Is this bad behavior in a gun shop

[Scott Farkus]

Several points seemed to have gotten lost here. There are buyers who want to handle a certain gun before they decide to purchase it. They go to the LGS and ask to see Pistol X. The LGS has a nice selection of Brand X and spends time with the customer and answers his questions. The customer sees the price as $595 on the tag. He handles the gun, does his thing and tells the shop he wants to think about it. The customer then goes home, looks it up on Bud's and sees it for $525 with free shipping. The transfer fee is $35 so it's $560 instead of $595. Now, the LGS spends time with this guy, answers his questions, watches him do his thing and 45 minutes later he watches him go think about it as he walks out the door. Now, the LGS paid for the inventory for this guy to handle and helps Bud's get a sale. If you don't think this happens then your head is in the sand.

I don't think anyone's claiming this doesn't happen.

And it's not $595 vs $560. It's $595 + tax of approximately $44 where I live vs. $560 (or more likely $545 because around here we can find $20 transfers all day long). So for me, it would be $639 vs. $545, nearly a $100 difference. I know the tax ain't the LGS's fault, and I feel for him over that, but it's gotta come out of my pocket and I can't ignore it, especially when he's starting out $70 higher to begin with.

There's a place about an hour and a half from me. It's a big internet retailer in the middle of nowhere. They essentially walled off one end of their warehouse into a retail showroom. I had an occasion to be in the area one day and stopped by. As far as i could tell, the prices in the retail store were the same as they advertise on-line. They were packed. They had shelves stacked to the rafters with product. They had rows of AR's and AK's on racks in the center of the store (this was about a year ago - probably don't have so many now!), out in the open so you could hold them and caress them and crave them for your own, at your own pace. Not hung on a wall behind a counter where you had to kneel before Zod if you wanted a salesman to let you dare touch the shrine. People were lined up 6 deep pretty much the entire time I was there waiting to check out. Why can't other mom and pops be this way? They didn't whine about the internet or how they have overhead to pay, they embraced the model and then said "oh, btw, if you want to come here and buy in person, you can do that too!" And people responded.

 

[kopcicle]

Here is some perspective for you all . I nodded off around page 3 .

~kop

 

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

Here is some perspective for you all . I nodded off around page 3 .

And your point is.....?

 

[JohnKSa]

I guess we place different value on the premium that the old LGS places on their services.

Probably we're more alike than you think. I'm not trying to argue that people should use LGS even if they truly don't want/need the extras an LGS provides. There were two main things I was trying to get across.

1. People need to understand what extras a traditional LGS provides and why providing those extras must result in higher prices than low-overhead business models. Understanding this also makes it clear why it's not reasonable to criticize a traditional LGS for things like not price-matching online sellers.

2. People need to understand that if they actually do want/need the extras a traditional LGS provides (even if only occasionally) they will have to suck it up and pay for them if they want them to be around in the future. I think a lot of people assume that the traditional LGS will always be there for them even if they take their business elsewhere except when the LGS is the only alternative for meeting their particular needs. It won't work that way.

I agree with you that it would have probably been better if the owner in this case had gritted his teeth and ignored the affront, but I can definitely see his side of the situation. If someone's in his shop, ostensibly because they need/want something his business model provides, they should have the common courtesy to not criticize him for the reasonable and necessary consequences of employing the business model they're currently utilizing.

 

[buck460XVR]

All this crap about LGSs being dinosaurs on their way to extinction is just plain BS. 50 years ago LGS's that had high prices and poor service quickly died like any other poorly run business. Same is true today. Those with good prices and good service have and will continue to flourish. My LGS is a hardware store with over 2000 guns in stock. They match or beat any price you find on the internet for new guns. If they don;t have it in stock, they will order it. If you want they will do transfers on firearms bought over the internet. Accessories, ammo and reloading components are close to internet prices plus shipping. If you are looking for cheap game load shotgun shells they will direct you up the street to the local Walmart. They sell minnows and other live bait in the back. 80% of the folks working there are family. The owner and oldest living patriarch is still found behind the counter in sporting goods 5-6 days a week. They have been in the same spot for 118 years. This in a town of less than 10,000. I have not been in there in the last five years where I didn't witness at least three firearms being sold or traded in the short time I was there. Get there after 10:00 a.m. any day of the week(including Sunday) and you will have to wait in line in sporting goods even tho there are 3-4 folks working. Folks that have done business there before don't mind the wait. New folks with an attitude quickly leave and are not really missed. Those folks behind the gun counter(dad, son and son-in-law) know their guns, pay a fair price for used guns and sell used guns reasonably. This LGS is not going anywhere, including extinct. I don't know the LGS the OP mentioned in his post, but I did Google it. They have been in business for 64 years. They have not been successful for this long because of high prices and poor service. One person's single bad experience is not evidence of a poorly run enterprise. Others judging an enterprise by the same evidence without the other side of the story is just plain foolish. Once again, getting back on the topic that most posters have eluded in their quest to bash their local LGS. Yes, it was bad behavior. But from both parties involved. Is the customer always right? No. Does a business owner need to take verbal abuse from patrons in front of other customer? No. Should a owner admonish a rude customer? Depends on how rude the customer is. As I said before, we don't know the other side of the coin in this incident. I give the business owner credit for taking his comments outside.

 

[MattMesa]

I see no problem with haggling at non-corporate gun shops. What-so-ever. It's the same as music stores in my opinion. The mark-up in local gun shops and local music stores is ridiculous and for the most part it is to prey on the uninformed. I am not saying this is ALWAYS the case but in certain industries it is the common practice. Fifteen years ago when I started buying expensive equipment around town I paid full price, now, at most music shops I get a big discount if not at cost because they value the business and the word-of-mouth.

Would I try the same at corporate franchises? Maybe. If the price difference was big enough then absolutely. It is only in America that this is some abhorrent thing for a consumer to do. It is the job of the business to understand their pricing models and to price appropriately: he should know if he can come down a bit, even a bit of a loss-leader on his marginal revenue to keep you coming back; especially if you had just recently made a large special purchase at his shop. If he wants to be so friendly as to be putting his arm around you and have this "small-town friendly type" business environment then there should be no question at all about you asking if he can come down a bit on another order. I'm not saying you should abuse it but come on. If he doesn't have any wiggle room then he could of simply said, "No, I'm sorry but that is the best price I can offer on those."

On the other side of that coin it is your job to be an informed consumer and you absolutely did the right thing by pricing other options! If you can find perfectly substitutable products and/or service at a better price then you should absolutely take it; in my opinion you were kind to even give him the option! If you go around believing every business is out to do the best they absolutely can for you all the time; unfortunately, you are going to be on the very very very short end of the stick most of the time. There are businesses out there that are that way but that is not the way businesses operate generally. I wish this were not the case! Trust me, I have a business degree and an advanced degree in finance and I struggle with this as an ethical and moral issue internally constantly!

You did absolutely nothing wrong in my opinion and I can personally tell you, as soon as his arm went around me it would of been removed and my question would of been, "Can I help you?"

This is just my opinion but I run a (not own) a business and I am FAR FROM perfect but from the description of your post it was just a complete display of unnecessarily condescending and disrespectful behavior.

 

[MattMesa]

I manage a gun store in the midwest.

I have to resist a burning itch to slap customers in the face when they start talking to me about "online prices." Two things:

A: If it's a new gun we don't run that much of a markup on it, and I don't have any wiggle room unless you're buying a bunch of stuff or placing a big order. We have bills to pay, and if you want us to stick around and have cool stuff to sell you, then we need to be paying them.

B: The internet is a PISS POOR price reference on guns. The majority of the websites that sell firearms on the net all do the same thing: They will list the inventory of one of their big distributors, like RSR, as their own inventory. Then drop-ship the firearms to your FFL from the distributor. These guys have no overhead. No storefront, no warehouse, just a couple jerks with a website and a shipping computer or ten. They pay a fraction of what we pay to stay in business, so they can sell the same gun that I'm selling with a 3% markup and still make money on volume. I have to mark it up by 12% to make the same relative profit after overhead costs.

C: Some online sales, like new guns on Gunbroker, will be posted by other dealers who have been sitting on that gun and are unable to move it, so they'll blow it out on an auction at their wholesale cost to get their money back and clear the shelf space. Yes, I'm going to price match the guy who is selling it at (sometimes even below) cost. I don't like food or gasoline or paying the electric bill or anything.

If you want to haggle with me in our store I'm amiable a lot of the time. But like most shops, the rules of etiquette are:

1: Bring cash. Not debit cards, but paper bills.
2: Be nice about it. Even if I have to shoot you down I'm still cool with you as long as you're a nice guy about it, and if I can I'll try to hook you up with something we can make a deal on.
3: Make your offer reasonable. I'm a lot happier to nibble a chunk of that sales tax off for you than telling me you want my $1100 Sig for $900 because someone online has it cheaper. That extends to:
4: The first time you say "Blahblahblah has it cheaper!" in front of my other customers expect to be told "Then you should go <deleted> buy it there. Don't bother coming back you rude little <deleted>." If you're polite enough to ask me in private I'll be happy to give you an idea why our prices are higher. If you seem like a cool guy sometimes I'll even recommend places you can go that I KNOW can beat our prices, just to help you out. Once in a blue moon I'll even show someone who doesn't believe me our distributor catalog and they can SEE what our cost is for themselves.

We have a sign in the corner of the shop that says "Prices and Availability are subject to change according to customer's attitude." Your demeanour and our wholesale cost is what decides if I can make you a deal or not. If you wave someone else's prices in my face, expect them stuck somewhere and to have to find a new store. Customers can vote with their feet, gun shops can vote with their boots. It's all about attitude.

Disclaimer: I don't shop at LGS simply because I have no need to, my interest in this thread is purely due to the fact that I love business and discussions of business of any sort.

Maybe because of my education I'm a little on the far side of free-market capitalism but, no offense, it is attitudes like these that innovators profit off of. We now live in a world full of perfectly subsitutable options. Either you learn to compete or you go out of business. Based off the way you stated your prices I'm assuming you are using one of the two most basic pricing models possible: either direct or cost plus; regardless, these are entry level business class models. Don't be mad at your customers because people are discovering more efficient and cost-saving methodologies to consume a perfectly substitutable product. A quick piece of advice: SWOT analysis to discover your strengths and weaknesses and then you better find a way to develop a sustainable competitive advantage and you better keep doing that process over and over and over. You are living in a new world.

I am the furthest person in the world to think that customers are always right because I generally assume the mentality that steve jobs did, you have to lead them BUT: if you can't keep up with your customers (who are doing EXACTLY what they should do as informed consumers) then you are going to have a problem and you getting upset about it is not helping move your business forward.

It is the duty of the business to improve and stay ahead of the pack. In business you're either moving forward or backward and from the sound of your pretty angry post you're not making the moves necessary to move forward. This is not an insult: this is just the reality of the 21st century.

I would argue the LGS is a niche market to begin with but maybe it's time to examine and secure a different position in yours if you are not satisfied with certain aspects. You're always going to get stupid customers but with every smart phone sold this is going to be a more common experience. Already, I can walk in any store look at practically any product, and my iPhone will tell me not only the cheapest prices on the internet but the cheapest prices nearby of the EXACT same item - you expect me not to pursue that? At this point I'd be considering it a luxury that you have customers willing to ask if you will negotiate because they could just leave on an product that you do have wiggle room.

I'm so torn. I have an advanced degree in finance and I believe the problem is both consumers and business and that it's just going to get worse for everyone. I think too many greedy business owners screwed too many customers and now too many stupid customers are screwing good business owners. I also think their are way too many people that can amass enough seed money to open a "mom-and-pop" niche store like an LGS that should never be in business anyway.

The fact is: you are going to have a damn hard time competing (as in, with start ups and as consumers) with kids that are graduating with a basic business bachelors degree and have taken intensely difficult international finance and economic classes and have memorized the models in them. What do you expect them to do? Pay your higher prices just because YOU have a higher overhead? By that logic YOU should be giving the consumer a discount because their electric bill was higher than usual this month!

At the end of the day: I wish every business would succeed and every consumer got the best deal possible and I think this thread is a great example of the rough situation we are in both on both sides of the boat: capital and labor.

 

[Agsalaska]

Disclaimer: I don't shop at LGS simply because I have no need to, my interest in this thread is purely due to the fact that I love business and discussions of business of any sort.

Maybe because of my education I'm a little on the far side of free-market capitalism but, no offense, it is attitudes like these that innovators profit off of. We now live in a world full of perfectly subsitutable options. Either you learn to compete or you go out of business. Based off the way you stated your prices I'm assuming you are using one of the two most basic pricing models possible: either direct or cost plus; regardless, these are entry level business class models. Don't be mad at your customers because people are discovering more efficient and cost-saving methodologies to consume a perfectly substitutable product. A quick piece of advice: SWOT analysis to discover your strengths and weaknesses and then you better find a way to develop a sustainable competitive advantage and you better keep doing that process over and over and over. You are living in a new world.

I am the furthest person in the world to think that customers are always right because I generally assume the mentality that steve jobs did, you have to lead them BUT: if you can't keep up with your customers (who are doing EXACTLY what they should do as informed consumers) then you are going to have a problem and you getting upset about it is not helping move your business forward.

It is the duty of the business to improve and stay ahead of the pack. In business you're either moving forward or backward and from the sound of your pretty angry post you're not making the moves necessary to move forward. This is not an insult: this is just the reality of the 21st century.

I would argue the LGS is a niche market to begin with but maybe it's time to examine and secure a different position in yours if you are not satisfied with certain aspects. You're always going to get stupid customers but with every smart phone sold this is going to be a more common experience. Already, I can walk in any store look at practically any product, and my iPhone will tell me not only the cheapest prices on the internet but the cheapest prices nearby of the EXACT same item - you expect me not to pursue that? At this point I'd be considering it a luxury that you have customers willing to ask if you will negotiate because they could just leave on an product that you do have wiggle room.

I'm so torn. I have an advanced degree in finance and I believe the problem is both consumers and business and that it's just going to get worse for everyone. I think too many greedy business owners screwed too many customers and now too many stupid customers are screwing good business owners. I also think their are way too many people that can amass enough seed money to open a "mom-and-pop" niche store like an LGS that should never be in business anyway.

The fact is: you are going to have a damn hard time competing (as in, with start ups and as consumers) with kids that are graduating with a basic business bachelors degree and have taken intensely difficult international finance and economic classes and have memorized the models in them. What do you expect them to do? Pay your higher prices just because YOU have a higher overhead? By that logic YOU should be giving the consumer a discount because their electric bill was higher than usual this month!

At the end of the day: I wish every business would succeed and every consumer got the best deal possible and I think this thread is a great example of the rough situation we are in both on both sides of the boat: capital and labor.

Wow. I somehow missed the darksworddx's post. That is a perfect example of exactly why a lot of LGS struggle. It's almost comical to read.


And MattMesa I agree with a lot of your post but I don't necessarily see it as a problem with customers as well. They are just reacting and changing with the times.

 

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

What do you expect them to do? Pay your higher prices just because YOU have a higher overhead? By that logic YOU should be giving the consumer a discount because their electric bill was higher than usual this month!

It really seems that is the expectation. If you are tying to appeal to a customers sympathy for you to make a sale, you're doing it wrong. Sympathy is meaningless. Your plight is meaningless to everyone but you. We all have our own problems and costs. You got in business to make sales. So make what you're selling attractive or stop trying. A sob story about how hard it is to be a LGS owner is not going to cut it.

 

[Scottray10]

I agree with the other guy, you didn't do anything wrong by asking him. he could've handled it better by repeating what the other guy said about shipping and handling on the internet, if he was smart enough to know that ahead of time. That way he would've been giving you a choice and he could've kept the sale. Except for not having your merchandise. He should've called you and kept you up to date. That's professionalism.

 

[larryh1108]

Those with good prices and good service have and will continue to flourish. My LGS is a hardware store with over 2000 guns in stock. They match or beat any price you find on the internet for new guns. If they don;t have it in stock, they will order it. If you want they will do transfers on firearms bought over the internet. Accessories, ammo and reloading components are close to internet prices plus shipping. If you are looking for cheap game load shotgun shells they will direct you up the street to the local Walmart. They sell minnows and other live bait in the back. 80% of the folks working there are family. The owner and oldest living patriarch is still found behind the counter in sporting goods 5-6 days a week.

The perfect example of a success story. They've learned to adapt to the times, not sit on their laurel and say "we've done it this way for 100 years". What they've done for 100 years is take care of the customer's needs and treat them with the respect they deserve for spending their money there.

Every LGS is not bad or arrogant. There are many who will do just fine. Bud's may have been a local gun shop at one time like the hardware store you mention. People who strive to succeed with common sense and their finger on the pulse of their customers will make it. Those who rest on their reputation alone and don't adapt will not make it. Colt almost lost their business by just slapping their horse on some product and figuring that was enough. They finally realized that the world has changed, consumers have gotten smarter with more choices and reputation alone won't cut it. You have to deliver. Period. Adapt or perish.