dogtown tom
New member
When YOU can't afford the price or are unwilling to pay its gouging.buck460XVR
....actually, IMHO, it's both.Quote:
Good grief it ain't price gouging....its called capitalism.
Oddly, buyers don't go whining when a seller prices his product below market price. Its just as simple as "don't like the price, go buy somewhere else".
Again, we have someone who has little experience with a retail business and never dealt with retail supply chains.I doubt in the case the OP gives that the wholesaler has doubled their prices($600) to the retailer. In the OPs scenario, it's clearly gouging and a retailer taking advantage of the climate and the availability of handguns right now. I have no problem with a dealer having to raise their price accordingly when their costs go up. I have no problem with a dealer raising prices because demand is clearing his shelves and he has no idea of when he might be able to replace them. But, during this and other previous panic shortages with guns/ammo/reloading components, there are many obvious examples of gouging. The OP's s clearly one of them. Manufacturers do not sell their products to distributors for over advertised MSRP.
Whether the wholesale price has increased or not, DEMAND HAS.
Ever hear of the law of supply and demand?
That scarcity means the gun dealer isn't able to reorder as usual and may not get resupplied for months if not years. So he has a choice.....sell at his regular price or raise his prices to what the market will bear. You see this as gouging and unethical. That retailer sees it as a means to keeping his doors open. He'll go from selling twenty guns a day to selling none......because the distributors ARE OUT OF STOCK. It matters not one bit what price the distributor shows if none are in stock.
If you have a hundred guns in your display case do you sell them for 5% over cost? Understand 5% is the typical margin on new guns. You'll be sold out within a few days because of the demand. You'll be unable to reorder for months because distributors are out of stock.
OR
Do you increase your retail price to meet the market demand, knowing that once those one hundred are gone you won't be getting restocked for months, if that soon.
Everyone loves to bag on Cheaper Than Dirt, but they are still in business when hundreds of other gun stores failed. I despise them for other reasons but not for price gouging. No one forces you to buy from anyone. If you can find it cheaper somewhere else well then bucko.....GO BUY IT THERE!
Those being "taken advantage of" by high prices? Well maybe you should have paid attention to the state of the gun and ammunition market the last fifteen years.
2020 should not have surprised anyone.