Again on supply and demand...

[dilly]

So I understand that things go out of stock and prices go up. That irritates me when it happens to something I want, but I understand it am at peace with elevated prices, especially if new gun owners are being brought into the fold.

However, this is what doesn't seem quite right to me. As I understand it, manufacturers are at their limit, and retail stores are doing their best to get what stock they can. When they get something, greedy mini-arms dealers buy it all up at retail prices to resell it at inflated prices for a profit on Armslist. If doing it on a large enough scale, I am sure there are taxes to pay and licenses (none of which I agree with, but that's beside the point) to get that are being overlooked.


Here is my problem. I think MANUFACTURERS should be the ones to up the price when supply goes down. That way they are better able in slower times to buy the tooling and equip themselves to deal with high demand situations. However, from what I've seen people will try to blacklist retailers for selling at the highest price they can get because they call it price gouging.

Do you guys agree? Ideally the manufacturers up their prices so they see the increased profits from the higher demand. This necessitates retailers to up their prices, decreasing demand enough to where they can keep stuff in stock, and demotivating private resellers.

[milrifle]

My opinion (Worth exactly what you paid for it) is that if the manufacturers are manufacturing at maximum capacity, then they are making record profit at their regular price. Any increase at that point 'just because they can' could be construed as 'gouging'.

[Forrest r]

If people would quit buying the stuff at the inflated prices none of this would be happening.

[Love Life]

It is either buy at inflated prices or go without. The market will self stabalize as people run out of money, demand decreases, and production catches up.

It is called capitalism.

[fcvan]

I can see your point but disagree. The manufacturers production and profit margin is their business. The middle guy buying up and jacking the price is our business. We can either refuse to pay the inflated price or we can cough it up. If we refuse to purchase at those prices they will sit on inventory and either drop their prices or not. I guarantee if they do not sell their product they won't be ordering more because they can't move what they have. The bottleneck becomes un jammed and supply becomes available for us. WE can stop the gougers by refusing to purchase from them. Simple economics.

For the manufacturer to raise their prices so they can invest in additional tooling is also somewhat misguided. Either their business model and projected sales support expansion or they do not. Remember, some places are keeping their employee count down to avoid the 'affordable care' act. Most outfits have added more hours and sometimes extra shifts with the understanding that permanent investment for a temporary boom in sales is often short sighted. When the crunch is over they won't have excess employees or production facilities that lose money when sitting idle.

I look at it like this: the money I'm not spending while the prices are up is being saved up for when supply is restored and prices are back down. The first time the liar in chief was elected, primers shot up to $50/1000 and I unknowingly paid that. I asked a friend to buy a brick but didn't know the store had doubled the price. That never happened again.

When things become available, and there are indications that inventory is beginning to appear, I will buy some more primers and powder. For now I'm not loading much, but I'm able to shoot the 20k + rounds I loaded between 2009 and 2012 when stuff was available. I'm not shooting as much as I was 12 months ago but I am shooting. Besides, shot shell components are still available and so I've been loading buckshot, round balls, and slugs and playing with loads. I'm still having fun and I'm not spending a dime toward some scalper gouger opportunist who bought stuff and is trying to make a fortune during all the panic.

[Hogdaddy]

I'd Go without,, Easy to say when sitting on reloading supplies ; )
H/D

[uscra112]

My opinion (Worth exactly what you paid for it) is that if the manufacturers are manufacturing at maximum capacity, then they are making record profit at their regular price. Any increase at that point 'just because they can' could be construed as 'gouging'.

Not true. As an old retired manufacturing hand I can tell you that running a factory flat-out is actually LESS efficient that running it at 80%. All kinds of problems - new hands can't do the job as well. Machines break down more often. Material flow gets inefficient. Shipping and receiving docks get too crowded. Minor hiccups that would normally be insignificant snowball into major downtime, for which you pay a lot of overtime to fix. You pay a lot of overtime anyway. And on and on and on. A classic example of the law of diminishing returns. You get more product out the door, but your per-unit cost actually goes up. A principle that bean-counters and new business-school graduates never grasp, by the way.

Another thing - taking orders until you have a huge backlog can actually bankrupt you, unless you've provided for increases in materials and labor for future production. Classic example is Hopkins & Allen, WW1 era. They were in the top five American gun makers in terms of numbers sold, but they failed to predict that the war would drive up costs, and so took a big contract to make Mausers for Belgium using pre-war costing. Took only a year to drive 'em under. Marlin-Rockwell bought the plant and equipment at a fire-sale price, and that was that.

Finally, and I'm sick of having to repeat this again and again: Gouging can only take place when the seller has a monopoly. Absent a monopoly, price increases are the magic of the free-market, telling makers, distributors and sellers where to assign resources and where to ship the goods, period. Without those price signals, you get Soviet style shortages and black markets. Never fails.

[uaskme]

These are all business decisions that will take time to see what impact it will have on a business. When a gun shop ups prices and another dont, does it erode their customer base when things turn around. I suspect if this continues a lot of small gun dealers will go out of business. It is hard to make overhead when you dont have product on the shelves. That is why I understand they raising prices on what they have. I stood in line for about 2 hours 1 day at our Sportmans Whse and got 200 rds of CCI Mini Mags, their limit. They havn't raised there prices and I suspect they have picked up customers because of it.

Also I suspect the ammo mfgs are running as fast as they can at a rate they know they can sustain. They cant add capacity that they may not need in 1 year.

[dverna]

I'd Go without,, Easy to say when sitting on reloading supplies ; )
H/D

Isn't that the whole point. Some people never learn. They same people who bitched the last time wind up ******** again about "hoarders". They should take up corn hole or horseshoes - no supplies needed after the initial purchase.

[BBQJOE]

If you need, buy. If you don't, don't.
I don't expect we will ever see .02 cent primers ever again.

[dilly]

You all as reloaders are in the business of manufacturing ammo. You know there is no limit to the amount of devices that constantly catch our eye in making our reloading more efficient, convenient, productive or even just pleasant. You know it's not so different for manufacturers. Just seems to me like the biggest price jump is between the retailers and the "scalper gougers" and should probably be at the original manufacturer. They probably need equipment although they may not need staff. As far as spending money on production capacity they may not need, these businesses are in it for the long haul and as many people point out, these ammo rushes run in surges. Anything they buy will be used in the long run.

[prs]

Hard to believe the Chinese have not taken note and flooded our market with the needed supplies that our domestic suppliers fail to provide. They eat our lunch in every other niche we fail to adequately attend.

prs

[runfiverun]

umm the manufacturers did increase prices they went up by 15%.
atk was pushing for 30%.
this means powder went up about 2.50 per pound.

[DrCaveman]

Maybe the problem for 'us'...this time around...is that many of us consider ourselves to be 'real' and not 'panic' reloaders/casters. It's the 'newbies' who foolishly pay these high prices and dont even realize what costs were 6 months ago, much less 16 years ago.

I consider myself a 'real' reloader because i got into it for the two reasons that I #1 enjoy shooting very much and #2 found myself spending a half day's wages on ammo at each outing, and still wanting more. But this was only 3 years ago. Im a newbie by most stretches of the imagination though i think i picked things up pretty quick due to excellent information and lots of time spent.

Point being that it is the newbies driving this price trend, and it is the semi-experienced reloaders, yet poor planners, who are sitting shotgun trying to navigate. Well, only the person with their foot on the gas and hand on the wheel is really in control, despite the misguided belief that the navigator is controlling where we go. Good time to move into the back seat, take a nap, see where the crazy driver takes us, and deal with it from there.

Yeah i despise the middle man. No personal offense intended toward anyone in sales or investments but the idea of taking profit for doing nothing is enough to raise my blood temp high enough to boil my brain.

Our freedoms are great. Exercising morally devoid capitalism is not. Methinks those that avoid their conscience will get what is coming to them. Most likely, a very large house, a CEO position, and a yacht or two.

As said above by others, it is our CHOICE whether to participate. Despite my obvious issues with parts of our financial system, i am very glad to have that CHOICE.

[tinsmith]

I'm afraid that as the manufacturers are going all out 24/7 to meet demand that quality control will take back seat. A bunch of half trained new employees and overworked machinery can't be good for quality. I think I'll enjoy the bullet molds and reloading equipment that I have and not add anything until this insanity dies down.