Rumor: Gander Outdoors is getting rid of all of their Shooting/Hunting sections

Gun people seem to be a forgiving bunch... there are a ton of places that should no longer exist..

 

My favorite company to never forget: Treats You Like Dirt.

No matter what, I will never spend a penny with them.

 

no idea about Gander, but guns are typically really small margin items anyway. Couple that with supply problems even before the Russian ammo sanctions, and my guess is that it just isn't profitable enough to ship the stuff around nor to have it sit on mostly empty shelves. Shelves that could be holding more profitable items that are easier to reliably obtain.

 

Good for you. I wish everybody would
cease doing business with them.
I can remember years back they didn't
even have a store or a mail order
business. They sold at gun shows
at real ctd prices and dealt fairly and
honestly. They even did pretty good
after opening the big store in Fort Worth.
The way I understand it, they were
bought out and the new ownership
wanted to focus on internet at the
expense of the store business, even
after the McKinney store opened
I would guess the backbreaking straw
was when that big AR magazine
shortage some years back was happening
and they would backorder mail orders
and online after taking payment, and
the stores were steadily selling the
magazines over the counter at a huge
markup over online and mail order
prices

I haven't dealt with them in a
very long time, and tell others
every chance I get

 

I recall people saying they placed an order online for magazines or ammo, order was accepted, then later told out of stock, only to have the same item relisted immediately at a much higher price during periods of shortages.

Their insane markups on guns, ammo, and magazines during periods of shortages did not go unnoticed.

Some say it's just capitalism, some call it gouging. Whatever... as far as I'm concerned Treats You Like Dirt is off my list of places to ever buy from.

 

Yeah, some acquaintances had some
items on order, and I had been to the big
retail store and I was telling of people in
the line to pay the gouge price for the
magazines, and these guys were like
" WHAT WHAT WHAT? ! ? I have 10
magazines on backorder with them and
they've already charged my credit card! ! "
I was like, well I was just there, and they
were selling them from a box behind
the counter

 

Gander is not long for this life. I think that has been ownership's end goal all along. Milk the business for its assets and eventually liquidate.

 

Is Marcus Lemonis still calling the shots?

 

I always respected Gander Mtn as they --*Literally*--brought all manner of firearms to up-market suburban shopping centers / enclaves. In about 2003 my wife and I purchased a Marlin 1895 45/70 ported Guide Gun as a 50th Birthday present for her Dad from the store in St. Charles, IL near where I worked at the time. They sold many, many ARs and the like also. I wanted to support them in their business and was happy to buy from them because they were an inclusive dealer of all-types of firearms, especially in that suburban up-market setting. They showed no difference in the way that 'traditional' guns and MSRs were displayed. We have sadly lost my wife's Dad far too soon, and the best Father-in-Law I could have ever asked for--almost 3 years ago. His gun collection survives him, our daughter Kate (now 18 yrs old) and I care for them...and that *&^%$# "Guide Gun" has more than doubled in value for various reasons, now being the most expensive gun in his whole collection! I think we paid about $550 for it new. It made him so happy back then and on the card it was stated as being a gift from Katie, then less than 1 year old. And now that young lady is in college and her Grandad would be so very proud of her...So I guess it's time for "Thanks Gander Mountain!" But yes, we'll do like Hemingway proposed long ago: "Remember them as they were, and then write them off." That said....what other mainstream national sporting goods/outdoors/hunting & fishing chain put an inclusive inventory of guns in many up-scale suburban malls in the last two decades that regularly included ARs and the like? Nobody but Gander Mtn to my knowledge. ==========They accomplished a task I never thought I'd see done in my lifetime...they were selling ARs in suburban malls around the country. To me they were a great 'normalizing' influence in that regard. Maybe we can remember their contribution to our cause with leniency, even today.

 

I stepped into a Gander Mountain store once back in 2015 and never went back. Their prices were outrageous even then. Plus there are a lot more and better choices in the St Louis area.

 

Same here, Never liked the place.

This article is from 2017

What he says about inventory is true. One in another time long ago I worked in a big retail store. It was in the middle of nowhere Iowa, Ours ads were dictated by corporate off in some big metro city. We never sold any of that stuff. All the farmers wanted was paint , hardware and gun stuff.

https://www.guns.com/news/2017/06/01/gander-outdoors-failed-gun-superstore-strategy


“Well, we are going to have a selection of handguns and shotguns that we believe serve the need of the market and have margins that are commensurate with our expectations,” he told investors last month. “But I would expect that in those stores, we’re going to see an expansion of fishing, potentially getting back into the live bait business and really digging into what the consumer wanted.”

Still, Lemonis said his main priority remains the RV business as he blamed the collapse of Gander Mountain on “poor real estate transactions” and “undisciplined inventory buying.”

 

I can say that business has not slowed down much if any as far as RV sales goes around me even after Gander took over Camper World.

I am an hour away from Jefferson City, Columbia, and Hannibal, Mo and 1 1/2 hours from down town St Louis. I have 2 Bass Pro Shops, 1 Cabelas, several Academy Sports to choose from. Plus Midway USA and Grafs Reloading to choose from. And that is not counting all of the small local shops either.

 

My friend who worked at Gander Mountain and stayed with them in corporate when they went to Gander Outdoors said that Gander Mountain had horrible buyers and you would see them buy the same stuff for all stores vs. for the area such as ice fishing equipment in Florida and ocean fishing tackle in Minnesota, he said that really hurt them.

 

Unless a store is a huge gun shop, selling new guns is not a real money maker and a PITA with all the legalities forms etc.

They make money on all the add on items, sportswear and other high mark up stuff from China.

 

That's why my LGSes have very little firearms or ammo on site and mostly do business via their online shop or through FFL-to-FFL purchases.

 

The Gander closest to me was a goofy deal. They would get heavy into fishing, run with that a few years, then get way heavy into guns, get out of that, etc. Remodeled each time to promote the new line. When they were dumping their reloading inventory, I bought about 20 pounds of powder at $8 a pound.

 

That *assumes* that if you drop the guns, all your customers will keep coming just as often. Which is not necessarily the case.

I bought probably $2k of stuff from Dick’s over the final couple of years before they went woke….camping and hiking gear, fitness equipment, kayak stuff, clothes, etc. etc. Then they ostentatiously dropped most of the gun stuff and I have never been back. Academy gets my non-shooting sporting goods dollars now, and some of the ammo dollars (split with my LGS).

 

Wow.
Fewer gun retailers doesn't bode well for the future. I remember when every hardware store, Target, K-Mart, JC Penneys, Dillard's, Montgomery Wards and Sears carried handguns and long guns.

I miss those days.

Those that celebrate the closing of any gun store are the same ones that whine the loudest about the lack of selection and high prices of their local gun stores.

 

Regulations that have changed little since 1968.
Any gun business that finds guns "too hard to sell" isn't much of a business.

I'll bet the employee you spoke to couldn't tell you the difference between rifle and shotgun.....that's how stupid he is.

 

Losing money to gain a couple sales from gun guys vs not losing money and losing out on a couple sales.
It could have nothing to do with being "woke", it might just be the wonders of capitalism making it not worth the expense to stock ammo.

 

They were smart enough to never open a store un Maine though! Dicks and Cabellas did but are, you know, just getting by.
There are many good stores that were sold out or such to somebody and the values of the origional owner while a success were changed drastically. They usually don't last long at all after that. I have seen local restaurants that had this happen to. Usually the next generation wants to gain financially with out doing any work so they just sell things off for a short term gain.

 

Back when we had a Gander Mountain nearby, I loved going there. Rifles were tethered to their rack with a cable and they were trigger locked, but you could pick them up to feel how they mounted to your shoulder without bothering a store clerk. They had sales that brought down prices to reasonable range on occasion, too. I bought two firearms and ammo from them.

Yet, they chose to be across the freeway from an Academy Sports and Outdoors. Academy is still there. Gander has been long gone.