Excess inventory of used firearms?

[Firpo]

Guess I’m the odd man on this one. I will do whatever I can to buy from Mom and Pop shops and will knowingly pay more to give them the business. What I won’t do is pay twice what a gun is worth. I’m also confused about the few that have made statements about how these small shops don’t make any profit. Everyone I’ve ever known starts marking up their used guns (that’s about all I ever buy) at least twice what they pay for them. Case in point, and I’ve seen several examples, I brought in my Winchester Model 42 (pictured below) to an LGS just to test how square a place they were to do business.

Now with a straight face he looked at me and said he’d give me $450 for it while…..now this is the good part. He was standing in front of a gun rack where he just so happened to have another Winchester Model 42 but not in near as nice condition with a price tag I had seen the week before of $1,799.00. I simply don’t believe that small shops are operating on a razor thin budget, at least not when it comes to the type of firearms I purchase.

 

[sherrick13]

Nobody's time is worthless. It's insulting to try and claim otherwise. This isn't a one-size fits all complaint. You can't really compare a home-based FFL doing this on the side to Academy or another business that's open full-time, etc.

There are plenty of folks willing to pay $20-25 for a transfer.

Homeless peoples' time is worthless.

Democrats congress lizards' time is worthless.

There are lots of worthless time out there.

Sooner State does $20,000 of transfers a month for a reason.

 

[mtngunr]

Oh here is an idea, they could take them to gun shows and sell them for reasonable prices.

But then it wouldn't be a gun show as an entire generation understands the term.

 

[mtngunr]

Guess I’m the odd man on this one. I will do whatever I can to buy from Mom and Pop shops and will knowingly pay more to give them the business. What I won’t do is pay twice what a gun is worth. I’m also confused about the few that have made statements about how these small shops don’t make any profit. Everyone I’ve ever known starts marking up their used guns (that’s about all I ever buy) at least twice what they pay for them. Case in point, and I’ve seen several examples, I brought in my Winchester Model 42 (pictured below) to an LGS just to test how square a place they were to do business.
View attachment 518405
Now with a straight face he looked at me and said he’d give me $450 for it while…..now this is the good part. He was standing in front of a gun rack where he just so happened to have another Winchester Model 42 but not in near as nice condition with a price tag I had seen the week before of $1,799.00. I simply don’t believe that small shops are operating on a razor thin budget, at least not when it comes to the type of firearms I purchase.

Jewelry has what's called triple keystone, furniture generally operates same way, priced three times actual cost so that they can run sales or haggle. Gun stores are no different except profit margins on new is far far less, especially with smaller stores who often pay about what you can pay with careful online shopping, the small shops not getting near the price breaks due to lower volume ordering.

 

[Btown]

I'm retired now but when I owned a gunshop many years ago I liked doing transfers. Would I prefer to sell the gun from inventory of course. My business partner hated transfers and would sometimes piss off a customer and then I would try and make amends. It got to the point that customers would not even talk to him but would insist on dealing with me. Reason I liked transfers is we had several collectors who order guns online that there would be no way for us to have in inventory. Some of these guys would do several transfers a month sometimes several in a week. What the transfer did for us that my partner didn't always grasp was these guys talk to others and plus if he ordered a rifle from someplace if it needed work our gunsmith did it, if it needed a scope, ammo, sling etc we sold it to him. We might make $50 to a $100 on a rifle but maybe a thousand on accessories. Plus I would if I could I would always stand and BS with a customer if time allowed. So to me transfers made great business sense. Plus it was a blast to see and handle some of these firearms we did transfers for.

 

[red dirt shootist]

This completely depends on the type of FFL you're referring to. Comparing a big retailer to a small business is a pretty cheap way to try and justify complaining about a $20-25 transfer fee.

You missed the point of every post in this thread.

 

[BobbyV]

Sooner State does $20,000 of transfers a month for a reason.

Sheesh. Really?

 

[BobbyV]

You missed the point of every post in this thread.

Not really. I understand that a full-time gun shop needs to offer services, inventory, and respect for customers to be successful.

But you completely ignored what I was saying so spare me.

 

[BobbyV]

I'm retired now but when I owned a gunshop many years ago I liked doing transfers. Would I prefer to sell the gun from inventory of course. My business partner hated transfers and would sometimes piss off a customer and then I would try and make amends. It got to the point that customers would not even talk to him but would insist on dealing with me. Reason I liked transfers is we had several collectors who order guns online that there would be no way for us to have in inventory. Some of these guys would do several transfers a month sometimes several in a week. What the transfer did for us that my partner didn't always grasp was these guys talk to others and plus if he ordered a rifle from someplace if it needed work our gunsmith did it, if it needed a scope, ammo, sling etc we sold it to him. We might make $50 to a $100 on a rifle but maybe a thousand on accessories. Plus I would if I could I would always stand and BS with a customer if time allowed. So to me transfers made great business sense. Plus it was a blast to see and handle some of these firearms we did transfers for.

Sounds like you were doing things the right way.

 

[Uncle TK]

Guess I’m the odd man on this one. I will do whatever I can to buy from Mom and Pop shops and will knowingly pay more to give them the business. What I won’t do is pay twice what a gun is worth. I’m also confused about the few that have made statements about how these small shops don’t make any profit. Everyone I’ve ever known starts marking up their used guns (that’s about all I ever buy) at least twice what they pay for them. Case in point, and I’ve seen several examples, I brought in my Winchester Model 42 (pictured below) to an LGS just to test how square a place they were to do business.
View attachment 518405
Now with a straight face he looked at me and said he’d give me $450 for it while…..now this is the good part. He was standing in front of a gun rack where he just so happened to have another Winchester Model 42 but not in near as nice condition with a price tag I had seen the week before of $1,799.00. I simply don’t believe that small shops are operating on a razor thin budget, at least not when it comes to the type of firearms I purchase.

You have no concept of OverHead!