Gun Prices will be on the rise

Running a firearms business is unique in the business industry. There are so many additional fees and licenses required to import firearms and accessories, that the CAD price of any firearm will usually ALWAYS be more than the USD market price, even when the dollar was/is par. In addition we also have such a small market share, we will never be competitive with the US market.


That said, we also have the 4 or 5 national distributors/importers that generally set the firearms prices in Canada for the arms they distribute.

I work in a gunshop, and when we receive an order of firearms, we always calculate pricing based on our actual cost, just like any other business. That fluctuates based on what the distributors charge us. If our price goes up 20%, so does the retail price to maintain the same margins. When the dollar was par last year, we kept the same margins and reduced our retail price accordingly.

You wouldn't expect any business to absorb a 20% increase in pricing just to maintain yesterday's pricing, what is different about the firearms industry? The market dictates what people are willing to pay for firearms, and the profit margin on firearms is way less than most people think.
 
And I find it interesting that *some* people feel qualified to make such a statement....LMAO, you own a single small store....let me bow to yoour expertise.

What is truly funny is that you have NO CLUE "how long I would last", my experience base, qualifications, or even what I do for a living....yet you seem comfortable making that assumption. Thats the thing with the 'net....you never know. For all you know I may own a *chain* of *several* retail stores, and have an intimate knowledge of how it works.
I didn't lose 10K last year....and I won't this year either

But then again, I don't own a small gun shop so I obviously have no clue about global/Canadian finance and the retail sector.......

Do what you need to do, price how you need to price, I don't care. If it's too high I won't pay it, if it's decent I will, but please don't assume you can dictate consumption.
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It is easy for me to make that judgment because for me if my price goes up I either charge more or close the doors. Yet you think that when I say the price goes up its all part of a dealer organized scam. If you did own a chain of stores you would or should understand it. I have never met retailer who didnt understand it. It is not very complicated at all.

Item wholesale cost is $100.00 and is sold for $125.00

Items wholesale cost goes up to $120.00, retail price gets raised to $145.00

Money does not grow on trees and it is pointless to sell at cost just to look good. But since you are hinting that you have some kindof understanding about this enlighten me with your buisness plan of what a retailer should do when their cost of an item rises by the same margin of their profit.

This reminds me of a story a local Ford dealer told me. They had a $300 000 dollar combine on the lot and a customer figured he should get $40 000 off because he was a repeat customer. The salesman told him his profit is only 7% ($279 000 cost) Yet the customer still did not get it and sugjested that even if he lost money it was better then not making a sale at all and walked away.

If you do not make money in buisness you are not in buisness, some people have trouble grasping the concept that a buisness person would drop a half million dollars on a building and inventory and expect to make money off of it. It seems selfish doesnt it?
 
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enlighten me with your buisness plan of what a retailer should do when their cost of an item rises by the same margin of their profit.
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Easy: Charge more. But when your cost goes down, don't screw your customers by keeping the inflated price.


To recap: if your cost goes up, your price SHOULD go up...I have no problem with that..

However, when your cost went down with the rise in the dollar, your price should have come down as well.....but it didn't. We were all fed the line about "bought at a lower dollar", but it would appear that you didn't buy anything while the dollar was at par, 'cause your prices sure didn't come down to reflect it.

In a nutshell: When the dollar was low, you bought, and charged enough to make a profit....fair enough.
When the dollar was high, you bought, and charged the same amount yielding a larger profit

Funny how you are first to post "Prices going up!"...but I never saw "Prices lowered!"

I'm not getting into a pissing contest with you, mostly because I don't care.
 
Steyr101 said:
I work in a gunshop, and when we receive an order of firearms, we always calculate pricing based on our actual cost, just like any other business. That fluctuates based on what the distributors charge us. If our price goes up 20%, so does the retail price to maintain the same margins. When the dollar was par last year, we kept the same margins and reduced our retail price accordingly.
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Exactly how it should be done. :)
 
If you want to get technical I did have a heading on my website last January that prices were going to be adjusted for the stronger dollar. And yes prices did come down on everything priced in american dollars, not the full 15% but about 10% (inflation charges are between 3-5% by american manufactors) so what ever point you are trying to get at is not very clear. If you would like to be more specific in your examples of pricing not going down, you might make more sence but right now you seem to just be pretending to be a victom of gouging dealer but cannot realy point to any real proof.

Please correct me if I am wrong here but I noticed the following price drops in the last 2 years.

2007 Glock $799-$899
2008 Glock $599-$699

2007 Bushnell Elite 3200s $249-$259.00
2008 Bushnell Elite 3200s $219-$229.00

Before you acuse me (or who ever that was directed to) of not lowering prices because of the dollar, try checking your facts first instead of making them up.
 
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DOOK said:
To complete your thought:
They sit on the shelf, and don't sell. The retailer has to acquiesce, and sell his stock at a loss to keep his store open. Some employees get laid off.
He eventually has to liquidate all his remaining stock at a loss, and his store folds, leaving yet one more gun dealer out of the market, and one less dealer you can get your firearms,parts, and ammo from.

See where this is leading?
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Yeah... that's how the cookie crumbles. Wether it's gun stores, car dealerships or hot dog stands.

I don't know how stand alone gun-shops stay in business these days in the first place... 'Not a business I'd wanna get into.
 
Here is some reality facts:

Last year I sold a new H&K USP Compact Tactical 1,350$.

Right now I have a new one in the display at 1,100$. It will be sold at that price.

Next one that comes in will be marked up from my cost as usual, and will be in the display with 1,300$ written on the tag.
 
If what we are told is the truth ( and we know its not ) they, the oil giants say they work on a 6 month prediction by buying crude in advance, last week we saw crude at an all time low $68 a barrel that should equate to a price somewhere around 35 cents a litre at the pump in 6 months time.

If we do not see this happen I suggest you write to your MP, local papers, radio etc etc and start to kick up and fight for your rights.
 
Wrong Way said:
Easy: Charge more. But when your cost goes down, don't screw your customers by keeping the inflated price.


To recap: if your cost goes up, your price SHOULD go up...I have no problem with that..

However, when your cost went down with the rise in the dollar, your price should have come down as well.....but it didn't. We were all fed the line about "bought at a lower dollar", but it would appear that you didn't buy anything while the dollar was at par, 'cause your prices sure didn't come down to reflect it.

In a nutshell: When the dollar was low, you bought, and charged enough to make a profit....fair enough.
When the dollar was high, you bought, and charged the same amount yielding a larger profit

Funny how you are first to post "Prices going up!"...but I never saw "Prices lowered!"

I'm not getting into a pissing contest with you, mostly because I don't care.
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I think the problem is that customers expected to see immediate price changes when the dollar was worth more. The reason the prices took longer to come down was that the old inventory had to be sold (at the old price). since many customers expected a new lower price, many were waiting for old inventory to be exhausted.
This time around, we have many customers snapping up items at the old price, to avoid the forthcoming price increase. So it seems to be taking less time to exhaust old inventory.
As pointed out above, we tend to operate on a fixed (and relatively low) margin.
 
The old inventory game. I am sure there are a lot of honorable gun dealers in Canada who do as the gent from Montreal with the H&K said.
But I think it is because we get screwed in so many other areas that we paint all businesses with the same brush.

The best story I heard was on Cross Country Check Up last November. A fellow goes into a book store in Canada and sees a book with the usual $25US/$38Cdn. He asks about the price since we were at $1.03 American then. They say no you have to pay the $38. Well he says I have American money I will just give you $25 US dollars!!!
Oh no she says the exchange on US money is 95% today so it would cost you over $40 that way.
This is why we don't have CCW:)
 
redleg said:
I think the problem is that customers expected to see immediate price changes when the dollar was worth more. The reason the prices took longer to come down was that the old inventory had to be sold (at the old price). since many customers expected a new lower price, many were waiting for old inventory to be exhausted.
This time around, we have many customers snapping up items at the old price, to avoid the forthcoming price increase. So it seems to be taking less time to exhaust old inventory.
As pointed out above, we tend to operate on a fixed (and relatively low) margin.
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That makes sense.
 
Mr.Trout said it best....we live in a small market....there are only a few distributors in Canada and everybody ends up buying new from them and then charging what the market will allow so they can make a profit...it is called the "capitalist system"...so we all get screwed because we have no choice "mandatory insuarance" does the same thing to us.....If we had a free gun market like the usa where you can buy more direct from thousands of sources you get competition and the prices where a handgun that would cost you $800 here would be more like the $400 they pay for it there....don't buy all the marketing bull#### companies try to feed you, when prices are up you charge more, when they are down you still try to get the same or more....it is called being in business and I know what I am talking about because I own a business.:jerkit:
 
BlackWatch said:
The best story I heard was on Cross Country Check Up last November. A fellow goes into a book store in Canada and sees a book with the usual $25US/$38Cdn. He asks about the price since we were at $1.03 American then. They say no you have to pay the $38. Well he says I have American money I will just give you $25 US dollars!!!
Oh no she says the exchange on US money is 95% today so it would cost you over $40 that way.
This is why we don't have CCW:)
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Huh?

Can we lobby to close down this bookstore and then we'll have CCW?:confused::confused::confused:
 
Wow, not a lot of whining here. The reality is that there are several gunshops in the US that sell more guns in a year than our top 3 importers combined. We have NO market buying power, our importers pay more than a lot of stores in the US. Get used to this. Using US pricing at Canadian volume is a halucination of the worst sort, so step back from the crack pipe and accept reality. Our guns cost more, we are a fractional market, they always will cost more, because manufaturers use velocity pricng on all SKUs. Velocity pricing rewards fast sales at high volume, we don't have that. We get the 'marginal dealer' billing decks at the importer level, ergo we do not get the same deal as 'Buds Guns', or 'Kesselrings' or 'Buffalo Gun Center'. Our importers also pay more than RSR or any other supplier, and in many cases I'm sure they pay more than 'Bud's Guns'. It's called Capitalism, look it up.

ETA: Those of you complaining about pricing here have no concept of how difficult it is to make a living selling guns in Canada, I've seen it first hand and believe me no one is getting rich.
 
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RTaylor
$68.00 a bbl for crude translates into what??? 35 cents per lire???
BTW - $68 is not an"all time low" for crude

So if crude was $10 / bbl, gasoline should be 5 cents a litre???

Water is free so when you want a bottled water the seller should pay you to buy it huh.

It just does not work that way. It never has and never will. There are costs to everything, some fixed, some very very flexible - these costs need to be paid, usually in advance and in cash.

Oh ya -- its a big plot by everyone against the "little guys".

Please, please go out find some of that cheap crude and make gasoline out of it and sell it for 35 cents and you will make your billions and retire!

same as guns - please go out and get all those free guns and parts down in the States and bring them in and clean up--

Business is soooooo easy when you are not the one trying to predict what will happen tomorrow - never mind next year.
 
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