I'm an assistant manager at a Walmart. Here is what I posted on another gun forum. I have no idea why anyone at corporate would be saying we are no longer selling ammo, maybe they are misinformed or just jumping on the rumor bandwagon.
I have not heard anything about Walmart not selling ammo prior to today. Unless the communication came down today, we at the stores had received no communication on this issue, or at least I had not seen it. There are two kinds of orders in our stores, system orders and manual orders. System orders are orders the system automatically creates to fill the shelf based off the store's inventory levels and sales. Manual orders are orders an associate manually places to order additional quanities. Say we want to set a feature of an item, we would need to manually order the product because we only get enough to fill the shelf home through system orders.
When the warehouse knows that demand from the stores is going to be higher than the supply at the warehouse, they will block manual orders and basically ration the product to the stores as they can and only fill the system orders. That way no set of stores will have all they need while other store are completly out. How they decide which system orders get filled and which don't I have no idea. Every year they place manual order blocks on many key grocery items during Thankgiving and Christmas, things like flour, cooking oil, fried onions, etc.... because they know the demand is going to be so high. My store orders our products a couple months ahead before they place the block, even in my smaller store we have to have massive additional quanities to get through the holidays.
Last week they placed a manual order block on MOST ammo, but like I said above, that still means that automatic system orders will be placed and filled as the warehouse is able to fill them.
I will do some checking and see what I find out. It could be true, or it could be they are confused with them placing a block on manual orders only and blowing things out of proportion saying we are not going to carry it period, I feel it is the latter. Walmart is a corporation, corporations are all about the bottom line, and right now ammo is selling like hot cakes are helping that bottom line. Plus Walmart has been in the gun communities good graces I think as we have not been gouging on ammo and guns. This is a supply issue, not a political issue. There is no telling what the suits in corporate might do though.
Here is the only statement I could find on our public corporate website, posted on January 9th:
Jan. 9, 2013 - "Walmart, like the rest of the country, has been engaged in a national dialogue about the responsible sale and regulation of firearms.
"We have had ongoing conversations with the Administration, Congress, Mayor Bloomberg’s office, sportsmen groups, suppliers and others to listen and share our thoughts and experiences.
"Over the years we have been very purposeful about striking the right balance between serving hunters and sportsmen and ensuring that we sell firearms responsibly. In fact, we became a charter member of Mayor Bloomberg’s coalition against illegal guns and adopted the 10-point code established by the Responsible Firearms Retailer Partnership that goes beyond what the law requires.
"Knowing our senior leaders could not be in Washington this week, we spoke in advance with the Vice President’s office to share our perspective. We underestimated the expectation to attend the meeting on Thursday in person, so we are sending an appropriate representative to participate.
"We take this issue very seriously and are committed to staying engaged in this discussion as the Administration and Congress work toward a consensus on the right path forward."
-- David Tovar, Vice President, Corporate Communications
I have not heard anything about Walmart not selling ammo prior to today. Unless the communication came down today, we at the stores had received no communication on this issue, or at least I had not seen it. There are two kinds of orders in our stores, system orders and manual orders. System orders are orders the system automatically creates to fill the shelf based off the store's inventory levels and sales. Manual orders are orders an associate manually places to order additional quanities. Say we want to set a feature of an item, we would need to manually order the product because we only get enough to fill the shelf home through system orders.
When the warehouse knows that demand from the stores is going to be higher than the supply at the warehouse, they will block manual orders and basically ration the product to the stores as they can and only fill the system orders. That way no set of stores will have all they need while other store are completly out. How they decide which system orders get filled and which don't I have no idea. Every year they place manual order blocks on many key grocery items during Thankgiving and Christmas, things like flour, cooking oil, fried onions, etc.... because they know the demand is going to be so high. My store orders our products a couple months ahead before they place the block, even in my smaller store we have to have massive additional quanities to get through the holidays.
Last week they placed a manual order block on MOST ammo, but like I said above, that still means that automatic system orders will be placed and filled as the warehouse is able to fill them.
I will do some checking and see what I find out. It could be true, or it could be they are confused with them placing a block on manual orders only and blowing things out of proportion saying we are not going to carry it period, I feel it is the latter. Walmart is a corporation, corporations are all about the bottom line, and right now ammo is selling like hot cakes are helping that bottom line. Plus Walmart has been in the gun communities good graces I think as we have not been gouging on ammo and guns. This is a supply issue, not a political issue. There is no telling what the suits in corporate might do though.
Here is the only statement I could find on our public corporate website, posted on January 9th:
Jan. 9, 2013 - "Walmart, like the rest of the country, has been engaged in a national dialogue about the responsible sale and regulation of firearms.
"We have had ongoing conversations with the Administration, Congress, Mayor Bloomberg’s office, sportsmen groups, suppliers and others to listen and share our thoughts and experiences.
"Over the years we have been very purposeful about striking the right balance between serving hunters and sportsmen and ensuring that we sell firearms responsibly. In fact, we became a charter member of Mayor Bloomberg’s coalition against illegal guns and adopted the 10-point code established by the Responsible Firearms Retailer Partnership that goes beyond what the law requires.
"Knowing our senior leaders could not be in Washington this week, we spoke in advance with the Vice President’s office to share our perspective. We underestimated the expectation to attend the meeting on Thursday in person, so we are sending an appropriate representative to participate.
"We take this issue very seriously and are committed to staying engaged in this discussion as the Administration and Congress work toward a consensus on the right path forward."
-- David Tovar, Vice President, Corporate Communications
Thanks for posting Matt. I personally called Corporate and was told they are suspending ammo sales. It seems to me either Walmart needs to kick their call center director in the butt and fix it or they would release a press release, facebook post, anything. Perception is everything to people these days.
It would sure be a drag if Wal Mart sold us down the river like that.
I have bought my .22 shells there for years.
I have bought my .22 shells there for years.
I confirmed this at my local small town Walmart this morning after viewing completely empty ammo shelves. The sporting goods manager said all of her orders were cancelled this week until further notice by the corporate offices in Arkansas. She asked corporate what she was supposed to tell loyal customers and they advised her to tell them not expect ammunition to be restocked or even be available for purchase in the near future.
There really hasn't been talk of ammo restrictions by the government other than maybe going after online sales. So walmart suspending ammo sales doesn't add up. I would tend to put much more weight on what matt03Z06 said above about manual orders being blocked. The supply is tight right now, but I bet walmart will continue to sell everything it can source.
My wife is an assistant manager at another store and received an interesting email from corporate today, I'm off today but I'm sure I received the same email. The email stated that the rumors about Wal-Mart discontinuing ammo sales is completly false, it was a story made up by a customer and then it just spread all over the internet. We will continue to sell our normal products, as supply allows. It encouraged us to spread this to our customers.
Can you wait until Wal Mart puts out an official announcement? Then, you can curse them and go back to buying your made in China crap again... Please don't post Holier than thou **** anymore.
When I call the corporate office and they confirm the Internet rumor what should I do? Whom should I ask? Sam is dead!
They should tell their CSRs to only dispatch correct information.
And this is the internets... holier than thou **** is what powers it.
Just so you all know. Any time you get a department manager telling you that they "talked to someone at corporate" you can pretty much write that off. There is no one to physically talk to anymore. Any communication is done through online forms and emails to keep their call centers from getting flooded with stupid calls and calls about things like this. A true member of management (assistant manager and up) can contact some parts of corporate but the places that would make these decisions not a chance. As for call centers I basically chalk them up to your standard receptionist. Their job is to listen and to know policy's or be able to access policy's for customers and then to direct the traffic back to the local stores management team to address. Again In situations like this I would be willing to bet that they communicated the rumors around the office but no actual facts because they didn't have any more info. Stupid yes but it happens. These people don't actually work in a store and the closest they come to in actually understanding how the stores run is when they check out their groceries like anyone else.
Long and the short of it is if there was any info to actually be had on this issue it would be coming down to the management teams first VIA corporate email or for those really well connected one of the big wigs office assistant letting info through the doors.
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