on Hodgdon's website is to suspend online sales and ship all production to their dealers. The problem I see with that is even if dealers get it, there are probably folks making the rounds daily to sweep the dealer shelves of everything, then put it all on ebay or GunBroker and sell if for an obscene profit. End result is too much of what is being produced falls into only a few hands. In doing so, there seems to be a black hole where all this production is going. They make it and ship it, but it never makes it to the end of the supply chain.....the dealer's shelf where the end consumer can buy it.

One idea is if 100 units of production are being made, and there are 100 guys looking for it, best interest of all is served if all 100 get 1, vs. 1 guy getting all 100 and 99 getting nothing. So if that is the best idea, and if so how to do that? Cutting out all the middle seems to be a means of doing that.

So good idea or bad idea?

 

[papajoe222]

It;s in the hands of the retailers. If they choose, they can limit purchase quantities ensuring more of their customer base has an opportunity to purchase. Some of the online sites were doing this prior to their supplies being depleted.
Another option would be for everyone to stop purchasing from those scalpers charging $90+ or a pound of powder or whatever. I don't see that happening as some of those auctions are going for unheard of prices as some are willing and able to pay whatever price to get supplies.

 

[Mark_Mark]

So in this time of shortages, when even the folks making all the stuff we are looking for are out.....(how can that be when they are making it????)............the idea is for those same folks to retain all or at least a significant amount of production and sell it in house. Most of them have online shopping.....so don't have to setup anything new, simply retain what they make and sell it themselves at full retail in small manageable lots (say 1 brick of primers or one case of ammo). They get a windfall of sorts, and could then use their excess profits to finance expansion of production. Hoarders and resellers won't buy it all as they would get killed on shipping if they have to buy small limited lots.

The alternative strategy......and one I see posted on Hodgdon's website is to suspend online sales and ship all production to their dealers. The problem I see with that is even if dealers get it, there are probably folks making the rounds daily to sweep the dealer shelves of everything, then put it all on ebay or GunBroker and sell if for an obscene profit. End result is too much of what is being produced falls into only a few hands. In doing so, there seems to be a black hole where all this production is going. They make it and ship it, but it never makes it to the end of the supply chain.....the dealer's shelf where the end consumer can buy it.

One idea is if 100 units of production are being made, and there are 100 guys looking for it, best interest of all is served if all 100 get 1, vs. 1 guy getting all 100 and 99 getting nothing. So if that is the best idea, and if so how to do that? Cutting out all the middle seems to be a means of doing that.

So good idea or bad idea?

You can’t control greed and profit.

what you could do is break the chain, don’t buy at crazy prices

 

[NMexJim]

To understand some of what's happening, one has to study up on micro and macroeconomics as well as future-value-of-money, and just-in-time-manufacturing.

Unprecedented numbers of first-time gun buyers/owners over the past few years, and that they're buying up factory ammo by the truckload, has all manufacturing resources going toward that end - the production of loaded ammo, a max profit scenario. I don't think it's all going into just a few hands, but rather quite a few hands.

As for buying in bulk, good luck. I don't think anybody outside of the military or LE can get bulk. Alternative strategies are on the back shelf for the time being.

COVID has played havoc with all kinds of manufacturing.

The lesson here is one a lot of us learned starting with shortages during, uh, ah, election cycles many years back. I, and a lot of us on this forum, learned from the first shortage and have not made that particular mistake again. Have we hoarded? Damn right!! But, I will admit to getting down to my last case (case, not 1k carton or 100 pac) of small pistol primers! Yikes, miscalculated!

The strategy is to bulk up when the products become available again and stay stocked up. Even if COVID goes away, there's always politics. It's just a matter of time ......

 

[mdi]

Another thought; legalities. I worked in an industry that had dedicated/contracted dealers. The factory could sell to the general public, but if the product was sold in a contracted dealer's area, the dealer got a "commission" of sorts and only in specific instances. In other instances manufacturers could not sell directly to the public as all sales had to go through the normal distributor/dealer/retailer "chain".

Selling retail, to the general public would be much more expensive and labor intensive for a manufacturer. Manufacturing and selling 100,000 primers to one buyer is way easier, simpler for a manufacturer (and way more cost effective which also helps the end buyer, reloaders) than the more time and labor involved selling, packaging and shipping ten 10,000 lots or especially selling 100 1k packages...

 

[earlthegoat2]

Everything going on with firearms and their periphery is frustrating. No one likes to bring up the idea though that what is happening right now may just be the best way for it all to be playing out. Panicking, scalping, hoarding, and greed may just be the best solution to the problem in the end. No one likes it but all of us capitalists like to say the market will figure it out.

At least we are not squabbling over something we truly need yet. You know, like drinkable water. I think that would change our perspectives a bit on what is greedy.

 

[Mark_Mark]

Everything going on with firearms and their periphery is frustrating. No one likes to bring up the idea though that what is happening right now may just be the best way for it all to be playing out. Panicking, scalping, hoarding, and greed may just be the best solution to the problem in the end. No one likes it but all of us capitalists like to say the market will figure it out.

At least we are not squabbling over something we truly need yet. You know, like drinkable water. I think that would change our perspectives a bit on what is greedy.

I pay $250 winter water/sewer and $500 summer... so Yeah, the water thing is insane too

 

[Walkalong]

Not really on topic