Its seems that Walmart will be dropping firearms from their available merchandise in approximately 1000 stores. I wonder what is driving this decision? The news store quotes a new "community-based" stocking strategy for bossting sales.

"This decision is based on diminished customer relevancy and demand in these markets," said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Jolanda Stewart. Stewart declined to specify what stores were affected.

Wal-Mart has about 1,200 discount stores and 1,900 Supercenters, which include a full grocery section, in all 50 states. Wal-Mart says it sells rifles and shotguns. In Alaska, it also sells handguns.

In my opinion, this is a good thing. Walmart has hurt a lot of small businesses and a lot of manufacturers. This will take a lot of pressure off of gun store owners, who are able to provide attentive and knowledgeable service to us, their customers. It will take pressure off of gun manufacturers, as Walmart will no longer be able to use their buying power to squeeze all the profits out of them.

One of the sporting good chains around here (Sports Authority) has stopped selling guns and ammunition. If Walmart does this too, the affluent part of town I work in will have NO place to buy guns or ammunition. The low demand in those areas, along with places like Walmart, drove the little guys out of business. Now perhaps things will come full circle.

Very interesting. Some good reasoning there too, Uncruel.

Word was Dick's might be doing the same.

I also like the idea of the smaller guy benefitting.

jonas

smaller market, less competition, higher prices. OK for guns but not for gas? How about we go back to the Ma Bell days of phone service?

I say it's a bad deal for consumers and a further stigmatization of guns as a reputable product.

There's plenty of small gunshops that provide zilch service, putting it all back on the manufacturer if you have a problem. The consumer should have choices. That's the free market and the American system.

I'm not looking for an argument but I like buying guns at Walmart. Far and away the best prices. I like supporting the little guy too but most of them want to retire off the single gun purchase. I used to do business with a guy in Oregon. Keith of Keith's Sporting Goods who sold guns cost plus 10%. That was a great deal in my book and I gave him all my business until I moved out of the area. The local shops here in OH all charge a premium no matter what the gun. My most recent inquiries were for a Stevens Favorite, $196 at Wally World and $345 in his shop, and he wouldn't dicker at all. I showed him the Wally World flier and he said he hand no interest in competing. Not to business savvy in my book. I hope Walmart has a change of heart.

smaller market, less competition, higher prices. OK for guns but not for gas? How about we go back to the Ma Bell days of phone service?

I say it's a bad deal for consumers and a further stigmatization of guns as a reputable product.

There's plenty of small gunshops that provide zilch service, putting it all back on the manufacturer if you have a problem. The consumer should have choices. That's the free market and the American system.


Most small gunshops don't provide "service" as in gun repair because the days of the "gunsmith shop" are gone. For those few places that would or could provide gunsmith service, the extreme cost of liability insurance prohibits them from doing so. For those who would provide service w/o insurance, they risk loosing everything including their freedom even if they do nothing wrong. A lot of shops won't even sell parts anymore because a good scum sucking bottom feeder can always twist it around and say the shop owner didn't provide installation so he is liable even if he never touched the gun! Sounds far fetched but it has happened! Small shop in central NJ, bought a lot of stuff from this fellow over the years, great guy and excellent gunsmith. He sold a guy, I think an extractor, and the guy installed it himself. Apparently, the guy was a doofus and didn't reassemble the bolt correctly and it blew up in his face causing some serious injury. The guy's liar went after the gunshop owner and won, owner lost almost everything he owned over the deal!

Liability laws are insane anymore and I don't blame those shop owners who refuse to provide service and send you back to the mfg. My line of work is just as bad with liability, if I carried all the insurance I am supposed to, I would pay more in premiums than most doctors pay and while the doctors have mistakes and errors excused, I am liable for things I don't even have to touch.

It's not big chain stores killing the little guys, it's the insurance companies and lawyers killing us! Be sure you put the blame where it belongs.

It's not big chain stores killing the little guys, it's the insurance companies and lawyers killing us! Be sure you put the blame where it belongs.

My Liability isurance went up 600% in one year, so just closed the doors. :(

Lee L.

I've heard that wal Mart has always dropped their guns.

It's not big chain stores killing the little guys, it's the insurance companies and lawyers killing us! Be sure you put the blame where it belongs.

Not a truer word has been said here! It's all these junk lawsuits that's killing everything. People wonder why things aren't how they once were, well, someone somewhere did something stupid and sued over their lack of chromosomes and won, ruining it for everyone else. That opened the floodgates. I just heard of a guy here in MI who attempted to trespass on someones land to hunt. As he crossed the fence his shotgun went off and killed him. A hunter who had permission to hunt found him and called police. The trespassers family sued the landowners who lost the land over the deal citing that the fence was not maintained as it should have been, therefore causing the death of the trespasser. This is what our country has come to.

I'm all for Wal-Mart selling guns, I'm just mad I didn't start getting mine there sooner, I'd have saved hundreds of dollars on guns. I recently priced a gun at a sporting goods and Walmart. Walmart price was nearly $200 less. I support the smaller guys but I work hard for my money and that $200 difference could go for something else like another gun or gas...looks like I'll need that.

Got to agree about the liability insurance. I ran a small gun repair business for 27 years, right up to the time the liability insurance became more than any profit I was making.

I sold out my equipment and supplies to a young fella with stars in his eyes and a degree from a gunsmithing school. This talanted young man lasted about 4 years and then was out of business.

I like several of the others like buying guns a Walmart and will miss doing so if they quit selling guns. What local gun shops we did have want prices that only the idle rich can afford. Being idle is no problem for me, it's the rich part I'm short on.

I just bought a new Mossberg 835 Turkey gun at Wall Mart and paid less for it than most of the pawn shops wanted for old nasty looking ones.

New at a local gun shop would have cost another hundred and twenty five bucks. Instead of hunting I'd have been watching turkeys.

Sad to see it happen.

They probably just couldn't find enough ASIAN made guns!!

Yes, the legal aspect of the debate has its place. But be aware of the business practices related to "the lowest prices...always". The Walmart policy of continuing to drive down prices the longer they sell them directly affects the manufacturers' ability to make and sell at the same level. Materials don't get cheaper. Labor doesn't get cheaper (unless moved overseas). So, how do products get cheaper? The more you read up on it, the uglier it gets (for instance: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html).

Yup, free market, cheaper the better. But at what cost? My local guy keeps his prices about the lowest around. How? Volume. How does he keep his volume up? Good customer service = sales. His shop is within eyesight of Walmart AND Dick's. It's not like it not possible. "Cheaper is better" only gets us so far...gotta look at some of the bigger picture.

Now, don't get me wrong: I bought my 870 Express Supermag for about $100 cheaper at Dicks than it was at the local shop. Hard to pass that up. But, Dick's policy is that when I walked out the door, it's not their problem. Hope that gun doesn't break.

It's all pretty complicated. Lots of angles, lots of issues. But it's not just the law. Not just Wal-Mart. Gotta keep an open mind, gotta keep asking questions to fix the problems.

Anyway, don't mean to pick a fight or sound overly preachy. Just some thoughts.

jonas

Dick's policy is that when I walked out the door, it's not their problem. Hope that gun doesn't break.


Jonas, I think you'll find that anyone worth their salt who sells you a gun is going to direct you back to the mfg if it does not work. That's got nothing to do with anything else but warranty alone. If I buy a new gun, I expect it to work properly and if it doesn't that;s not fault of the seller, it's fault of the mfg.

I went thought a situation one time, got a new Win 94 that didn't feed correctly. I normally did not buy from the shop where I got it, I was looking for something else I needed and it was right there in front of me so I got that too. I took it back to the seller who said they could fix right up. About a half hour later they handed me the gun and a repair bill for $35. I questioned the cost since I had just purchased it earlier that day and after a long drawn out argument, I finally just paid it and left vowing to never return to that shop for anything. Turned out the gun then had serious issues with feeding & I decided to send it back to Win. I enclosed a note telling them what happened with the gun & the seller. I got the rifle back about 7-8 weeks later with a repair bill on which was noted that the warrantee was voided because an unauthorized person worked on it and caused further damages. Now my good deal $250 rifle ended up costing me $415 in shipping & repairs. I took the bill back to the seller who refused to pay it. Filed in small claims but got deployed before the hearing, had to cancel it and by the time I got back in the USA too much time had passed for me to re-file.

Had the dealer simply said to send it back to Win the first time, the repairs would have cost me nothing more than the oneway shipping. Sure, I should have known better but I was used to dealing with reputable dealers and quality gunsmiths. Point being, there are two sides to every story.

If you'll recall, Ithaca sent a good chunk of its mfg'ing to Japan resulting in the Ithaca/SKB name for some time but despite the much cheaper mfg'ing costs, Ithaca did not lower its prices. When Taurus came on the scene with their super low prices, people ignored them as "cheap imported junk" and refused to buy them because there felt there was no way to get quality at such low prices. Well, some folks felt as I did that the price was hard to pass up for a beater gun. I got a .357 revolver and much to everyone's surprise, it shot as accurately as anything else costing more than 3 times as much. Word got around and soon the prices went up to be on par with all the other brands yet their mfg costs are still way lower than the other brands. When Winchester became USRA, they farmed out a lot of their part mfg'ing to overseas suppliers to cut their costs. None of these cases had anything to do with wal-mart or dick's, these are simply business decisions.

Big sellers like W-M don't set the pricing, they pass on their savings to the customer. They get savings for the simple fact is they can buy a train car load of guns at a time where the little guy down the street can't afford to do so, that's not price fixing, that's called bulk buying and it works in any business no matter what the product is.

You said you saved $100 buying at Dick's...why did you do this instead of supporting the little guy?

I'll be bluntly honest here and tell you for fact that I will not deal with 99% of the gunshops I used to for the simple fact that they no longer provide any service at all and I don't mean gunsmithing. I needed blackpowder and went to 11 differnt local shops in PA and not a single one of them would get me the 1F granulation I desired even though I offered to pay more for their time and effort. The resounding answer I got was, "I'm not ordering BP until october." Then I went looking for some bulk ammo and Cu plated shot...same BS lines from all of them. I had one place that treated me half decent on gun sales but flat out refused to work with me on anything else, he absolutely despised the fact that I knew what he was paying, thing is I offered him more than a fair price for his time and effort. The end result was I got PO'ed and started looking on-line for what I wanted and found I could get the same stuff shipped to my door and didn't have to deal with the people who had the attitude that they were doing me a favor.

So that's part two of this. First, the little guy who is good gets killed with overhead and second all those who are useless make people like me not have any desire to even waste my time stopping at a local shop. I'm a little guy too but I also stand behind my work and if I screw something up, I eat it even if I can't afford to. I've got extremely high overhead and can't offer the same prices you can find elsewhere but along with it comes the piece of mind that I answer my phone and make my services available 24/7/365 My customers call me and they get me, not some twit at an answering service. When my truck pulls in, I'm driving it, not some moron who couldn't fix a burned out lightbulb without directions and pictures. Doesn't matter none though because the majority of people will continue to shop by price leaving me hanging out to dry even if their lower price service ends up costing them 10 times as much, I still don't get the call until they can't find anyone else.

Big sellers like W-M don't set the pricing, they pass on their savings to the customer. They get savings for the simple fact is they can buy a train car load of guns at a time where the little guy down the street can't afford to do so, that's not price fixing, that's called bulk buying and it works in any business no matter what the product is.

You said you saved $100 buying at Dick's...why did you do this instead of supporting the little guy?

I'll be bluntly honest here and tell you for fact that I will not deal with 99% of the gunshops I used to for the simple fact that they no longer provide any service at all and I don't mean gunsmithing. I needed blackpowder and went to 11 differnt local shops in PA and not a single one of them would get me the 1F granulation I desired even though I offered to pay more for their time and effort. The resounding answer I got was, "I'm not ordering BP until october." Then I went looking for some bulk ammo and Cu plated shot...same BS lines from all of them. I had one place that treated me half decent on gun sales but flat out refused to work with me on anything else, he absolutely despised the fact that I knew what he was paying, thing is I offered him more than a fair price for his time and effort. The end result was I got PO'ed and started looking on-line for what I wanted and found I could get the same stuff shipped to my door and didn't have to deal with the people who had the attitude that they were doing me a favor.



I'm not sure why it is you suggest that Walmart doesn't set pricing. Of course they do, thats how they can continue to lower prices:

"Wal-Mart wields its power for just one purpose: to bring the lowest possible prices to its customers. At Wal-Mart, that goal is never reached. The retailer has a clear policy for suppliers: On basic products that don't change, the price Wal-Mart will pay, and will charge shoppers, must drop year after year. But what almost no one outside the world of Wal-Mart and its 21,000 suppliers knows is the high cost of those low prices. Wal-Mart has the power to squeeze profit-killing concessions from vendors. To survive in the face of its pricing demands, makers of everything from bras to bicycles to blue jeans have had to lay off employees and close U.S. plants in favor of outsourcing products from overseas."

But, no need to debate.

Yup, I did't buy at Dick's, and had a pang of guilt in doing so. I went with what was less expensive, absolutely. I also buy clay and 12ga shells there. Why? Cheaper. Now I could also buy them at Walmart, but I won't. Vermont isn't a wealthy state. There is a need filled by Walmart.

It's very interesting that your experience (and by the sounds of things, many others') with local shops is so different from mine. Like I said, the shop I like is litterally a few hundred yards from both Walmart and Dick's, and he's doing fine. Why is that, and whay can't others? Maybe VT's open laws make that big a difference? I dunno...

Anyway, you make a good final point: the consumer ultimately determines what's going to happen. As long as people want/buy Walmart, this trend is likely to continue.
But to be fair, I'd guess 90-95% of gun purchaces (Walmart or otherwise) are not absolutely necessary: most of us buy for hunting and sport. As such, we have a choice as to where we spend our money.

jonas

Well guys

We've had big fight over the Walmart question everytime it's come up. With Walmart going out of the gun business we all have our pro's and con's

How about toning down the conversation a bit.

Yeah, sorry about that. Walmart has been a hotly contested issue in VT for years, guns aside.

Didn't mean to add fuel.

cheers

jonas

There have been some great posts on this thread. Despite the discussions about Wal-MArt, lawyers, and the virtues of the smaller gunshop...it just galls me the way the media jumps on this news story.

It's reported from the view that Wal Mart just woke up to the fact they were doing something evil in selling guns and have now repented. Kinda like they'd been selling meth out in the parking lot.

Wal Mart getting out of the gun business wouldn't hurt my feelings. But then again, where it comes to Wally world, I have none. It has made a lot of news lately that WalMart is having troubles with too much inventory. For those that haven't dealt with it as part of a retail operation, it means you are holding more stuff that you aren't making money on. That means you can't carry stuff someone might want to buy. Pretty simplistic I know.

Wal Mart isn't doing this for the good of anyone but Wal Mart. Just like their pricing policies in both buying and retailing. They set the market for both manufacturers directly through contract and by pricing the smaller operations out of the market when and where they can. This is truly free market capitalism at work. Just like outsourcing jobs and services outside the U.S. Eventually the little guys can't compete because those of us who want to support them won't be able to because we won't be making enough to suport them after taking care of ourselves. Sorry, I do come first.

Where I lived in PA there were two good local shops w/gunsmiths, one very good GS and one was okay but limited on his capabilities. The real good one passed on and the other got AFU in a car wreck, hit by a drunk, that ended his working forever. When these two were gone, another one opened up and for the first couple years he was great to deal with. Customers would get together so he could order bulk ammo, reloading supplies and multiple guns at one time. He didn't overcharge people supported him giving him enough volume to make up for the lower profit margin. In time, he got greedy and started snubbing all the people who built his business and raised his prices way above those of any other shop around. That's when I started driving an extra 20 miles to a different shop for my guns (guy whould not deal with me on ammo).

I don't have a problem with someone making money and dang sure don't have a problem supporting the little guys but when they turn from making a living to just being greedy, I no longer support them.

About 6 or 7 years ago I stopped at several local shops in NC, SC & GA as I was passing through. What I found was a major difference in the ratio of good to greedy. Out maybe 25 shops I stopped in, I can only recall two of them that were ignorant/greedy, the rest seemed like real good folks to deal with and willing to help.

Sorry, got carried away with the W-M deal....if you want to continue it, just email me.

Its a business decision. You cant stock a lot of stuff that doesnt sell. You would be losing money. There a Wal-Mart in south FL in a area thats not too "upscale". They had a Marlin 9mm Camp Carbine for 3 years. It had a really nice stock but I already had one. I asked the manager about it and she said guns just did not sell at that location. I now live in a town of 11,000 in SW GA. A Wal-Mart opened about a year ago. A local gun/fishing shop just went out of business. Im not sure why but he was always high on prices and didnt deal or special order. Another shop that opened up about the same time as Wal-Mart is doing just fine on guns. He will deal and special order anything you want. Has already built up a client base. I already got three guns from him and thats where I will go for anything new.

Its seems that Walmart will be dropping firearms from their available merchandise in approximately 1000 stores. I wonder what is driving this decision? The news store quotes a new "community-based" stocking strategy for bossting sales.

"This decision is based on diminished customer relevancy and demand in these markets," said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Jolanda Stewart. Stewart declined to specify what stores were affected.

Wal-Mart has about 1,200 discount stores and 1,900 Supercenters, which include a full grocery section, in all 50 states. Wal-Mart says it sells rifles and shotguns. In Alaska, it also sells handguns.

Why would you buy guns from Wal-Mart? The type of person that buys a gun from Wal-Mart and then expects first rate service from the local gunshop for a box of ammo really angers me. Support your local gun store. Sean

Hey Jonas,

Do you shop at the PowderHorn by chance? Sean

Well..................Looks like we've beaten Wally World, greedy gun shop owners, the little guys and cheap firearms buyers pretty much to a pulp. Can't see any reason to prolong the discussion.

Thanks for everyone's input.

Thread locked.