Buds is getting slammed. They have broken the daily sales record twice last week since they have been in business. Go to their web site and look how many are on line. They average around 3,000 at at time. The store is no different, no place to park and I waited 15 minutes last month to pick up a gun I had shipped and this was at noon.
Most of their prices are at a very low margin 5% or so. The prices are set at the distributor not Buds. The gun manufactures are having a hard time keeping up.
Part of the e-mail
After spending the first six weeks of 2012 attending various firearms industry shows, including the NSSF Shot Show in Las Vegas with the highest dealer attendance of record, there was one obvious recurring theme from every manufacturer we visited with...."we just can't make enough firearms". Although we fully expected another surge later in 2012, it has already started as the ATF continues to report all time record highs in background/NICS checks as well as Conceal Carry/CCW permit applications.
We are also experiencing record high sales on
www.budsgunshop.com, actually breaking our all time single day sales records TWICE this month ! Considering we had no special promotions going on, and we exceeded every sales record dating all the way back to 2003, it seems pretty clear ......"Here we go again !"
As the national media and general public become increasingly aware of the deteriorating supply and demand issues.....we ALL know what comes next....higher prices ! Although upsetting to most people, it can also be an amazing opportunity for those who are in a position to buy "early and often". Whether you are an investor, collector, or reseller...you would be hard pressed to find a single more lucrative investment than firearms at this time. If you are not currently in a position to buy ?....you should still be very happy about the future appreciation in value of your current firearms collection !
To many customers, and even those outside the firearms industry, it would appear that gun dealers like us are primed and ready to take advantage of situations like this. Although there is admittedly opportunity during these times, it is nearly impossible for us to predict and adequately prepare for the sudden and extreme increases that can occur with nationwide internet sales. You do not have huge increases in sales without also having huge increases in phone calls, emails, shipping, etc.....so it can very quickly become overwhelming.
If you find yourself waiting on hold, or waiting on a reply to an email, please reference our active customer counter on the top right corner of our website. If you are attempting to contact us during a high volume time (over 2,500 customers online) you may want to wait until the volume decreases and try again later. For example, as we are sending you this email, the number of customers currently shopping on
www.budsgunshop.com is over 3,000 !
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Other answers and explanations to frequently asked questions are provided below for your review.
Our website prices fluctuate up and down often. The reason for these fluctuations is that we do NOT manually price our products based upon our actual cost of each product. Our philosophy is that it matters very little what we originally paid for any item, as the item is only worth what the market (= replacement value) is at the time of your purchase. To accomplish this, we use constantly updated data feeds from our many suppliers to calculate our current replacement cost. Therefore, our website prices will fluctuate both up and down (and mainly up this year) as our current replacement costs also fluctuates. We do NOT have people on staff manually changing prices of +32,000 website items every hour. This is all accomplished by automated cost analysis programs in an effort to offer you, our customer, the current lowest market price on each and every firearm we sell.
We are now shipping firearms, ammunition and accessories direct from suppliers in multiple states. As a result, delivery times may vary by several days depending upon which items you order and your proximity to those warehouses. If you order multiple items on the same order, you may receive multiple tracking numbers as the items may ship from multiple locations. Please be patient, as if your first package does not include your complete order contents, another package(s) will arrive soon after.
We continue to hire and train staff weekly for phone, email and Live Chat customer support. Our customer service staff for existing orders is kept in house...as we admittedly and proudly put a priority on those customers who have already given us their business. However, for new sales and product related questions, the volume of those calls simply forced us to contract with a third party Call Center here in the U.S.
We continue to invest in our automated answering system. This automated system can actually answer the majority of your existing order questions if you will identify yourself to the system by entering your order number when prompted. Unlike our Call Center staff, the automated system is available to answer your questions 24/7.
Here's the deal....it's probably going to get worse before it gets better. Every contact and indicator we have tells us that guns and ammo are selling MUCH faster than they can be manufactured. Our suppliers inventories are dropping drastically every day and they are already quoting 4-6 month back orders on all new orders !
Like it or not (and we don't)...."Here we go again !"
Team Buds
