Is your Gun Store Overpricing Things?

Does Your Gun Store Price Gouge?

  • Yes

    Votes: 42 56.8%

  • No

    Votes: 32 43.2%
  • Total voters
    74
  • Poll closed .
M

Mosin-Marauder

New member
Something I've observed locally. Every gun shop that is not in some sort of chain seems to raise their prices to ridiculous amounts. For example.
-Off the shelf .223/5.56, Brass Cased 55 Grain FMJ, $12.99+/20 Rounds
-Steel cased .223. $8-10/20 Rounds.
-.22lr is most always $0.10 Per Round or more, even plinking stuff.
-7.62x54R Steel Match by Hornady. $32 per 20
-8mm Mauser MATCH by PPU. $25/20 Rounds (normally costs around $15-17 online)
There will be a few exceptions, reloading components aren't usually jacked up this high, most guns are priced reasonably/semi-reasonably, but there are exceptions to this exception.
And the worst part is these were prices are from the most popular gun store(s) in the area, and every "wabbit hunter" (if you get my gist) that goes in to buy his .22's and .30-30's thinks they're reasonably priced (and he ends up paying $40 for a single box of Federal .30-30 Ammo and 100 .22's). I for one don't want to be gouged out of my money so easily, and I hope fewer people stop giving them their business. Okay, Rant off now, haha.

So, feel free to answer the poll and I'd like to hear some examples of prices in your area.

Regards,

-Mo.
 
The prices of some of the local gun stores in my area are ridiculous. Perfect example, today I went by to check out a particular firearm and they had a used section and had a shield for sale "used" for $400. Glocks sell for high $500's to mid $600. I would like to do business from the local shop but they make it impossible with their pricing.
 
There are two LGSs that I frequent, and both are fairly reasonable with their pricing, especially considering that it's hard for brick-and-mortar stores to compete with online pricing.

For example, the closest LGS sells American Eagle XM193 for $8 a box. I can get the same thing for $7 a box online, but with the added cost of shipping, the local store price comes out cheaper unless I order enough boxes online to negate the shipping cost.

The other LGS has been selling Anderson lowers for $40 each for the last several months. They said they have sold over 300 at that price. That's $10 below what they cost directly from the factory. It was such a good deal, I picked up three of them even though I only needed one for my build.
 
Welcome to the FREE MARKET!

Unless you have a store that claims they will match or beat anyone else's price, you have nothing to complain about how a store prices its products.

Think they charge too much? Simply shop somewhere else!

I understand how a shop has not only overhead to meet, but also has to turn some degree of profit, and I will allow them that, and support them.

However, some shops do go "above and beyond", and that, I see as just greed.

I see the same things at the shows, stupidly foolish asking prices. The guys who are willing to deal, sell things. The ones who don't take home most of their stuff at the end of the show.
 
I have a number of gun shops that I frequent (God Bless Southern Indiana). Of my 4 main shops, 2 deal mostly with used guns, and their prices are between cheap and reasonable (they are my favorites).

2 are more traditional shops. 1 is a smaller shop, fewer staff, and a reasonable inventory, with pretty good prices. The other is a bigger shop, typically 3-5 employees on the floor at a time, and they have almost every gun I would ever want to see. They also have a large selection of holsters, targets, ammo- including oddball calibers, etc. They have the highest prices in the area, and are known for paying jack squat when buying a gun from a customer.

Do I think they are "overpricing"? Perhaps, if by overpricing we mean charging more than everyone else. Would I rather have them drop their inventory, carry just the mainstream stuff, cut their staff, and overall reduce the quality of their shop? Absolutely not. Sometimes you pay for more than the gun/ammo.
 
Some do some dont. Once you get ahold of what shops and or stores to buy what from it makes things a lot easier. I go certain places for certain things, always knowing what im looking for.
 
Being that I live in sort of a rural area, we have only one shop that is local. They are out in the country about 7 or 8 miles out of town, so not very convenient to get too either. They have a huge inventory of both used and new guns and extremely extravagant pricing on everything.
I go there when I need to have a lb. of powder or something like that, but I refuse to pay over normal retail for virtually every thing they sell.
Just as an example...I recently purchased an ammo can deal of ammo online for 179.00...they sell the same thing for 249.00. I would like to shop locally more, but this type of pricing is just insulting as far as I am concerned.
 
Living in a rural area with gun shops seemingly every file miles or so, all seem to be very competitive in pricing. Accessory pricing always seems to be locally available at, or below, levels similar to Midway's website.
 
"Price gouging" is spreading it a bit thin. That phrase refers to the deliberate inflation on the prices of basic necessities in periods of emergency.

If a gun store wants to ask exorbitant prices, it's not gouging. It's simply poor business practice.
 
I live in a city with 5 guns shops within 15 miles of one another as well as about 10 pawn shops. So they have to compete but for some reason none will price match. I do see differences of $50-$100 on guns so you have to shop around. Generally I see what I could get it for online and see who is the closest to that price because I would rather pay $35-$75 more at my shop than order online because of shipping and FFL fees so if they are within that range I buy local.
 
It's not just gun stores that can vary so much in pricing.
Most independent type stores can and do, whatever they stock and sell.
There's noticeable differences even with chain grocery stores on the same items in the same neighborhood.
It's just the way of the world.
And why shopping is such a popular pastime. :)
 
Tom Servo said:
"Price gouging" is spreading it a bit thin. That phrase refers to the deliberate inflation on the prices of basic necessities in periods of emergency.
Click to expand...
+1. IMHO almost every claim of "price gouging" I've heard in reference to gun stuff during the recent shortages has been spurious or misinformed. Basic market theory teaches us that sharply increasing demand leads to increasing prices and/or decreasing availability. Also IMHO, few of the panic buyers behind the recent shortages (and the ongoing shortage of .22LR) legitimately needed the items they were snapping up.

Additionally, the last several years have been VERY hard on LGS's in many areas, due to shortages of merchandise followed by a glut of certain items. Woe has befallen many gun stores that stocked up and/or over-ordered "tactical" merchandise during the last shortage, only to wind up with too much of it to feasibly sell once supply caught up with demand. (This problem recently took down a very well-known high-volume LGS in Dallas.) IOW I sympathize with the reasons that many LGS's are charging higher prices than they were before the last presidential election.
Tom Servo said:
If a gun store wants to ask exorbitant prices, it's not gouging. It's simply poor business practice.
Click to expand...
I dunno, if every "wabbit hunter" in the OP's neighborhood is paying those prices, it sounds like it's a GOOD business practice in that particular area – basic capitalism at work. :)
 
It depends on the product and store.

A few places have ridiculous prices on ammo.
A few places have ridiculous prices on firearms.
A few places have ridiculous prices on accessories.
Some places have ridiculous prices on more than one of the above.

But, overall, I wouldn't say my preferred shop is 'overpricing'.
Each shop is dealing with an economy of scale.
While MidwayUSA might buy XX ammo 4 pallets at a time (say, 400,000 rounds), my local shop can only justify maybe a case (200-500 rounds). In that instance, Midway likely gets a bulk discount, can order directly from the manufacturer, and has substantially lower shipping costs. However, my local shop gets no real discount on the ammunition, has to buy from a distributor, and pays high shipping costs. As such, they can't offer the product at the same price as Midway.

Some types of ammunition might move very well in other areas, but don't move worth a crap in this area. As such, my preferred shop might only order a single box of that type of ammo at a time. You can bet your butt that it is not going to be competitively priced! It's just the way the business has to operate.

I could go on, but it really just boils down to two concepts:
1. Some people want your money and think you're dumb enough to pay their asking price.
2. Economy of scale.
 
Everything is high-priced in my area.
Guns marked above suggested retail, used guns priced higher than new guns available elsewhere, etc.
I remember calling a local store before ordering online, thinking I should at least try to do business locally, and when I quoted the online retail price, the local guy said it must be a used gun, as that's lower than his wholesale cost.
 
An internet vendor can run his business out of a garage. Your local shop has property and business taxes, heat, power, insurance, maintenance, parking lot striping, employees, customers who visit and buy nothing, quite a few expenses that a website vendor is not going to have.
 
Another issue is if the shop uses traditional vendors, he probably pays what that online shop sells it for. He has to mark it up somehow. Cant give it away at the same price.
 
And, in general, the ones who overprice the most complain the loudest when business is bad. For some reason, they never "get it."
 
Another issue is if the shop uses traditional vendors,
Click to expand...

That's the guy that's too lazy to shop around.

The "traditional vendors" like Davidson's. Natchez, et.al. all have a healthy markup on their stuff. Davidson's may have a lifetime guarantee, but my question is: "Whose lifetime?"
 
kilimanjaro said:
An internet vendor can run his business out of a garage. Your local shop has property and business taxes, heat, power, insurance, maintenance, parking lot striping, employees, customers who visit and buy nothing, quite a few expenses that a website vendor is not going to have.
Click to expand...

So true! This is one reason I try to keep my money local, cause they want to make a living just like us.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of businesses out there that also try to get as much money as possible out of each of there customers too, with extremely high prices. I see this here in Yakima as well. and because of these types of businesses, I will only buy firearms from two or three different shops here in town that sell at reasonable prices.
 
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