Gun prices online vs local dealer markup

[dakotashooter2]

I like to offer the local guys an opportunity to match or come close to the price. Often they can't come close but don't get huffy about it. I think what many Dealers don't realize is that even though we may want a gun most of us have some sort of budget. Yes the online dealers are competition but if they don't have the gun it doesn't mean we will just go to the dealer and pay what he wants. In many cases we just won't buy that gun ,period' or wait till we have more funds. Often the dealer ends up with a choice of not making anything or making a few bucks off the transfer. The smarter guys are learning that doing transfers can be a business in itself. It's not as much money as a sale BUT the dealer has no money tied up in a transfer so it is pure profit.

What irks me is the dealers like the guy on the show GUNFATHER. He pi$$es and moans to a seller that he can't make a profit on the price the seller wants (which is generally fair even to a dealer) then when a deal is made he turns around and sells it for twice what he paid.

Around here some guys will go cost plus 10-15% on new stuff and will generally give you 75-80% of book when they buy or trade.

[paul h]

I don't have a problem paying an extra $20-30 to buy a gun locally as I get to inspect it before purchasing it, but if I'm going to save $50 or more, I'm going on line. I have a buddy with an FFL so I don't have to pay a transfer fee.

[Outer Rondacker]

Well now this is a good thread. I have had this gripe for a while now. I can go online and find a gun add the shipping if there is any most of the time if the gun is new there is not. Add the FFL transfer and then ask them what they can get it to me for out the door. I ask if they can match my price.(includes FFL and shipping) It has always been NO. They then tell me I cant even buy it for that. So I order it and pay them there FFL fee. Now for the fee. There is one small shop I love to use and he gets 25 dollars. If I go to the other shop its 55 dollars for a used gun. That is correct $55.00. If he can get the gun from his middle man then its 65 bucks. Needless to say I dont like this place and its the largest around.

[MT Gianni]

Gun shop in the town I work in 30 miles from home is $25, pawn shop there is $10 and the local pawn shop is free to local residents if you buy something. He rarely has more than 3-4 guns so I buy a pawned tool or something to keep him going. He says his only cost is 5 minutes of paperwork and a flat plan long distance call. He also has enough other business that I think he knows what he talks about. Last new gun purchase was 2 1/2 years ago several used gund bought and sold since then. Not much interest in a recently manufactured gun.

[freebullet]

I use to frequent a couple lgs but they went a little crazy with their prices years ago when everyone decided to panic. I have only bought a few locally and most of those are private owner sales. With 15$ transfers I save a bundle buying online. I wish some local dealers could sell guns at reasonable prices consistently but during the last panic I was able to get what I wanted and save over 150$ from the lowest price I could find local.

We have some shops around here that want 60$ for a transfer, treat you like a theif, or won't do them and I won't set foot in those joints we let the tactical operators have them. They will learn not to alienate their clients that buy when nobody is in a panic.

[Love Life]

You know, I hear a lot of stories word of mouth and word of type about gunshops with rude owners and poor customer service.

[freebullet]

Yeah it sucks too because I'd rather support a local mom & pop shop but they all got shut down or established panic prices. I'd even pay a little extra but they always want atleast 100$ over my shipped & transfered price.

[dragon813gt]

You know, I hear a lot of stories word of mouth and word of type about gunshops with rude owners and poor customer service.

Unfortunately it's the norm here. Most of the clerks aren't interested in helping you unless it happens to be a firearm they like. Most of the time they are Glock and AR fanboys. The looks I get when I ask if they have any Savage 99s or old Marlins is like a deer in the headlights. Most of them are also my age or younger. When I talk to one of the old guys it's a different story and they mourn the loss of the 99s like I do.

I really miss the shop by my cabin. Shop is still there but the guy that ran it passed away about five years ago. His prices were always high but we would talk for awhile every time I was in there. Which was practically every weekend. I did make some purchases when the price was right. The wife took over and is rude. Gets mad when you ask questions about the guns. The tags are to small and you can't read them from in front of the counter. Haven't spent a dime in there since. Well on firearms I haven't but it's a small convenience store so I buy some candy bars and such.

Hard to believe but after taking a number and waiting in line, like you're at a deli, Cabela's clerks are always friendly and helpful. But I've derailed the thread enough.

[Love Life]

The absolute most terrible gunstore I have ever graced with my presence is Flatwoods in North Carolina. It's a little way up the road from Camp Lejeune.

[MarkP]

I buy powder, wads, and primers at LGS as they sell at or below online prices and NO haz-mat fees. New guns are priced comparably to online. My transfer guy is $20 / 1, and $30 / 2, $40 / 3. He is retired and works from his home, great communication can pick up after normal business hours. I was paying $35 per transfer at a store near my work.

[Petrol & Powder]

As I understand the law, a FFL holder must have a place of business & pay a $200 fee for a dealer's class FFL. After 3 years it's a $90 fee per year? Or maybe 3 years, I can't remember the law.
So at $20/transfer you only need to transfer 5 guns a year to cover the cost of your license. Assuming you're running some type of business to cover the overhead for your "bricks & mortar" storefront (which doesn't even have to be firearms related) after those five transfers everything is profit. If you did 1 transfer a week you would bring in $1040.00 per year just for doing some minor paperwork and keeping a logbook.
You could run just about any type of business and transfer guns on the side for extra cash. You couldn't run a gun shop that way because your overhead would kill you but you could add gun transfers to an existing business. I know people that do just that.
An existing gun store that charges more than $20 for a transfer is over charging. They are making money by virtue of their possession of a FFL. I'm OK with the gun shop exploiting the law to use their FFL to make money but when someone attempts to extract $30+ just to do some minor paperwork (that they routinely do anyway) you should tell them that someone else will do the same thing for less. Competition is a good thing! Free markets work best when they are free.

[Merick]

I agree with p&p, it is not like a bank charges $40 to process a check (yet). Even at $100/hr wages it shouldn't take more than 5 minutes to complete the paperwork.

[paul h]

Running a business requires overhead (it's expensive!!!), and a transfer is direct competition against the guns they are selling in their store. So that puts the owner in a quandry, if he doesn't have any inventory, nobody will come to his store. If he puts 10's of thousands of dollars into inventory, and undersells himself with transfers, he's loosing money!

It has nothing to do with exploiting the law, a transfer is a service a business offers and there is nothing wrong with them profiting from their service. If their fee is too high, no one will use them. If there fee is too low, they might put themselves out of business.

And while it seems like just a few minutes of paperwork, he's also storing your gun for you from the time he receives it and you pick it up, and is responsible for it between the time he receives it and you pick it up. Not to mention he has the potential headache of you being unhappy with the condition the gun when you receive it, and the seller blaming the FFl who receives it for the damage.

[Merick]

I'm looking at a $700 gun. If a local shop was within $100 of internet (2-3x transfer+ship costs, and still $50-75 over invoice) I'd go with them, but $300 over? Sorry pal, I had to face my own risks and headaches for that dough. There is trade for value and there is standing on my back. Maybe they will get it, and I hope they do, but they won't get it from me.

[starmac]

Paul H your point is hard to make these days. There are a lot of ffl's that price them the way they do to keep from having to do outside transfers at all. They already have a business, and don't want a lower paid side business.

There will come a time when when there are no more lgs's to speak of. Everything will have to be done over the internet, and I hate to see that day come, as it will be the beginning of the end for our hobby.

[fouronesix]

After the short lived AR boom-bust some of the LGSs around here are struggling to keep enough business volume to stay in business. Of course those same businesses were/are the ones charging the extortion prices for simple FFL transfers. Many wouldn't have clue what a loss leader is and are still living 30 years ago when they were the only game in town. They still want to charge the extortion fee for a transfer and can't figure why customers go elsewhere and are still bitter and still getting closer to going out of business.

[starmac]

I worked with a guy that had a lgs here for a while, him and his employees were complete tactical nuts, and didn't know or care about anything else. I liked this as they would take in trade ins on tacticool toys and give nearly nothing for them. He would also pass them on cheap to move them, because his customers were all hung up on ar's ak's and the like. He had the idea that I would buy every cheap lever he took in on trade, which was fine as I usually got first crack. He took a ranch hand in and just couldn't belive I was not interested in it. lol

[Petrol & Powder]

Running a business requires overhead (it's expensive!!!), and a transfer is direct competition against the guns they are selling in their store. So that puts the owner in a quandry, if he doesn't have any inventory, nobody will come to his store. If he puts 10's of thousands of dollars into inventory, and undersells himself with transfers, he's loosing money!

It has nothing to do with exploiting the law, a transfer is a service a business offers and there is nothing wrong with them profiting from their service. If their fee is too high, no one will use them. If there fee is too low, they might put themselves out of business.

And while it seems like just a few minutes of paperwork, he's also storing your gun for you from the time he receives it and you pick it up, and is responsible for it between the time he receives it and you pick it up. Not to mention he has the potential headache of you being unhappy with the condition the gun when you receive it, and the seller blaming the FFl who receives it for the damage.

All businesses have overhead. No special burden for gun shops there.

IF you are collecting the fee for the transfer, you are not competing against yourself. In that situation you don't have any cost other than your time. You didn't buy the gun, you didn't pay to ship the gun and you don't need to display the gun; you just accepted a package and did the same paperwork as always.

You make MORE money on the inventory you own and actually sell - you get to mark up those items and you can make that profit whatever the buyer is willing to pay. When I purchased the gun and the FFL just handles the transfer; I assumed ALL of the risk. The FFL will make money on the transfer regardless of the cost of the gun because the FFL will bare none of that cost.

I don't have to have a federal license to buy a book (or just about anything else) from another state but because of the 1968 Gun Control Act, I must have a FFL to buy a gun from another state. A FFL provides the holder of that FFL with an advantage that a non-FFL cannot legally exploit.

Storing a gun costs the dealer nothing! It is a function that he already performs. One more gun in the safe for two days does NOT increase his overhead. The safe and store are already constant expenses.

There's no headache for transferring a gun, the transfer FFL has no responsibility for the gun, it is not his property.

I don't have a problem with a FFL using his license to make money. I think they should be able to use that legal advantage to make money. I do have a problem with license holders that think they have NO competition for that empty line in their log book. They are entitled to use their position and license to make SOME money but I'm entitled to use the free market to keep my costs in check.

[MaryB]

My LGS is full service, sells via the internet, customizes guns, builds custom guns from scratch(Want a John Deer AR-15?), he repairs, he is more than willing to transfer anything I find on the internet if he cannot get it at a reasonable to both of us price, carries reloading supplies, carries bows and assorted accessories...

After the short lived AR boom-bust some of the LGSs around here are struggling to keep enough business volume to stay in business. Of course those same businesses were/are the ones charging the extortion prices for simple FFL transfers. Many wouldn't have clue what a loss leader is and are still living 30 years ago when they were the only game in town. They still want to charge the extortion fee for a transfer and can't figure why customers go elsewhere and are still bitter and still getting closer to going out of business.

[bnelson06]

Where's that one at Mary, I get over that way quite often