celem
Member
My small town of 7,000 in Western North Carolina has two gun stores. One affiliated with an indoor range that sells high-end firearms and another that sells mainstream firearms. They both are doing well.
Back a few years ago when I discovered internet gun auctions, I shopped around a few LGS's to decide who was the best to run transfers through.
Got to agree with you 100% The price of guns online make it really difficult to make anything on new guns. You are lucky to make 10%, especially if you are small and don't have good sale reps. Accessories, reloading supplies, and used guns.are your bread and butter. There are 3 good shops here and I leave the local sales to them. I try to find good quality used guns and put them online or hit a couple of local gunshows.When I had my shop the money wasn't in new guns, today with the addition of the Internet I can't see it as having changed. The money was in used guns. If I could snag an occasional estate and snag maybe 20 or 30 guns in a single buy that is where the money was. So it really mattered not what the S&W, Ruger, Remington, Glock, Sig or any other manufacturers forecast looked like. Even with that said guns alone do not a gun shop make. I had a good niche with reloading supplies and carried a wide range of reloading components and equipment, that helped pay the bills and overhead.
Anyway, in my opinion when manufacturers of guns come out with a weak forecast I don't see it as having much effect on a small, well run and established gun shop. Just my take based on my own personal experiences.
Ron
Of course they consider those costs. They are not stupid.Got to agree with you 100% The price of guns online make it really difficult to make anything on new guns. You are lucky to make 10%, especially if you are small and don't have good sale reps. Accessories, reloading supplies, and used guns.are your bread and butter. There are 3 good shops here and I leave the local sales to them. I try to find good quality used guns and put them online or hit a couple of local gunshows.
To tell the truth, the gunshows are really a waste of time. The new generation will look at your price, pull out their phone and compare your price to one on GunBroker or Bud's. They don't take in to account the extra fees like shipping and dealer transfer fees.