Tag Archives: Gun Sales

Slumping Gun Sales?

In an article about slumping gun sales over at TTAGs, Dicks blames the political environment.

Allow me to retort.  Gun Sales may have slowed down overall… that is true.  The reason is not a lack of desire for new guns.  It’s a lack of liquid money in the hands of consumers.  Let’s be honest.  With Obama care and that economic stranglehold, compounded with cutbacks and rising gas prices… it’s tough to justify spending the extra green.  Now let’s add the fact that a lot of the popular guns use ammo that’s hard to find as well… Lots of factors go into an overall slump in gun sales.

But let’s look at Dick’s Sporting Goods specifically.  What could cause them to have lower sales compared to other gun stores?

I’ve been in several Dick’s stores between here in Richmond, VA for various reasons.  I always wander over to the gun counter to take a look.  What I see are the usual suspects of the common hunting guns… A couple Rugers, Remingtons, and a Marlins… A few shotguns.  Nothing interesting.  No MSR’s to speak of.  No handguns, which over the last few years have been the sales leaders.  Concealed Carry is the biggest sales segment and Dick’s is having none of that.   MSR’s have also been sales leaders and Dick’s doesn’t want to sell those in their stores.  So the #1 Rifle in America, they are too good for, so they are getting none of those sales.   Ammo selection was almost nonexistent, as was the Counter Help at the Gun Department.   And then when you could find someone to show you a gun, the person was an asshole that seemed to be put out that you were bothering him/her.   Never before has a Store ever been so well named.    Dick’s has slumping gun sales because they are not serious about being in the gun sales business.   They are more worried about Crossfit and Sports.  And that’s fine… The Gun Industry doesn’t need a store like Dick’s if their attitude is that of negligence and disrespect.

Message to Joe Schmidt, Dick’s COO:   Now, Dick’s could get back into the game.  And it wouldn’t take a lot of effort… but it would take a few new good people in the right places who can make Gun Department decisions separate from rest of Dick’s Corporate Structure.   They need some serious Gun Guys at Dick’s.   And they don’t have that.  Dick’s is wearing the shoes they laced up by their own choice.   Joe, contact me and we can talk about how to fix this.

The AR rush

The hottest gun selling now is of course, the AR.  We’ve sold hundreds of every kind, as many as we could get our hands on.  People have been buying them like crazy.  We are now completely sold out.  And we sold over 620 magazines… after limiting people to 3 each.  This is the craziest gun buying rush I’ve ever seen.  And the demand is not easing off.

If these sales were because of a spike in popularity… because of Christmas as everyone wants an AR because they are fun to shoot, and awesome to have… This would be great.  This would be a season to remember.  I’d be loving this.  But that’s not what’s been happening.  People are buying rifles like this because they are afraid of a possible ban and they are afraid of the Government.  That puts a sour taste in my mouth for all this.

This is not just here locally… this is Nation Wide.  I even had reporters call me at work and home.  Here’s one report.

As I said in the article, normally I’d be selling deer rifles, shotguns, and the like.  Now it’s all Concealed Carry type guns and fighting rifles.  All AR’s and AK’s are gone and all full capacity magazines.  This isn’t what normally flies this time of year.

 

Crazy Gun Sales

I’ve never seen gun-sales like today. It’s been busy since Black Friday, and really busy all week. But I’ve never seen it like today. We broke records. We completely sold out of all AR rifles. They are gone. Done.
We have more on order, but I don’t think we will ever have the AR stockpile like we had before… They are going to trickle in and be sold before they hit the shelves.
All of our 5.56mm/.223 ammo in 50 round packs or larger is all gone as well.
I still have .223 Remington in 20 round boxes… your Varmageddon, V-Max and Ballistic Silvertips, and that’s it.
I’ve never seen anything like this.

Edit:  To give you guys an idea of the volume I’m talking about… When it comes to inventory, Basin Sports is one of the biggest new gun dealers not just in the state of Utah, but in the western states.  We had one hell of an inventory of tactical rifles.  Yeah… they are all gone now.