Here Come The Scalpers

I don't understand the emotion.
If CDT puts a ridiculous price on an item, I can simply scratch them as a source.
"Not a good place to buy" But I don't have any heartburn over it. Blood pressure stays the same. They never were a guns or ammo source for me.
I'm not giving them the power to ruin my day.
The good deals are where you find them. Don't try to pick tomatoes off of an elm tree.

I have not bothered to look at the store for a long time,but they seemed like an OK source for military surplus stuff...Like wool pants maybe.Or a stainless steel bedpan.
 
If I remember correctly, at the Tulsa show in 2008 CTD had a table and security had to be called more than once. Very loud "discussions" about some of their business practices.
 
Let this be an inspiration . . .

Let this be an inspiration to learn to reload . . .

Of course small pistol primers are really hard to come by right now.

Life is good.
Prof Young
 
TXAZ guaranteed results prediction:

When Trump wins his second term, the availability of evil-black-assault-guns and the ammo that feeds them will skyrocket while the price of both will precipitously drop.
 
Warhammer said:
The people defending CTD's price gouging (yes, it's price gouging; look it up) by saying "that's how business works" have clearly never had exposure to the P&L of an actual retail business. Astronomically increasing the price of one product category to take advantage of current circumstances is not the way honest businesses operate. There are too many people speaking out of turn about that which they clearly have only the barest grade school understanding. (This is coming from a long-time retail manager.)
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From a long time business owner... everything you said is emotional rhetoric.

PS...
Care to get together and compare your P&L's to mine?
 
HiBC said:
I don't understand the emotion.
If CDT puts a ridiculous price on an item, I can simply scratch them as a source.
"Not a good place to buy" But I don't have any heartburn over it. Blood pressure stays the same. They never were a guns or ammo source for me.
I'm not giving them the power to ruin my day.
The good deals are where you find them. Don't try to pick tomatoes off of an elm tree.
Click to expand...

Well said :)
 
The people defending CTD's price gouging (yes, it's price gouging; look it up) by saying "that's how business works" have clearly never had exposure to the P&L of an actual retail business. Astronomically increasing the price of one product category to take advantage of current circumstances is not the way honest businesses operate. There are too many people speaking out of turn about that which they clearly have only the barest grade school understanding. (This is coming from a long-time retail manager.)
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I disagree. Consumers have no way of knowing what potential price increases happened along the supply chain. Those costs in turn are passed onto the retailer and the retailer passes it onto consumers. It's the consumer who decides the fair market value for ammo. If CTD raises their prices and consumers buy it, then the market will show that there is still demand, even at that high price. If CTD doesn't sell that ammo they'll have to reduce their prices.

My big box LGS does not charge inflated prices for ammo, and that ammo disappears within minutes of it being put on the shelf. This happened to me last week when I found 9mm on the shelf. I grabbed 200 rounds, left to look at something else and when I came back 5 minutes later it was all gone. They were charging $0.30/round versus the $0.68/round i'm seeing online. Would I pay $0.68/round? Of course I would, if I had the money and if I desperately needed it. Panic causes consumers to sometimes do irrational things, but the specter of continued civil unrest is showing that consumers are desperate to protect themselves in the face of mobs and will pay whatever until law and order is restored.
 
Inflated prices during shortages is a GOOD thing! This is a feature of supply and demand that reserves the ammo for the people in the most desperate need of it.

I am plagiarizing a scenario that I saw laid out to explain why this should not be short circuited by well meaning, but ultimately, poorly thought out price gouging laws.

Right now, a hurricanes are bearing down on Texas. In the aftermath, there is likely to be widespread power outages and generators will sell out. Say a guy in Kansas has a truck and trailer and runs to all the big box stores locally and fills his rig up with generators at normal retails prices.

Then he hauls it all down to the hurricane zone and sells them off the truck for 4x what he paid. People snap them up because those are the only ones available. Then the cops show up and arrest him for price gouging.

Do you think he will ever offer that service again?
 
Essential workers

During the early part of the shutdown we had a new office to set up.
We had two pickups towing trailers and we caravaned down to California from up North here, loaded up to the max.
We joked at gas stations on the way down we had toilet paper for the golden state to sell on street corners.

One guy took me seriously and lectured me at length about how California laws prohibited that. I finally had to tell him.....

I do a lot of online business, most people do today. The power of choice is yours, with a far larger choice no matter where you are located.

I don't do business with CTD. There are better choices.
 
Inflated prices during shortages is a GOOD thing! This is a feature of supply and demand that reserves the ammo for the people in the most desperate need of it.
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Agreed. Those new gun owners that don’t know the average price of ammo will gladly pay it. The price increase will also help to curb demand and allow for the supply chain to replenish itself. We don’t have to like the increases but it’s our choice whether or not we’ll pay the price. I know what my price threshold is and if the cost edges up any higher then I’ll stop buying. So will most people, unless you’re rich.
 
Think about it as your business. Your costs are fixed, the suddenly you don’t have any inventory to sell.
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You don't have any inventory because you sold everything you had. So what did you do with those profits? Buy a corporate jet, or put it in the bank like most businesses would do so you have something to fall back on?
 
I understand the laws of supply and demand. I have no problem with stores charging a premium right now. If someone is knowledgeable about what a fair price is and they choose to pay those prices that is OK.

But this seems an attempt to take advantage of new gun owners who don't know any better. To me this is no different than an auto mechanic taking advantage of an older widow who always let her husband deal with car repairs.

It's not like ammo is no longer being made. It is, and there are plenty of other stores selling ammo at reasonable prices. Granted much higher than a few months ago.
 
I'm proudly one of those individuals that Tamara ( a one time staffer here at TFL) referred to as - a binary thinker.

I like my black/white world.

I choose to think of places like CTD as "one of us" - meaning they are part of the "gun community". They do sell guns & ammunition after all.

HOWEVER - I can still think of them as "profiteering" - which may or may not be price gouging - but - whatever it entails, it's just not right.
They are every bit as slimy as the drug companies that stick it to people for necessary medications.
 
Quote:
ok, your bills are still due, but WHY don't you have any inventory to sell??

BECAUSE YOU SOLD IT ALL

And you made your expected profit on all you sold.
Yes, in May
Now it’s August and your suppliers are delivering a tiny fraction of expected stock..
So you mark it at normal price and it sells out in 10 minutes...
Now what?
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This is exactly true. A seller prices his goods based on his upcoming replacement costs; even if his cost remains the same, if he can only get 10% of his normal inventory then costs have to be cut and income raised to offset
 
This is exactly true. A seller prices his goods based on his upcoming replacement costs; even if his cost remains the same, if he can only get 10% of his normal inventory then costs have to be cut and income raised to offset
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Ahem - sort of...
A lot depends on how your inventory & accounting system are structured.
There's FIFO -LIFO and Weighted Average methods when you inventory at cost.

Inventorying at retail - a whole different ball of wax.

There is no one cut and dried method of accounting/inventory.
 
Inflated prices during shortages is a GOOD thing! This is a feature of supply and demand that reserves the ammo for the people in the most desperate need of it.

I am plagiarizing a scenario that I saw laid out to explain why this should not be short circuited by well meaning, but ultimately, poorly thought out price gouging laws.

Right now, a hurricanes are bearing down on Texas. In the aftermath, there is likely to be widespread power outages and generators will sell out. Say a guy in Kansas has a truck and trailer and runs to all the big box stores locally and fills his rig up with generators at normal retails prices.

Then he hauls it all down to the hurricane zone and sells them off the truck for 4x what he paid. People snap them up because those are the only ones available. Then the cops show up and arrest him for price gouging.

Do you think he will ever offer that service again?
Click to expand...

I think you mean this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9QEkw6_O6w
 
The down side is that those people who have the same need, but lack the funds to pay the hyper inflated price can't get the needed item. And when they could have gotten the needed item at the regular price, but now can't due to the seller jacking the price up to profit from the emergency, it creates a serious case of resentment against the seller.

Most people, even those with short funds understand and would accept a slight increase in the price but doubling, tripling or charging 5x or more the "pre panic" price is just to much for people to accept without resentment.

There's a convenience store a couple miles down the road from my house. Town is 10 miles away. Virtually everything in the store costs more than it does in town. I get that, I'm paying slightly more for the convenience of not having to go all the way to town and back. But while they may turn a $3.50 item at the grocery store into a $5 item at their store and sell it, they don't try to turn it into a $25 item.
 
Another issue is that as the panic goes away, people that paid the hyper inflated prices for the ammo, still think that the ammo is/should be sold at the same price! Because now they don't need as much or want to sell everything. Now they can't get their money back out of it.

So now you have a new shooter that's pissed off at the industry and other shooters for not helping them out. Yes, gun store employees should have said something but if they get caught, they might get fired. Or they could be talking to the owner, who probably won't tell them anything other than "live and learn"!

Just something else to think about when it comes to newbs, panic buyers... If you can, help newbs out, getting screwed over right out of the gate isn't going to help our cause. We need all gun owners doing their part, even if they just buy a gun to have it "incase".
 
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