I find this pretty interesting, I thought a lot about it today.
I'm taking some friends to the range tomorrow for some handgun safety/familiarization stuff (I'm an instructor) and I stopped by a gun shop in the town I work in. Of course I had to look at everything before dropping my $85 on ammo. This establishment had one of the new production Colt .38 supers (02291) in the case, used, for $2500 plus tax, no box, no letter, no extra magazine, no explanation when I asked. I'd have to check my records for a dollar figure, but I've bought and sold there on occasion for over ten years. They never remember me.
Of course, I've been looking for one, and the quotes from the three shops nearest where I live are all about $1300 for exactly the same item NIB from Colt. One shop dosen't really do factory orders normally, but I've spent a fair chunk of change and the owners are great. At one I've never bought anything, and at the third I've purchased one holster, one RSC, one rifle, and one handgun over a period of four years, yet when I walk in everyone remembers me and what I've purchased.
My points: First, customer service is a lot like driving skill. Almost all business owners and licensed drivers legitimately believe that they are in the top 10% of everyone who ever engaged in this activity in the history of the world. It is mathematically certain that 90% of them are dead wrong.
Second: Business is tough right now; prices on everything are up, and margins are down, and sales are slowing because the prices are up. Many businesses are making all kinds of stupid decisions because they want to keep their doors open in the short term, but in the long term these decisions are unsustainable and will drive them under. (This applies most directly to outrageously high or low price points compared to everyone else.)
Gun shops are fairly powerless when it comes to generating new leads in today's regulatory environment. Increasing the advertising budget or becoming a Lorcin and Davis master dealer isn't going to do a thing for them. Basically what they can do is stay disciplined (not go insane one way or the other on the price point), not make stupid decisions (discontinue all handgun sales to cut paperwork overhead) and focus on outstanding customer service. Past customers are probably the bulk of sales. Shops need to keep them, and charm every new potential sale that walks in the door, sell them whatever piddly little purchase despite their nose ring/tail/attorney ID/etc, and get them wanting to come back for their next big ticket item.
The upshot is, many gun shops are ineptly run, by people with not the faintest clue about management skills or customer service. These people hire their highschool friends as clerks, do not review their accounting, have no business plan, and... well, I don't know what they rely on to sustain the business. I imagine many of them don't even light candles in church.