"No Carry" businesses and their bottom line

[Shorts]

I saw a sign at a gun store once, "No loaded weapons inside". I was perturbed, but I just drove 1hr to get off the island to get to this dang store up in the trees, I wasn't leaving until I went in. So, I turned around and left my carry in the truck console and locked it up.


What do you think about gun stores with signs? I find it odd and conflicting. Granted, the above sign wasn't a legal sign, just a posted request. But still, it was an intention non the less.

 

[protectedbyglock]

I went to a gun show once, and the guy at the door wanted to make sure the gun i was openly carrying wasn't loaded. He said he didn't care about the loaded .45 I was concealing.
I think the idea is that if you are selling a gun, they don't want people handing around a loaded weapon.
Hopefully, that's what the sign really meant.

I probably would have asked them why.

 

[Bogie]

Yeah, you can't keep all customers happy, but essentially throwing away a customer who can prove that he/she can pass a multitude of background checks just doesn't seem like common sense to me... And I've never heard of someone refusing to shop somewhere because there was -not- a no-guns sign posted...

I've explained to local folks that "Hey, I don't shop at Schnuck's - they've got signs on the doors that they don't want people with concealed carry permits as customers." And I'll get a puzzled look and they'll say something like "Doesn't every store have those signs?" And I'll tell them "Well, Dierberg's doesn't discriminate, Wal-Mart's supercenters don't discriminate, and there are lots of other stores. I just feel like Schucks is acting like they'd rather have a gangsta for a customer than have me, because the gangsta will ignore the sign."

 

[Garand Illusion]

Since you know about good business managers...any good business owner/manager knows that you can't please everone all the time and won't engage in the fool's errand to try to do so.

You do lose customers and that is a fact. If you cater to one group, you will likely lose another. If you cater to the gun folks, you will likely piss off the anti-gun folks, hence losing their business. The question for the business is whether the "no guns" sign is really hurting the business or not. It may be that the sign improves business. So the loss of your $1000 'fridge sale may be offset by the gain of selling three more $1000 'fridges to customers that otherwise would not have purchased. All of a sudden, the loss of your sale is pretty meaningless since the store owner is $2000 ahead in sales of where he was had he catered to you.

So the question remains, can gun owners really show businesses that they are losing any real market share and/or profit? Do businesses see financial gains by their "no guns" policies?

I do understand a little something about business myself ... and I don't argue with anything in your post. Please read mine again. I was very clear that my argument is that there IS no benefit to putting up signs.

Of course if you put up a sign that ticks off 1 person but brings in 3, then that's a good sign. Duh.

But at least in Colorado, no guns signs don't do that. Although I haven't done a study on it ... just putting up a sign that says "no firearms" makes the anti-gun type people nervous because they wonder why it's there. I once had a conversation with an anti-gun type on a plane flight out of Minneapolis (I believe, don't remember) but they asked me why those no-firearms signs are needed at some mall.

So ... it's pretty clear. If you don't have a sign up, and no one demands you put one up, then not having a sign up is neutral. If you then put a sign up, and ten people tell you they're going elsewhere, then putting up the sign was a bad thing.

That's what I believe most companies are finding. If Home Depot felt that sign brought in more customers than it chased away, they would have it up in neon by now? Comprende?

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Sure, but what I am comprending is that you are claiming a cause and effect with no stipulated basis.

Yes, not having the sign up is neutral. You say that having the sign up will lose business. I am saying that having the sign up just as well may gain business. You don't know that it won't. I don't know that it will. I am simply pointing out that the logic works both ways and that there may be more profit in supporting anti-gun types than pro-gun types. Comprende?

After all, the non-gun carrying population is MUCH larger than the gun carrying population. It is then a question of whether the percentage of the non-gun carrying population is anti-gun and supportive of such actions or not.

Your local Home Depot guy may have taken down the signs and that is great and that may reflect where you live and that is great. Or, he may have just thought it was pretty stupid as well. Companies like Chickfila make decisions that affect negatively affect profits and do so not because of the bottom line. We have some local businesses that even put political signs in their store. This is bound to alienate some of their customers, but they are willing to do so.