Guidance in selling some guns

K

ka26

New member
Hello all. I’ve been lurking around here for a while but I figured it’s time to join up & make my 1st post.

I’m considering getting my FFL & selling some guns & have a few questions regarding this. Let me start by saying I don’t intend to make this my full time work & this isn’t bill money for me.

I don’t want a storefront & would like to primarily sell the guns online (gunbroker.com, texasguntrader.com, ect.) but wouldn’t object to someone local buying. I’m thinking that since I’m not putting a ton of money into this I will start out buying one type of gun (Glock handguns, a certain brand of AR-15, ect.) so that maybe I can qualify as high volume buyer & get a good price. For the 1st purchase I’d be comfortable spending $10k-$20k just to see how it goes & if it does decent I could do more with later purchases.

Just to give an example of what I have in mind: I’ve heard that new Glocks go from $350-$400 for dealers that buy in bulk. If I decide to start out with $10-20k & I can get the guns for $400 that would allow me to initially buy 25-50 of them & with that # I’d be comfortable charging a markup of $30-$50 for a total of $750-$2,500 in total profit. I do have a secure place to store a significant number of guns.

My questions:
1. Is that number of guns enough to be considered high enough volume to get a wholesale price?
2. If you had to choose 1 gun to start with that you feel is popular enough to sell a decent volume of, what gun would it be?
3. Do you think I could move that volume of guns in 1 month?
4. Since I don’t have a FFL yet who would I contact to inquire about how much I would be charged on the guns?
5. Any addition thoughts (especially criticisms)?
 
A friend is into the same thing. ATF won't issue a FFL without him having a brick and mortar business site, so to speak. Contact the ATF for more info.
 
Tinner666 said:
A friend is into the same thing. ATF won't issue a FFL without him having a brick and mortar business site, so to speak. Contact the ATF for more info.
Click to expand...

No offense to Tinner, but that is the most oft quoted piece of misinformation on the internet.

The ATF couldn't care less if you have a storefront. They care only that you will have actual hours dedicated to your business (hours that they can use for inspections), that your business is legal where you intend to do it (zoning and whatnot) and that you intend to use the FFL as an actual business, not just to give yourself a discount on transfers.
 
Usually a post like this generates a lot of negative comments. Some legit and some not.

Read the negative comments and consider them but if this is something you want to do and think you could have fun doing it then go ahead. It doesn't seem like you're going to be betting the rent money on this venture anyway.

And having said that here's your first (or second) negative. It would really 'scare' me to open up any home based business if I wasn't on good terms with my city council or who ever it is that zones your area and sets up local regulations.
 
I appreciate the responses.

I'm still in the exploratory stages of this but yes, I wouldn't start doing this without dotting my i's and crossing my t's in regards to all the zoning and legal regulations.

Does anyone have any thoughts on questions numbered 1-4?
 
"No offense to Tinner, but that is the most oft quoted piece of misinformation on the internet."
My apologies then. I didn't research it, I went by what he told me that he was told. It may have something more to do with which FFL he's applied for.

As for the other questions, I can't say.
 
Glocks are hard to do that with. They have a Minimum allowed price, and if they see you selling under it, they will come after you.

You can get an FFL at your home, but it can be a pain in the butt with zoning and such. There isn't a minimum amount of hours that you have to be open or anything ether. Basically you could say you will be open from 7pm Saturday night to 8pm and you would be fine.

One thing to consider is getting a home FFL will make your home address public info. Make sure you have some security ideas in mind also.
 
Yeah boy, was I off! I called and he clarified my error. I had miscontrued his zoning issue and other issues. City issues can be more awkward to overcome than ATF. You can sell from home, online only, but there are pitfalls you have to beware of in each jurisdiction.
And some of my new info could still be off because of drops in our conversation. Just cross all your T's and dot all your i's.
 
Thanks for all the replies. I'm most likely going to go ahead and consult with a lawyer to make sure all the zoning stuff is good to go, but before that it looks like I need to do more research into the answers of questions 1-4.
 
Have you called your local ATF office yet? If not, you should.

I had a FFL out my my house until a few years ago. All I had to do was get an occupational license from the county. It had to say "retail firearms". County gave me a little crap about it. I had to talk the supervisor, and had to call the ATF again. The agent called the supervisor and cleared it up for me. I had a second trip to the county tax collector's office, and I was good to go. Applied online for a sales tax certificate. Sent in the application for the FFL.

Not as simple as it could be, but far from the nightmare that some people claim. I've had more trouble getting a boat registered.
 
No, I haven't called yet because I need to find out if it is going to be worth it for me to get into this. Since I don't have my FFL yet does anyone think a distributor would be willing to give me prices? I have the finances in order to comfortably buy 100+ guns right away but am only wanting to get 30-60 initially to see how it goes, but without the FFL I don't know if a distributor would believe me when it comes to giving out prices.
 
The prices are probably lower than your local mom and pop store, but not usually much lower than wal-mart or your big gun shops. You might be able to stock up on a promotional item, and sell them cheap. But all the rest of the dealers have the same deal.

When I tried selling guns through the newspaper and local online sites, I found that most people who buy lots of guns buy them through big, cheap online outlets that deal in volume. The people who work deals out online, meet somewhere and pay cash don't want to bother with the call in. A small percentage of them can't pass the NICS at all.

I'm considering getting the license again. If so, I'd just do transfers. The cheapest shop in my area does transfers for $40. Doing my own transfers, though... Since I had a tax ID, I'd have to pay use tax on every gun I bought online, same as sales tax. Tax on a $500 gun is $35, abs I can get transfers in the town I work in for $25, so if I did it legitimately, I'd be losing money on my own transfers.
 
So far my research is backing up what you're saying, I'm just thinking that my almost nonexistant operating costs will give me a small cushion, & hopefully once I have more experience I can expand into accessories. I guess I just need to contact a few of the distributors I've been able to locate & see if I can get prices.

Any idea what is considered high volume? 30, 50, 100+/month?
 
You make money buying stuff that a shop cant order on the cheap. Stuff that isn't made anymore and that kind of thing. It takes a butt load of time to do this though.

At least that is how ive kept myself from losing money in my collecting.
 
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