"Gun companies want to make profits, not create great products"

[revchuck38]

Enthusiasts will never be happy with mainstream products, I think by definition.

Yup. I probably have the only PX4s and P99Cs for a 50-mile radius.

[Borderland]

It used to be, but the availability of these things (to include ammo) online make them not worth the square footage to stock. Well, ammo we do stock as the guy that wants one box of 9mm isn't paying ~$10 S&H. It is amazing as to the differences in sales reports from 2009 and 2023.

Honesty, I cannot count the times I have had someone say that they'll look online when offered a $9.99 Hoppe's starter cleaning kit. Amazon sells the same kit, delivered, for the same price. Our markup? ~$1.25. (These are pre-Covid numbers, no idea what the prices are now). These are usually the same people that claim early on that they want to support the local shops.


The days of trying to actually help the customer who came in to buy an LCP for protection against Grizzly bears in PA (yes, true story) with fact are over. Now I ask if they need a box of ammo with that. I'll also tell them that G2 RIP ammo is an informed choice and should suit them well. I guess that saying about 'comforting lies vs unpleasant truths' is true.

I can't fix stupid, but I can let them to spend their money. I also now understand the grumpy gunshop fuck behind the counter...I was him until I embraced reality.

The days of trying to actually help the customer who came in to buy an LCP for protection against Grizzly bears in PA (yes, true story) with fact are over.

Recent experience at Cabela's. I wanted to buy a new Citori shotgun. Went in and couldn't get anyone behind the counter to even look at me. I did that twice until I figured out there was a que and you had to get in it using your phone and scanning an image on the counter. The 3rd time I went in I did that. Waited 30 minutes and left. Never did buy a new shotgun because I never really got a chance to examine one. I did however find a used one there that I bought. That happened because I pulled it off the rack myself, broke it down and examined it, decided it fit, and bought it. Took about 20 Minutes to pay for it. Had to wait 10 days to pick it up.

People are probably just buying online and avoiding that experience, even though the prices are the same.

No way in hell would I work at Cabela's unless I was starving.

[okie john]

The days of trying to actually help the customer who came in to buy an LCP for protection against Grizzly bears in PA (yes, true story) with fact are over.

Recent experience at Cabela's. I wanted to buy a new Citori shotgun. Went in and couldn't get anyone behind the counter to even look at me. I did that twice until I figured out there was a que and you had to get in it using your phone and scanning an image on the counter. The 3rd time I went in I did that. Waited 30 minutes and left. Never did buy a new shotgun because I never really got a chance to examine one. I did however find a used one there that I bought. That happened because I pulled it off the rack myself, broke it down and examined it, decided it fit, and bought it. Took about 20 Minutes to pay for it. Had to wait 10 days to pick it up.

People are probably just buying online and avoiding that experience, even though the prices are the same.

No way in hell would I work at Cabela's unless I was starving.

Cabela's is a mess EXCEPT that when you buy something in the Gun Library, there's no shipping charge to get it to the store closest to you.


Okie John

[bofe954]

I dunno. Sometimes enthusiasts will drive the development of a “niche” product that then goes mainstream because of the feature benefits. I’ve seen this first hand, as the enthusiast, big time.

I think that is probably typical, the enthusiast is willing to put the time and money in to development, pay more than it would be worth to most people.

I remember when the only people who had red dots and comps on their pistols were USPSA open gun shooters. Now they are becoming mainstream, not sure a pistol has to have either to be a great product.

There were a lot of aftermarket superchargers on mustangs, camaros and challengers before they were offered from the factory.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Cabela's is a mess EXCEPT that when you buy something in the Gun Library, there's no shipping charge to get it to the store closest to you.


Okie John

Yeah, I've only bought one gun at Cabelas - my 632 as it was an unusual gun and probably dumped by SW at the time. I found their clerks to be quite ignorant as time. Just a silly thing, I wanted a pair of shooting gloves. Asked the clerk where they were. He swore they did not carry them. A brief look found a whole display of them.

When I bought the 632, the clerk insisted it was a 22 LR because it was marked as such - confused as a 63-2. Duh, maybe that's why they had it at a good price.

[Archimagirus]

Fast nickels, low dimes, glacial quarters. That was the way my cost control professor described pricing structures.

The key, I think, is to make the thing that makes you a dime, efficient enough for you to produce and attractive enough for purchasers to spend the extra five cents.

The how, now there’s the rub. In my estimation, the company’s that are able to make that change to fast dimes focus on the improved experience of the purchaser.

Some examples:

The explosion of Fast Casual restaurants in the 2000’s. Better quality food than fast food, that a server brings to your table, that you don’t pay normal dining prices for.

The proliferation of website design companies, I.e. Square, Wix, Etc. Minimal to no coding or design experience lets you get your business online with sellable inventory with a minimal amount of effort.

The new product lines from Beretta and S&W with the input of Lipseys. The new products are selling an experience that one had to pay a premium for before, that are now included in the price.

Apple under and with Jonny Ive and Steve Jobs. The iPhone was designed around the experience that they wanted the customer to have with the product.

I could go on and on, but I think if your reflect on some of the products you feel the most positively about, the positivity relates to the experience you had with it, not the thing itself.

Just my two cents.

[runcible]

As an example - KOENIGSEGG can 3d print a complete, assembled turbocharger for a hypercar. That's amazing - and it's not cheap (yet). When will it be cheap? That's the billion dollar question.

FWIW, whether that's BPM or SLS, that option is already less than a tenth of the cost of what it was 9 years ago when that video was posted; and that's in tool purchase cost terms. As was said in the video, switching to whichever method they used dropped their costs dramatically.

Rapid production 3DP is pretty mature now on the traditional/filament side of the house. SLS mass production has been pretty accessible the last few years and my understanding is that BMP production options are now broadly accessible for the last 2 years or so.

All of those porous suppressors shown at SHOT 2024 are SLS products.

[okie john]

Fast nickels, low dimes, glacial quarters. That was the way my cost control professor described pricing structures.

The key, I think, is to make the thing that makes you a dime, efficient enough for you to produce and attractive enough for purchasers to spend the extra five cents.

The how, now there’s the rub. In my estimation, the company’s that are able to make that change to fast dimes focus on the improved experience of the purchaser.

Some examples:

The explosion of Fast Casual restaurants in the 2000’s. Better quality food than fast food, that a server brings to your table, that you don’t pay normal dining prices for.

The proliferation of website design companies, I.e. Square, Wix, Etc. Minimal to no coding or design experience lets you get your business online with sellable inventory with a minimal amount of effort.

The new product lines from Beretta and S&W with the input of Lipseys. The new products are selling an experience that one had to pay a premium for before, that are now included in the price.

Apple under and with Jonny Ive and Steve Jobs. The iPhone was designed around the experience that they wanted the customer to have with the product.

I could go on and on, but I think if your reflect on some of the products you feel the most positively about, the positivity relates to the experience you had with it, not the thing itself.

Just my two cents.

I agree with all of this, especially the focus on experience, but this isn't the gun world's first attempt at this. You could say it started with Winchester building the Model 70 Featherweight in response to Jack O'Connor's custom rifles. The semi-auto pistol world went through it in the late 1970s when everyone raced to bring out a 1911-like object with the hot custom features of the day. The AR platform is a monument to it, and we've seen it with fighting shotguns, flyweight hunting rifles, IDPA revolvers, etc. S&W did it with the 625 JM, which is why I'm confused that it took so long to reach the J-frame guns--surely there are more J-frame buyers then N-frame buyers.

Well, at least we have them now. I can't wait to see what they have in store for the K-frame...


Okie John

[Hambo]

When I was working retail, margin was better on cleaning gear and books than on guns.


Okie John

Word from friends in the business is that that is still true. The margin on guns/ammo is shrinking for LGS because they have to compete with big box stores. Independent gun shops don't get quantity deals.

[Paul Blackburn]

Very few gun/ammo companies are going to invest in modernization at scale simply due to the anti gun environment they exist in.

Why did it take so long for S&W to add basic sights to their J-frame line? I would love to hear their explanation...

Just adding sights to the 442/642 would be a huge leap forward and yet sights so basic. So basic/rudimentary in fact that sights are now largely being replaced by the red dot.

Any here S&W is just now in 2024 getting around to adding useable sights only to a special production run.