I’m pretty cool with some of the guys at my LGS, and they’ve told me that sometimes manufacturers will offer kickbacks in the form of guns or whatever to incentivize staff to sell their guns over their competition.
He specifically mentioned Springfield giving out free Saints to reps who sold X number of Springfield products, and that most of the time, the guy would turn around and sell the guns to supplement their own salary or put towards another gun they wanted.
So you go in looking for a G19, but Bill is only three Springfield sales away from a free AR15, so he’ll try to sway you towards an XD or Springfield 1911.
M249, semi auto 😂. Saw one (no pun intended) in a shop and the guy said it was the exact same as the military, just needed to pay the $200 tax stamp to make it go full send. Funny, because I carried one for a year, ain’t the same. Then again I couldn’t afford full auto ammo costs regardless.
I’m pretty sure it’s called a SPIF and many companies in every industry do this. When I worked at a small software company in the 80s we did this regularly.
Hard to believe there was a time when computer stores sold boxes of software. But then I’m old enough to remember a time when there was only one brand of Glock.
I don't think it's underhanded for manufacturers since it's their goal to make money. It is a bit shady for the dealer to push one over the other that doesn't fit the customers needs. But then again it's like that in almost have retail sales industry. The auto industry does it on different model cars. Like there might not be any incentive on a Honda accord but every civic does might be a couple hundred bucks in your pocket.
That would explain why Mike at my lgs mentions Sigs every single time I go there talking about guns I want or problems with my guns. Good thing I told him this past weekend that I'm just not interested in Sigs at all unless someone offers me a free P226.
When I worked at an FFL/Outdoors shop, we had a program with dozens and dozens of manufactures. Everything from Sig and Ruger and Glock to Oakley to Benchmade to Ariat to 511.
I never got a free gun, but I got 60% discounts on them. I got a free benchmade knife, plus 60% discount twice a year for life (or until they stop me). I got two free 511 backpacks. Tons and tons of different animal calls.
It was a really cool program. The idea was that if the brands got products into our hands, we’d be more knowledgeable and more likely to recommend them. The incentives weren’t even based on our sales - it was more that you watched videos or presentations, took a test over the product knowledge - then you got a hefty discount or a free toy.
Yup, I never tried to talk somebody out of what they wanted, but if they were open to suggestions, then I was happy to suggest something that got me Springfield points. Generally I usually did this with Springfield products that I actually liked though. If they wanted a 1911, I do actually quite like the Springfield line. If they were looking for an entry-level AR, the Saint happens to actually be a solid option. I personally don’t love the XD, so I didn’t push it over Glocks if that was what the customer wanted. XD customers tended to be people who wanted a gun but weren’t going to become “gun people,” and liked that it was $75 cheaper than the Glock.
IDK if I'd really call a $1000 gun a " entry level AR" TBH, in my opinion that's more like mid level, when you can get a perfectly functional PSA AR for less then half that price if you buy the upper and lower separately, I'd say entry level is more like s&w m&p15 or Anderson or PSA
Gun stores can't recommend you a PSA because they can't sell PSAs
People ask me about them all the time and I have to tell people "yeah you gotta order from PSA and have it shipped. No I don't have one here I can show you"
Technically false: PSA has a dealer program now. It's just such a low margin of mark up that it's virtually useless. Why sell 100 PSA products to make $X when you can sell 2 (insert brand name X). There's no profit margin for a dealer and probably make more in FFL transfer fees per PSA unit.
XD is the only thing Springfield sells that would make me uncomfortable offering someone, but they thankfully have the Echelon now and I really like that gun.
Grip safety, shitty magazines, better options at the price point. Not to mention the roll pin in the slide that *will* work itself out eventually and require a trip to SA or a gunsmith to repair.
It’s just hard to recommend over something like an M&P or P10C.
We do it with vortex. For every vortex product I sell I get vortex bucks that I can use towards their products. I have literally thousands of dollars worth of scopes, red dots, range finders, binoculars and accessories that I never had to pay for (I've even given them away). It makes all the associates steer customers towards vortex when they are looking for scopes.
I was friends with a guy at a gun shop once, and this is the answer you're looking for. Kickback promotions. They were trying to earn kickback points to get the gun \*they\* (the guy behind the counter) wanted, so they had to sell X number of a certain brand or model to get it.
That’s how I got a free M1A, and several other guns. We sell enough that we’ve never had to steer people towards certain brands. Really with Springfield, the Hellcat and Saint sold themselves though. I wish Glock had a rewards program, that’s what I usually recommend and we sell tons of them.
They’re dog shit. Mechanic here. There’s a reason Hyundai and Kia have a 100k mile warranty and 10 year warranty for powertrain. from 12-19 they had so many fucking engine problems that they basically had to have such a high mileage warranty for them to sell and look appealing to the customer. They’re cheap for a reason.
Ex had a 14 kia optima. That POS sent a rod through the oil pan at 58k miles just short of the 60k powertrain it was sold with. And I changed the oil meticulously every 2500 miles.
My friend is also a Hyundai/kia technician. All he does all day long is swap long blocks and literally nothing else.
Not to go off conversation, but had to chine in as a car dude as well. KIA and Hyundais are shit toy cars. People just buy them cause they cost cheap.
Get a Toyota, those things are bulletproof and reliable economical cars.
My 23 Tundra with manufacturing debris in the engine would like a word. Wouldn't be so salty if they would accept a trade in but they won't because they don't have a fix yet and Toyota doesn't want to sit on idle inventory.
10th gen Honda civics, or really any Honda with the 2.0 or 2.4 NA engines(K20 and K24) are also very reliable and the base models dont have crazy invasive technology.
The CVTs have gotten a bad wrap but as long as you follow Hondas recommended service interval and use Honda CVT fluid they’re reliable enough. Find a manual and IMO they’re as reliable as any modern Toyota.
Just checked the new years, k20 is still in base model civic and hrv but the k24 is not in the CRV.
I worked for a logistics company that delivered car and truck parts to dealerships. Everyday our warehouse got dozens of engines and transmissions that needed to be delivered to Hyundai/Kia. When the truck company Yellow went out of business, we started picking up the cores as well.
>Thought they were decent?
Bots and social media shills will tell you they are decent. Mechanics say they are dogshit. You choose who you want to believe. A lot of owners put under 100k miles on them same as a lot of Taurus owners put under 1k rounds through them, any their anecdotes are worse than useless
Which is why you should never trust your friend or some random ok the internet about their personal GOOD experiences.
Tons of people will tell you how reliable their Jag or Land Rover is, that they have owned for 3 years and has 30k miles, even though objectively, that is a total bunk story.
The worst are Europeans who think 75k KM (50k miles, at 50mph and below, mind you) means the car is "used up" so they make all sorts of excuses and are offended that Americans don't consider Mercedes or BMW to be the most reliable cars on the road.
Kia/Hyundai have the best warranty on the market. Which is good because there's a good chance you'll need it. When you get a Kia that works it's a nice reliable car that is pretty feature rich for the price point. The hard part is getting one that works.
No mechanic is gonna tell you to buy a Hyundai or Kia, not unless it's brand new at least. I've been at it for about a decade and have personally been in the presence of at least 20 2.0s or 2.4s while they blew up, whether while driving them or standing in front of them. I've easily seen double of that come in for a no start when they were actually locked up.
Don’t run the low weight oil in them and they are fine. I run 10-30 in my 11 sonata and it has over 250k on it.
I also did all the recall and warranty stuff so I have a lifetime warranty on the motor that’s in that car.
If Hyundai didn’t tell you to run 5-20 or whatever it says to maximize fuel efficiency they probably wouldn’t have had to retroactively offer lifetime warranties on these engines.
Agree with that ^. Some people just want goofy guns but a G19 is an excellent option for a first handgun. That guy sounds like a fudd who is trying to just make more money off of you.
I didn't know a thing when I bought my first handgun. I asked for reasonably priced and reliable.
Dude sold me a G19, and suggested I different trigger, but only after I shot it to see what I found comfortable.
Not all shops upsell you to death. Guy was super professional and wanted me to make an educated decision. He pulled several options and even showed me how to break them all down!
It probably helped that they were basically dead that day though. Gave him something to do and also help a young cat out.
The store/range that I work at has almost every commonly used handgun and some wildcards available to rent for between $10-$20 per that way people can actually try them out before they buy one that way they buy once instead of buying one and realizing they don’t like when they shoot it.
The place I went to at the time didn't have a range, but were solid people. They had the mindset that a sale was a sale. At least they educated me instead of trying to sell me on that damn thundercougerfalconbird.
When I was in IT sales that's pretty much the attitude that got me through. Listen to what the customer needs/wants, they really don't understand the technical stuff most of the time. Show them options, give a recommendation. I'd usually show 3, cheaper, the one I think they should get, more expensive. Say they can get the cheap one, but they'll probably be back to upgrade sooner than they want, and I'm not going to stop them getting the more expensive but I think they'd be wasting money. Honesty and knowing your shit gets repeat customers.
I'm off the floor now, but when I was a salesman, it helped that we were flat hourly and made no commission. You never had the pressure to complete a sale, so you could show someone a dozen guns, make recommendations, and then point them in the direction of an indoor range to go try some and see which one they like the most
In case of the more unusual guns, like the Desert Eagle, I'd say they also want to avoid the potential difficulties that might follow the sale. Guy buys DE, takes it to the range once, then wants to return it because too much recoil / too hard to clean / ammo too expensive / whatever.
Two kinds of people buy those: 1) people who know exactly what it is they're buying, and that's what they want, and 2) people who don't grasp physical reality very well. You won't find out which group they are in if you don't challenge them.
I bought a de. While not practical it is one of the funnest guns I have to shoot. Although it's only a 44 man version suddenly makes shooting 44mag enjoyable since recoil is now super maganable
An old 8" model 29 was also smooth enough that we shot it until the sights fell off back when ammo was cheap... fatigue and poor ventilation led to an accidental 2 round burst or two lmao.
Deagles can be pretty smooth though too. Bet the lightweight awb state ones are fun too.
That is why I always recommend buying a used one if want one. Most have very low round counts and the older ones are what we're in the action movies I watched growing up. Those hooked safeties are iconic.
I had a classic DE in 50 AE I bought for meme purposes, but $3 a round made me reconsider and I traded for a L5 in 44 magnum. Well whatdya know, the L5 is actually a practical size and weight. Now my DE is 49oz and could be carried on a belt, if someone made a holster for it.
I've had mixed experiences. There's a small shop in my town that I would 100% have a beer with the owner. There's another shop that I won't even go into because even the employees are dicks.
There is no gray area though. All local gun shops are run by either the coolest dudes who are really knowledgeable about guns and want to help you out or fudds that are stuck in 1976 and just want to preach their outdated beliefs to you and have you pay out the ass for it.
That's 100% true. Out of the 3 I have experience with in my town, 1 was literally a friend who got his FFL, two was guy who seemed cool, and 3 was the dickheads.
I would agree. Small shops, big shops. Old guys, salesmen younger than me. There's only one shop I've ever been to where all the workers and the owner were genuinely cool people. Sucks, but it's always good to go into a gun store for the first time with the idea that everyone working there is going to try to upsell you and will more than likely be unpleasant to deal with, regardless of if you buy anything or not.
'cause people who know about guns will insist.
I walked into a gun store for the first time with my friend. I told them I wanted a Glock 19. They tried selling me a ton of other stuff. I insisted. They sold it to me after some arguing.
Recommendations are just there to upsell, if they have a customer there already, willing to buy and not sure on what they want. But they'll sell a model to a customer who already knows what they want.
Ive worked at my current job for 6 or so years, and we sell firearms, and before that I'd been known to work a few gunshows with a buddy of mine for a shop I frequent to this day....
Ive had people ask about many different things, under different circumstances, or want to know my opinion about a specific item.
I'm one of those people that if you ask me "Hey, what do you think about this *IO AK*" that I WILL NOT lie. It's trash. Look at something else. I may not *say* it that way, but I will wholeheartedly try and point someone elsewhere.
Also if someone comes in wanting something like a heavy magnum revolver and seems to have *zero* understanding of what they are asking for ill ask a bit to get an idea of it is truly a good idea to continue down that path... sometimes people get told that they "need" something for nebulous reasons and just don't know better. ( Had a little old lady come in once wanting a .44 magnum revolver... for some reason she was under the impression it was the *only* choice that would work for home defense.... in the end we talked it through, and showed her options, and she left with something she not only could handle, but enjoy shooting for fun.)
Sometimes a gunshop employee is trying to help, sometimes that help is colored by individual experiences.
Sometimes they just want to see you buy *anything*.
Sometimes it's somewhere in between.
Usually when someone says “I want it cause I want it” means I think its cool but dont know anything about it.
If I was a gun seller I would also point them in the right direction and get something practical and worth buying .
Anyone can make a sale and yes a business is out to make money. However, I want my customer to make a good purchase and let them know they are looked out for, instead of being an a hole and trying to make a sale.
Shitty businesses who dont put people first dont last. My grandma was a business owner in the food business. She put people first and so many happy customers loved to come and eat there. They would leave and thank everyone with smiles. RIP grandma.
Cause two things:
A lot of gun shop employees are either jerks or so burned out by government regulations and dumb customers that they just don't care anymore
Gun shops stock showcase guns cause occasionally they will sell, and they get people to gawk and spend more time in the store
The 2nd point. It drives customers in the door if you have unique stuff. They nost likely won't buy it but one lgs by me just has run of mill stuff. I don't bother going in ever cause it's the same stuff dunhams carries.
One of my LGS has a couple SCARS and high-end AR's. According to the employees, they do sell.
Another store goes the opposite direction. Not as many high-end stuff, but a lot of low-end guns (Charter Arms, HiPoint). A Glock 19 would be an upsell there.
If I was stocking a gun store, I'd build inventory in a few categories.
1) Cheap and reliable. While I wouldn't trust the life of my worst enemy to a Turkish shotgun, for whatever reason, Turkish pistols are OK.
2) If it's good enough for a military somewhere around the globe within the past 100 years, it's good enough for you. Glock 19. SIG p226, 229, 320. H&K VP9. Beretta 92.9 AR-15. Mossberg 590A1. Steyr AUG. AK-47. Springfield VHS, M1A, XD. And so on...
3) Fudd Stuff. 1911s. Marlin & Henry lever actions. Revolvers - Ruger, S&W & Taurus. Break-open shotguns. M1 Garands. Bolt-actions galore.
4) Deuce-deuce. Ruger 10/22, MkIV. Revolvers that shoot .22s. Volquartsen aftermarket parts for the Rugers. Taurus TX22.
5) Concealed carry. SIG p365, Sporingfield Hellcat, Ruger Max-9, M&P Shield 2.0, S&W airweights, etc.
6) The Trade-ins. All the retarded stuff people trade in to buy categories 1-5.
Thanks to categories 1 & 6, you could conceivably end up with stuff in your glass case that's serviceable but not exactly recommended.
If a store is stocking new guns that are garbage, they may make a sale, but they may not make a repeat sale.
Have fun trying to tell the companies you DONT want to order their shit products and then them coming back with "too bad, order 20 of these pieces of shit nobody wants and then you can have *insert popular item*
They're trying to make a profit. You don't make a profit by having people walk in and walk out because a $650 Glock 19 is too much (I'm using typical gun store pricing). If you can sell that guy a Taurus,Kel-Tec,SCCY,etc you're one step closer to making payroll. There are a lot of borderline unusable IO AKs sitting in closets that haven't seen more than 500 rounds for this reason.
I’d argue that taking the money, and making the sale is a lot more important than upselling the customer. Especially because in that instance, the customer walked.
You get a lot of guys that have spent way more time on the internet reading about guns than they have using them. Then they gotta be macho men to prove what they know. The big box stores are the worst. You’re as likely to get good advice about what gun to buy at a sportsman’s warehouse as you are getting good advice on building a deck at Home Depot. As the wise sage Ron Swanson said “I know more than you”.
There are people out there that can sell you a gun that know what they are doing, but man it is tedious finding them.
Ugh, sportsman’s warehouse. Employee’s name is/was Jack, the jokes wrote themselves. I overheard Jack-ass telling a customer that they were crazy to go out hunting in bear country with anything less than a 375 H&H
Mind you, this is Montana, not Botswana or Alaska. Vast majority of hunters use 30 cal, some as small as 6mm and others as large as 338. Rarely does anyone use 375
There are a ton of reasons why shops carry guns that some employees recommend, and some don't. First of all, every employee is different, employees are human beings, and they have different experiences therefore they have different thoughts and different opinions. You can go into 3 different gun stores and get 3 different opinions about the same gun.
Employees don't always choose what they have stock. Yeah, just because there are SCCYs and Hi-Points in stock, doesn't mean every employee is going to recommend them. But guess what? If SCCYs and Hi-Points continue to sell, than shops are going to continue to sell them and have them in stock.
Could you imagine if every gun store just sold Glock 19s and Daniel Defense ARs? Likewise, could you imagine if every car dealership just sold Priuses and Civics? To sell products you need a variety of products that fit every customer base. Yeah most salesman are going to have similar ideas.
At the end of the day, employees are going to have opinions. We as consumers, trust employees to have valuable opinions. However, the helpfulness, the knowledge, and the passion an employee has is completely different from the next.
It's not the gun shops necessarily, it's the distributors. Guns have a mandatory useless level of distribution that must be separate from the retailer, kind of like booze.
The distributors, in order to get rid of all the guns people don't want, package them with the guns they do want. Does your shop want that brand new, hard to get piece? Well, you order twenty of these bullshit things we can't offload, and we'll send you a new hotness.
So all gun shops just slowly fill up with horseshit, because you have to sell terrible guns to get access to the good ones. When you bitch that your LGS doesn't have X new gun, it's usually because they'd have had to buy too much other bullshit to get it at that time.
A couple years back, if you wanted the new steel-framed Canik from my distributor, you had to buy a dozen Ruger LCS-es, the old model that preceded the ECS. They're just trying to clean out the warehouse.
But, of course, a lot of GSEs just like to shit-talk guns they don't like.
Poor people make poor decisions. I worked at a shop for a couple years in college. Upsell upsell upsell.
Some guy mentioned wanting a gun to pass down to his kids. I sold him a $3000+ Wilson combat 1911. Would a Glock last long enough to pass down to his kids? Absolutely.
The aug to a saint is stupid as fuck though. He probably liked you and wanted to make sure you knew what you were getting into.
I mean passing down a wilson combat is much different then passing down a glock. Kids will be much more proud of inheriting that then a cheap plastic glock
I worked in retail sales for far longer than I care to admit. There's a lot that goes into exactly why this happens, I'll give you a quick list:
1. Spivs/commission. Sometimes a manufacturer will run a thing where you get an extra $20 or whatever on top of your normal commission, and some products have more margin or just inherently earn them more
2. Sometimes stock is ordered and we realise it's a piece of shit, they keep coming back faulty, start having repeat issues. Like it's one thing to get a return for a fault, it's another to just have a run of bad luck where random unrelated things are going wrong. It's a whole other thing if you keep getting them back for the exact same issue. The issue might not be publicly known, but *we* know, because we have to deal with it, and that's a PITA
3. The person serving you genuinely knows their stuff and doesn't like selling garbage and isn't afraid to tell the truth. This also helps foster repeat customers, do you want to go back to the place that isn't afraid to lie to close the sale, or the one that is honest, listens to your needs etc.?
4. People have these prejudices (especially with firearms) that their opinion is the best and everything else is wrong. What's the joke? You get 3 gun guys together and the only thing they'll agree on is that the other 2 are wrong.
As for keeping the gimmick guns, it's probably mostly just to get people in, and keep them in. Almost like when a shop has a really cool PC on display running some sick game for you to try. It's not because they really expect to sell them (at least not many), it's because it has wow factor, gives the customer something to be excited about (excitement increases sales, that's why they tend to play high BPM music in fast food places), and can give you an opportunity to engage with the customer more than "Hi how can I help". Much better to go "Ahh, yeah, it's cool isn't it. Bit pricey for me, I'd be more likely to go with *xyz*. Anyway, what brings you in?"
That guy with the 1911 is an idiot though.
I had a dude at PSA try to downsell me from a Benelli M4 to a Turkish clone from EAA. Saying it was just as good. Like dude I'm standing here about to give you 2k for this, why are you trying to sell me something that costs 1/4 of that?
> It's more likely to be a one-hit kill than 9mm and that's precisely why more Medal of Honor recipients carried a 1911 than any other pistol.
This is so obviously idiotic it made me a little angry to read.
It's a full on bullshit statement. Hey Elmer, you know WHY more MOH recipients carried a 1911 than any other firearm (lets assume he means modern firearms), it's because that's what they were issued.
World War I 124
Haiti 1919-1920 2
Nicaraguan Campaign 2
World War II 464
Korean War 133
Vietnam 246
>>>>>**9MM**
Somalia 2
Operation Iraqi Freedom 4
Operation Enduring Freedom 6
Operation Inherent Resolve 6
**It's an outright lie if we count ALL MOH recipients:**
Conflicts Recipients
Civil War 1522
Indian Campaigns 426
Korea 1871 15
Spanish American 110
Samoa 4
Philippine Insurrection 80
Philippine Outlaws 6
Boxer Rebellion 59
Mexican Campaign 56
Haiti 6
Dominican Republic 3
*edit: formatting
Right there are a couple things going on here:
World War 2 is when most MOHs were awarded, and that's what everyone carried.
MOHs are not awarded based on one-hit-kills. Or any kills at all. It's not a high score award, and this isn't Call of Duty. Your KD ratio doesn't get you anything.
Troops are not doing most of their combat with sidearms. They carry fucking rifles!
The gun store can always move a cheaper gun over a more expensive one, so if you seem to have the means, they’ll try to up-sell you into something else. Then there are incentives from the manufacturer.
I get incentives that would apply more to the saint over Aug. But to recommend someone a nighthawk (that's probably more expensive that steyer he wanted) over a Glock....... Why spend 600 dollars on this when you can get you this 2500 dollar 1911 that's really just my shelf queen and will never see 1000 rounds put through it.
Okay, I’m prepared to be downvoted to oblivion, but please do me the favor of reading and thinking about my whole statement, before downvoting after.
The whole “gun shop guy steering the customer” thing can be good or bad.
What’s good is when a scared newb comes in and is like “I feel like I want a gun for home defense, but I’m taking a concealed carry class next week. I don’t want to carry now, but maybe get something for carry if I have to.” (Or a thousand other versions of that) and he steers her towards five or six viable options, hopefully asking questions about prior experience, budget, etc.
What’s bad is when my sister and I walk in and she says: “I want to look at subcompact 9mm’s for concealed carry. Something double-stacked and striker fired, but not a Glock.” He ignores her, turns to me and says: “She’s never gonna hit anything with a handgun, Bud, you should get her a shotgun.”
As a firearms instructor, you learn certain… call it “categories” of student. The guy who “knows all about guns” because he handled an M-16 for a few weeks before spending 4yrs aboard submarines… etc.
One that comes up fairly often is “Middle-aged to Elderly Woman Who Shows Up with Gun in a Bag”. Quite often, the gun is a 5-shot, snub-nosed, .357/.38, with loose rounds also in drawstring bag. She has never fired the weapon. Occasionally it “was her husband’s” but far more often it’s what someone “told her she needed”. Sometimes that’s a gun store employee, and shame on him, no doubt. But sometimes it’s her son-in-law, on the phone, from half a continent away, saying: “Just get a snubby .38, that’s easiest to use.” In which case, if the gun store employee sold it to her without even offering her another option… is he really her friend?
If I’m selling something, anything, my goal is to make my customer happy. Not sell them what they came in for, make them happy. I would be polite, respectful, not arrogant, these things are basic. But if I worked a hardware store and Paul Bunyon came in for a new axe, I might very well say: “Have you tried chainsaws? They’re pretty nifty!”
It’s a bikini car wash sales tactic. Get the uninformed inside the store with the idea of the glorious Yeet Cannon Hi-Point and then upsell them a Nighthawk 🙃
Anecdotal response from a former LGS employee:
We don’t really get much direction from “management” on what to sell/push. So what you really get is a hodgepodge of personal preferences and group-think that comes from hanging in an echo chamber of a gun shop for 10 hours a day.
And I didn’t get commission so no there wasn’t any upselling there
Bought one of those Turkish bullpup shotguns during COVID and the salesman kept trying to talk me out of it because it wasn’t American. Also said they wouldn’t sell me a gun unless I registered to vote and used that as a second form of ID. Why even stock it if you don’t want to sell it?
Because money.
Because that Kimber has a much better margin for the shop, and has been sitting in that case for a year and a half.
They're *salespeople*. Their job is to sell you things that make money for them, not things you need.
Because just as many dumb gun shop workers as there are, there is exponentially more dumb gun buyers out there. People who think they need the barrel velocity and to be able to do cqb as a 1 man team and they want a tavor. Or the people who think their wife wants a purple sccy
As with a lot of things people have as passionate hobbies: Almost anyone can open up a store, but not everyone is good at running a business. Some people want to own a gun shop because it's their hobby. They may not always survive long, but some can do enough business to stay open even when they're actively turning down more profit.
Think of those guys like the comic book guy from the Simpsons. He'd probably tell someone "Oh no, don't buy that Green Lantern waste of paper. Green Lantern is just a cockamamie cash grab, worst character ever!"
You get free beer when you distribute it.
You get reduce rates, up to a point, when you work for a bank.
Nothing new with that business model.
What do you get when you sell firearms and ammo? Yup.
Opinions! Shit guys even do it with their own friends… I happen to prefer SA handguns, I’ll always convince a buddy to grab a 1911 over a striker fired gun. Another friend thinks DA/SA is the best, he convinced me into buying a p220 I never shoot… and sometimes it works in your favor. I wanted a competitive gun for steel shoot on a budget and was talked into a p320x5 legion. Couldn’t be happier with it
'more Medal of Honor recipients carried a 1911 than any other pistol.'
It's so weird that MOH recipients carried the **official service pistol of the US Armed Forces for 70 years** more than any other pistol.
When I worked at a small town shop I always aimed to find the best piece for the customer, I had a list of questions I'd start with:
Experience
Budget
Planned use (carry vs car vs home vs range)
Medical issues including arthritis
Then I'd pull out a few options for them to try while I observed them for fit, comfort, make sure they can manipulate the slide, etc.
I'd do the same with long guns too. The only time I'd actively try to steer someone away from a specific weapon was if there were known issues.
It probably boils down to one of two categories. They really have a preference and pushbit hard(not as likely), or they have a larger profit margin from whatever they're pushing. Whether that's because it cost them less to get it, they buy it in bulk or even have a deal with the company that made it. At the end of the day, they are a shop out to make money, they're going to try to make more money but getting a customer to leave is much worse than making a smaller profit and that's just bad sales
Sometimes, people just wanna buy what they wanna buy, recommendations be damned. I once had a couple come in to my shop and they would always buy Hi Points. They’d get the 9mm when it was available, then they got the 45 and 40, then the carbines. Can’t tell you how many times I tried to talk em into a better gun, but despite all my logic, they simply wanted the Hi Points. Part of it is price, and people can’t always spend the money to get a nice 1911, but sometimes they just want something a little different cuz why not.
Me, for example, I’d pay money to buy a DC Tec-9. Why? Cuz I think it looks different and would be a conversation piece. Not cuz it’s a great gun. Could I afford better? Shoot yeah, and I’ve bought better. Sometimes I just want something different than what the sales rep is preaching. Everyone is entitled to their own wants and opinions.
When I worked at a gun store I only gave my opinion when asked and also some manufacturers did offer incentives if we sold more of their products. Only ones I remember that did do it were magpul and dead air
He was trying to upsell you from a $500 handgun to a $2000 handgun. A good gun shop will try and steer you toward something that will actually suit your needs and purposes, and not every gun is for everybody, so recommending something different isn't necessarily out of line, as long as it's done with the intent of understanding what the customer is actually hoping to achieve with it. And some stores just want to upsell you no matter what.
Some people literally believe a "glock" is just a generic term for a handgun. Some people walk in wanting a particular gun because they've seen it in a video game, and that's all. Some people have done their research know what they want, know the drawbacks, and want a particular firearm anyway. So it's useful to have one in inventory to sell, as long as you are certain the customer actually wants it and is going to be satisfied with it, and not leaving a bad review because you sold him a "junk gun".
Just because something's crap doesn't mean it's not popular, so it's kind of in the gun shop's best interest to let you know, "hey, you're probably not going to be happy with that thing if you buy it, but if you insist, I'll sell it to you. Just don't say we didn't warn you."
And, of course, some guys in gun shops are just douchebags who think you should only like what they like...
The company I work for carries guns we don’t care for simply because some people want them. We offer other suggestions but we ultimately let the customer buy what they want. No one at my place of work would ever talk you out of an AUG. We also refuse to carry certain guns due to lack of QC and to many out of the box issues (heritage rough rider and sccy).
Usually there's a difference between the guy ordering inventory and the guy selling it. Therefore you get a guy selling something other than what's in inventory. For a lot of guys it's hard to put their personal biases aside and let the customer buy what the customer wants.
Another reason is that stores will carry something like a Taurus G2C because no matter how much you tell people it's not reliable enough for carry, there will always be customers who cannot comprehend spending more than $300 on a defensive gun.
Brother owned a gun store until he was bought out. There are sellers that will make you buy a certain number of X to get Y. A lot of times they like allocated products (bourbon, tequila). Shop owners have to build a relationship with the sales people in order to get the best products on their shelves which means they have to buy products of the salesman that nobody wants.
Whoever told you .45 is the best pistol round is just wrong. Between 9mm, .40, and .45; there are more benefits to 9mm. We have a LOT of data from multiple government agencies supporting this.
Worked in a couple stores for a decade. Was an assistant manager for one.
Sometime you carry what people want even if it's not the best. Either sell it or sell nothing.
Some manufacturers and distributors (the wholesalers) require younto buy a lot of slow sellers to build a good relationship before they offer the ones you want, or they make you buy five of this thing, and three of these in order to get one of what you really want.
Also, it comes to allocations. If distributer gets 18 of a high demand item, they give their reps a few they can sell o their accounts. The account... the atore... that has spent the most with him will get first pick. This was commomnwith ammo too during the shortages in 2008, 2012, and after candy hook qhwn people were panic buying.
The last 2 guns I bought were 100% useless for anything but fun. Got a cheapo 12 gauge bullpup and a 410 lever gun. So much fun and they didn't try to talk me out of either.
Find a better gun shop. Good shops ask what you want, what you want it for, and what your budget is and offer you stuff that fits and maybe some slightly over your budget.
I often call the shops you speak of fudd gun shops. Is he wrong about the deagle being a gimmicky gun? Not really but to some of us we want that nostalgia of running the deagle with an Aug. Now if you said you wanted a CCW peice and pointed at the deagle id hope they would steer you clear of it.
As far as bullpups they suck... But only because I'm left handed and don't want to have to convert it to lefty configuration rofl. Other then that a lot rifles triggers suck, bullpups are just another rifle and like any rifle if you want a badass trigger you either get a high end gun or swap out for a better trigger.
I know when I turned 21 and went shopping for a Glock, I found a Gen5 MOS that I loved. Guy at the counter kept pushing me to buy the Sig M18 that was actually cheaper at the time, which I thought was strange.
This makes a lot of sense.
There's a lot of gate keeping in the gun community and people shaming one another for their purchases. As a sop owner they shouldn't do that to you and instead provide education about the product line any good sales person would.
That explains why the guy at my shop was trying to steer me away from sig and into the Springfield.
Fortunately I just went elsewhere and bought the gun I wanted.
The people who own gun stores are gun people. And gun people are very opinionated and often very biased. It may or may not be intentional but this stereotypical behavior also creates a relationship between them and the customer. "If this guy is shit talking one gun he must be honest, knowledgeable and trustworthy "
Gun people are highly opinionated and they'll do whatever they can to convince you that the gun they would buy if they were you is the best choice in the world. It has nothing to do with business, and everything to do with people being overly assertive with their worthless opinions
Guy at the Super Boomer gun shop tried to talk me out of the S&W 327 snubnose that had been my dream gun for years. “It’ll kick pretty hard, not enough weight to it.”
I think there absolutely are guns that are popular but that most people should be advised against buying - unless that's what they really really want.
There are two contrary ideas in retail, and most stores seem to operate under some mix of both of them: you want to give the customer what they want. But (this is the more old-fashioned idea) you also want the customer to be satisfied with their purchase. If you have time to find out where they're at in terms of experience and preferences, you can help them find what they really want.
You can still find good retail experiences, but those tend to be in shops that are run by the owners or who pay well enough to keep good staff.
This is why nobody my age likes salesmen, they’re not there to help you make an educated decision, they have some reason to get you to buy something that benefits them regardless if it’s a good decision for you or not.
They carry those products because variety brings people in and generally having a large variety of products allows more options for people to buy.
Now why people will steer you towards a certain gun could be because they have a bias towards a brand whether it be experience or some financial incentive. If you already know what you are looking for, it’s easy to ignore the people pushing sales or their opinions. If they want to make it difficult for them to earn business, I’m sure there are plenty of other places.
In your case, probably some kind of sales incentives or profit margins.
In general, it could because they’re not the guns they recommend *you* buy. It could be that they’re trying to sus out what you want to use the gun for, so they can recommend the gun that will work best, not the gun you want. I’m sure they’ve had a bunch of guys walk in asking for videogame guns because it’s all they know without realizing that a good AR will do all the same things better.
It's not just guns. It's a common trait with crappy salesmen. I've experienced it with guns, but also all sorts of other things. Every time I go car shopping I find a car salesmen trying to talk me into an SUV instead of the performance car I want, watch salesmen convince my wife the watch I wanted was too expensive, and i even walked away from our first realtor when shes arguing the house I wanted was too big for a couple with no kids.
I led a team of computer sales years ago, and their biases were always something I was trying to beat out of them. "You ask qualifying questions to lead them to what THEY want not what you want, and recognize when they know what they want and just freaking sell it to them"
Getting a gun for my wife was one of the biggest challenges of my life. She wanted a Glock, every sales person kept trying to sell her those tiny gun, and everyone kept trying to sell her on the rainbow anodized finish.
She's talking about performance and they are saying things like "But this one is pretty" and "This would fit really nice in your purse" "It's Pink. That alone should be good enough for you."
She now calls these "Rainbow Snortry Guns"
I know that Keltec makes stores buy essential sets of guns especially when a new one comes out, it has certain quotas to get them. When the CP33 came out, my LGS said that they had to also get a certain number of KSGs and other models to get it.
They have an ulterior motive or, more likely, fail to understand that their subjective preferences may not suit or be shared by other people. It takes a certain minimum level of cognitive function to broadly understand the difference between subjective opinions and objective facts. Sadly, there are many people who limbo right under that level and sincerely can not understand how their preferences are not objectively better.
I do not care for Glocks. The polymer frame and blocky shape are visually unappealing to me. They are also quite light without a full magazine and don't feel as steady in my hands. This does not change the fact that Glocks are excellent handguns. They are accurate, reliable, notoriously durable, light enough to carry, and have decent triggers (for striker fired). If I NEEDED a pistol and was handed a Glock, I would be relieved and satisfied. I would prefer my CZ P-01, but a Glock will do the job.
Because the distributor the store gets its inventory from sets conditions like, "Okay, I'll send you the half dozen Glock 19s that you want, but you have to also take a Taurus Judge. And on those Springfield M1As you want, no problem but you've gotta also take a Styer AUG and a couple of these Turkish clone M4 shottys."
Most manufacturers place conditions on the selection of guns shipped to distributors & dealers. They'll bundle popular guns with unpopular guns and tell them it's all or nothing. That's how shops get stuck with a bunch of brand new inventory they can't move, and where the weird customer-steering shenanigans start.
This is why it’s so important to find a lgs that has non arrogant pricks running it. A gun is a very personal choice. It’s like buying underwear. They have to fit perfect. I’ve taken many people new gun shopping. Most of the stuff they buy I would never recommend as I don’t like it myself. But for them it’s a great choice.
It's the same thing with about every sales person. Ulterior motive. Kickbacks, better commission, trying to get rid of old inventory, get their numbers up w/e.
It's not personal, it's shady af though.
But then I've also shopped at places that genuinely want you to buy what you want. They'll never get rid of me.
I had this happen when I tried to buy a Micro Tavor. “You don’t want that- the regular one is fine. Here, hold it”.
The best part is I was actually an Operator and had 2k in my pocket but they wouldn’t order it for me. SMH.
It's salesmanship. These people are not here to be friends but rather make money. Customers unwittingly get sucked by these people. Happening forever. Just have to be more street smart.
Gun stores carry guns they know people want, even if they are shit.
My LGS carries a few Pheonix Arms and Taurus models, only because they're close to Detroit and they know that they will sell easily.
Sometimes in order to get guns they want to sell from a distributor they have yo buy guns they don't want to sell. For example. My LGS told me that to get some colt pythons from one distributor he also had to buy 5 Taurus revolvers. Or to get some SABREs he had to get some freedoms.
I've been selling guns for years, and my rule has always been, try to stop a customer from making a mistake, but if they insist, let them make it.
Lots of "My cop friend told me I should buy a judge or governor because it's a revolver shotgun and it's the best gun for home defense"
That’s called bad salesmanship and if I owned that shop I’d fire anyone that didn’t recommend a firearm. There job is to sell every single firearm in that shop.
I had a buddy who wasn't the most experienced with guns, but very enthusiastic. He wanted a Glock 19 and went into LGS (Bass Pro Shops in Hanover, MD) and asked about it. The guy proceeded to argue with him for 15 minutes about why he should just buy a Glock 45 or a Glock 17. I piped in and said "Hey, listen, (friend name), it's your money. You buy what you want. You'll be walking out of here with it, not this guy or even me." And my buddy finally put his foot down, and then the guy finally started prepping the gun for sale.
I've also had an LGS guy look me dead in the face and tell me to sell my P320 M17 and then buy a $2,300 2011 because he thinks they misfire (even though I've had my 320 for 3 years with 5,000+ rounds through and not had a single issue). Whether they do or not, mine doesn't and I've specifically tested whacking the slide at many different angles and he didn't care because "Sig bad."
Maryland GS are typically pretty shitty and I would say most are. Be prepared to argue and stand your ground with the occasional employee because they ran out of long cut and their girlfriend fucked the neighbor.
Because every employee has preferences/opinions, and to be frank, in gun shops your usually gonna end up with a lot of middle-aged/old dudes that are set in their ways and unlikely to change their opinions on guns unless it actually happens to them.
Employees also don’t always get a say about what guns are available for sale. The shop owner is often the one buying the guns, and oftentimes they’re willing to buy cheap crap if it’s bundled in with good stuff for a decent price if the overall cost is low enough.
Just as one example, I never recommend the cheap Turkshit shotguns to anyone unless it’s a break-action being sold through CZ or some other, more big name brand, but people will still buy them, especially the cheap bullpups, just because they’re cheap and they look aesthetically cool enough for the folks that want a real tactical looking shotgun that I’ll usually just shut my mouth and fill out the paperwork for their shotgun once they’ve made up their mind about it.
Another thing to consider is frankly…a lot of customers in gun shops are just dumb. The smarts one’s are honest enough to tell you they don’t know anything about guns, but others just baffle me with the kind of stuff they say, especially when it amounts to Fuddlore they honestly treat as fact.
Just last week I had to listen to an older guy tell his wife she needs a snubnose revolver in .38 Special for concealed carry. I recommended taking a look at a .357 Magnum with a 3 or 4 inch barrel if she’s more comfortable with revolvers, and the guy was shaking profusely asking me why I’d recommend she pack full power .357’s in her purse, before looking at me like I grew a second head when I told him that you know you can just put .38’s in a .357 and the recoils going to be a lot more manageable compared to an aluminum framed .38 snubbie. Had to walk away and have another employee take over when he convinced his wife to order one of those Smith 642 Ladyweight’s with a Crimson Trace grip laser telling her she just needs to put the laser on the target and keep firing until the cylinder clicks empty to resolve any bad encounter she comes across.
I’m pretty cool with some of the guys at my LGS, and they’ve told me that sometimes manufacturers will offer kickbacks in the form of guns or whatever to incentivize staff to sell their guns over their competition. He specifically mentioned Springfield giving out free Saints to reps who sold X number of Springfield products, and that most of the time, the guy would turn around and sell the guns to supplement their own salary or put towards another gun they wanted. So you go in looking for a G19, but Bill is only three Springfield sales away from a free AR15, so he’ll try to sway you towards an XD or Springfield 1911.
Springfield does it, so does taurus and sig
I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if every company did it. It’s smart business, underhanded as it is.
my store just started getting points for FN.
Well on your way to a m249….lol
M240 Bravo, accept no substitutes!
Found the sailor
Whoa now, we 11Bs used them too!
Or infantryman
M249, semi auto 😂. Saw one (no pun intended) in a shop and the guy said it was the exact same as the military, just needed to pay the $200 tax stamp to make it go full send. Funny, because I carried one for a year, ain’t the same. Then again I couldn’t afford full auto ammo costs regardless.
Guy is misinformed, it has been illegal since 1986 for an individual to register a new full auto
Guys at gun shops giving bad information has been the standard so long as gun shops have existed.
I'll keep you updated.
I’ve heard of Vortex doing it, too.
the ones I know off the top of my head are vortex (July is "vortex month," there's some good deals tbh), sig, springfield, and FN (much more recent)
I’m pretty sure it’s called a SPIF and many companies in every industry do this. When I worked at a small software company in the 80s we did this regularly. Hard to believe there was a time when computer stores sold boxes of software. But then I’m old enough to remember a time when there was only one brand of Glock.
I don't think it's underhanded for manufacturers since it's their goal to make money. It is a bit shady for the dealer to push one over the other that doesn't fit the customers needs. But then again it's like that in almost have retail sales industry. The auto industry does it on different model cars. Like there might not be any incentive on a Honda accord but every civic does might be a couple hundred bucks in your pocket.
> underhanded Underhanded, or a sales incentive? Isn't capitalism great?
Alternatively with communism we'd only have one gun for sale. "You can get any car you want as long as it's a Lada"
That would explain why Mike at my lgs mentions Sigs every single time I go there talking about guns I want or problems with my guns. Good thing I told him this past weekend that I'm just not interested in Sigs at all unless someone offers me a free P226.
and ruger. I got 2 free guns from S&w when I worked at a LGS.
When I worked at an FFL/Outdoors shop, we had a program with dozens and dozens of manufactures. Everything from Sig and Ruger and Glock to Oakley to Benchmade to Ariat to 511. I never got a free gun, but I got 60% discounts on them. I got a free benchmade knife, plus 60% discount twice a year for life (or until they stop me). I got two free 511 backpacks. Tons and tons of different animal calls. It was a really cool program. The idea was that if the brands got products into our hands, we’d be more knowledgeable and more likely to recommend them. The incentives weren’t even based on our sales - it was more that you watched videos or presentations, took a test over the product knowledge - then you got a hefty discount or a free toy.
Yup, I never tried to talk somebody out of what they wanted, but if they were open to suggestions, then I was happy to suggest something that got me Springfield points. Generally I usually did this with Springfield products that I actually liked though. If they wanted a 1911, I do actually quite like the Springfield line. If they were looking for an entry-level AR, the Saint happens to actually be a solid option. I personally don’t love the XD, so I didn’t push it over Glocks if that was what the customer wanted. XD customers tended to be people who wanted a gun but weren’t going to become “gun people,” and liked that it was $75 cheaper than the Glock.
IDK if I'd really call a $1000 gun a " entry level AR" TBH, in my opinion that's more like mid level, when you can get a perfectly functional PSA AR for less then half that price if you buy the upper and lower separately, I'd say entry level is more like s&w m&p15 or Anderson or PSA
Gun stores can't recommend you a PSA because they can't sell PSAs People ask me about them all the time and I have to tell people "yeah you gotta order from PSA and have it shipped. No I don't have one here I can show you"
Technically false: PSA has a dealer program now. It's just such a low margin of mark up that it's virtually useless. Why sell 100 PSA products to make $X when you can sell 2 (insert brand name X). There's no profit margin for a dealer and probably make more in FFL transfer fees per PSA unit.
XD is the only thing Springfield sells that would make me uncomfortable offering someone, but they thankfully have the Echelon now and I really like that gun.
Why uncomfortable on the XD? It’s a meh gun but not bad imo.
Grip safety, shitty magazines, better options at the price point. Not to mention the roll pin in the slide that *will* work itself out eventually and require a trip to SA or a gunsmith to repair. It’s just hard to recommend over something like an M&P or P10C.
Don’t forget that high bore axis…
Ever shoot one? What am I talking about. Of course you haven't
Ah you watched the XD McRib video too
I have a saint. While not the top of line it's a decent rifle for what I paid for it.
We do it with vortex. For every vortex product I sell I get vortex bucks that I can use towards their products. I have literally thousands of dollars worth of scopes, red dots, range finders, binoculars and accessories that I never had to pay for (I've even given them away). It makes all the associates steer customers towards vortex when they are looking for scopes.
I was friends with a guy at a gun shop once, and this is the answer you're looking for. Kickback promotions. They were trying to earn kickback points to get the gun \*they\* (the guy behind the counter) wanted, so they had to sell X number of a certain brand or model to get it.
That’s how I got a free M1A, and several other guns. We sell enough that we’ve never had to steer people towards certain brands. Really with Springfield, the Hellcat and Saint sold themselves though. I wish Glock had a rewards program, that’s what I usually recommend and we sell tons of them.
Makes sense
I worked at a KIA dealership and I recommend no one ever buys one of those so
They’re dog shit. Mechanic here. There’s a reason Hyundai and Kia have a 100k mile warranty and 10 year warranty for powertrain. from 12-19 they had so many fucking engine problems that they basically had to have such a high mileage warranty for them to sell and look appealing to the customer. They’re cheap for a reason. Ex had a 14 kia optima. That POS sent a rod through the oil pan at 58k miles just short of the 60k powertrain it was sold with. And I changed the oil meticulously every 2500 miles. My friend is also a Hyundai/kia technician. All he does all day long is swap long blocks and literally nothing else.
Not to go off conversation, but had to chine in as a car dude as well. KIA and Hyundais are shit toy cars. People just buy them cause they cost cheap. Get a Toyota, those things are bulletproof and reliable economical cars.
My 23 Tundra with manufacturing debris in the engine would like a word. Wouldn't be so salty if they would accept a trade in but they won't because they don't have a fix yet and Toyota doesn't want to sit on idle inventory.
10th gen Honda civics, or really any Honda with the 2.0 or 2.4 NA engines(K20 and K24) are also very reliable and the base models dont have crazy invasive technology. The CVTs have gotten a bad wrap but as long as you follow Hondas recommended service interval and use Honda CVT fluid they’re reliable enough. Find a manual and IMO they’re as reliable as any modern Toyota. Just checked the new years, k20 is still in base model civic and hrv but the k24 is not in the CRV.
If anyone was going to do the cvt right it would be Honda.
Honda’s are good too. Parts are cheap and you can find them anywhere not like bougie euro cars.
I worked for a logistics company that delivered car and truck parts to dealerships. Everyday our warehouse got dozens of engines and transmissions that needed to be delivered to Hyundai/Kia. When the truck company Yellow went out of business, we started picking up the cores as well.
Well yeah, all you've got is KIAs. If you had Toyotas, Hondas, Subaru, or even Chevys in that lot, I'd be at those vehicles lol
Well dang, was gonna look at a sportage tomorrow lol. Thought they were decent? Maybe not lol
>Thought they were decent? Bots and social media shills will tell you they are decent. Mechanics say they are dogshit. You choose who you want to believe. A lot of owners put under 100k miles on them same as a lot of Taurus owners put under 1k rounds through them, any their anecdotes are worse than useless
honestly tho, that's most car owners nowadays in general. People tend to get rid of their cars early and just always have a car payment (or lease)
Which is why you should never trust your friend or some random ok the internet about their personal GOOD experiences. Tons of people will tell you how reliable their Jag or Land Rover is, that they have owned for 3 years and has 30k miles, even though objectively, that is a total bunk story. The worst are Europeans who think 75k KM (50k miles, at 50mph and below, mind you) means the car is "used up" so they make all sorts of excuses and are offended that Americans don't consider Mercedes or BMW to be the most reliable cars on the road.
Kia/Hyundai have the best warranty on the market. Which is good because there's a good chance you'll need it. When you get a Kia that works it's a nice reliable car that is pretty feature rich for the price point. The hard part is getting one that works.
My bil is a mechanic. He apparently like the newer kias.
I have a 2019 KIA Rio that I got new and never had a problem with. It has about 80,000 miles on it
I know a lot of mechanics. Every single one will tell you buy Toyota, Honda, or Kia/Hyundai. These are guys that fix 200 cars a year easy.
No mechanic is gonna tell you to buy a Hyundai or Kia, not unless it's brand new at least. I've been at it for about a decade and have personally been in the presence of at least 20 2.0s or 2.4s while they blew up, whether while driving them or standing in front of them. I've easily seen double of that come in for a no start when they were actually locked up.
Don’t run the low weight oil in them and they are fine. I run 10-30 in my 11 sonata and it has over 250k on it. I also did all the recall and warranty stuff so I have a lifetime warranty on the motor that’s in that car. If Hyundai didn’t tell you to run 5-20 or whatever it says to maximize fuel efficiency they probably wouldn’t have had to retroactively offer lifetime warranties on these engines.
1. Upselling you from a $500 to a $3,000 gun 2. People buy lots of fucking Taurus handguns
Agree with that ^. Some people just want goofy guns but a G19 is an excellent option for a first handgun. That guy sounds like a fudd who is trying to just make more money off of you.
I didn't know a thing when I bought my first handgun. I asked for reasonably priced and reliable. Dude sold me a G19, and suggested I different trigger, but only after I shot it to see what I found comfortable. Not all shops upsell you to death. Guy was super professional and wanted me to make an educated decision. He pulled several options and even showed me how to break them all down! It probably helped that they were basically dead that day though. Gave him something to do and also help a young cat out.
The store/range that I work at has almost every commonly used handgun and some wildcards available to rent for between $10-$20 per that way people can actually try them out before they buy one that way they buy once instead of buying one and realizing they don’t like when they shoot it.
The place I went to at the time didn't have a range, but were solid people. They had the mindset that a sale was a sale. At least they educated me instead of trying to sell me on that damn thundercougerfalconbird.
I don't know if I would buy a gun from Malfunctioning Eddie
Also a good way to generate income before they even decode to buy. Since you have to pay for the range and overpriced ammo.
When I was in IT sales that's pretty much the attitude that got me through. Listen to what the customer needs/wants, they really don't understand the technical stuff most of the time. Show them options, give a recommendation. I'd usually show 3, cheaper, the one I think they should get, more expensive. Say they can get the cheap one, but they'll probably be back to upgrade sooner than they want, and I'm not going to stop them getting the more expensive but I think they'd be wasting money. Honesty and knowing your shit gets repeat customers.
I'm off the floor now, but when I was a salesman, it helped that we were flat hourly and made no commission. You never had the pressure to complete a sale, so you could show someone a dozen guns, make recommendations, and then point them in the direction of an indoor range to go try some and see which one they like the most
Glock knows they don't have to shell out spiffs and incentives to sell Glocks. Glocks sell themselves.
Definitely a fud. One guy tried to tell me that a Glock would not be a reliable handgun and I should go with an FN.
Or just fudd ass bias
Just because someone owns or works at a shop doesn’t mean they’re an expert at what they sell. Fudds own plenty of gun shops.
This
In case of the more unusual guns, like the Desert Eagle, I'd say they also want to avoid the potential difficulties that might follow the sale. Guy buys DE, takes it to the range once, then wants to return it because too much recoil / too hard to clean / ammo too expensive / whatever.
Two kinds of people buy those: 1) people who know exactly what it is they're buying, and that's what they want, and 2) people who don't grasp physical reality very well. You won't find out which group they are in if you don't challenge them.
The desert eagle is best enjoyed by shooters with a firm grip on both fantasy and reality.
I bought a de. While not practical it is one of the funnest guns I have to shoot. Although it's only a 44 man version suddenly makes shooting 44mag enjoyable since recoil is now super maganable
An old 8" model 29 was also smooth enough that we shot it until the sights fell off back when ammo was cheap... fatigue and poor ventilation led to an accidental 2 round burst or two lmao. Deagles can be pretty smooth though too. Bet the lightweight awb state ones are fun too.
What if I'm in both groups?
That is why I always recommend buying a used one if want one. Most have very low round counts and the older ones are what we're in the action movies I watched growing up. Those hooked safeties are iconic.
I had a classic DE in 50 AE I bought for meme purposes, but $3 a round made me reconsider and I traded for a L5 in 44 magnum. Well whatdya know, the L5 is actually a practical size and weight. Now my DE is 49oz and could be carried on a belt, if someone made a holster for it.
I’m sorry, but I’m just gonna flat out say it. Gun shop owners are some of the biggest pricks that I have ever had the displeasure of meeting.
I've had mixed experiences. There's a small shop in my town that I would 100% have a beer with the owner. There's another shop that I won't even go into because even the employees are dicks.
There is no gray area though. All local gun shops are run by either the coolest dudes who are really knowledgeable about guns and want to help you out or fudds that are stuck in 1976 and just want to preach their outdated beliefs to you and have you pay out the ass for it.
That's 100% true. Out of the 3 I have experience with in my town, 1 was literally a friend who got his FFL, two was guy who seemed cool, and 3 was the dickheads.
I'd submit a third type that's taking over for the old Fudds as they die or retire, which is the punisher skull tacticool dickhead
Yup.
I would agree. Small shops, big shops. Old guys, salesmen younger than me. There's only one shop I've ever been to where all the workers and the owner were genuinely cool people. Sucks, but it's always good to go into a gun store for the first time with the idea that everyone working there is going to try to upsell you and will more than likely be unpleasant to deal with, regardless of if you buy anything or not.
I hear most shops don't work on commissions.
In some states it’s illegal
There’s no commission. Totally illegal. Just a points system based on your sales, with points you can redeem for guns and optics… wait a second….
Commission on gun sales is illegal? That seems wrong
I definitely got commission when I worked at one, probably a state by state basis.
'cause people who know about guns will insist. I walked into a gun store for the first time with my friend. I told them I wanted a Glock 19. They tried selling me a ton of other stuff. I insisted. They sold it to me after some arguing. Recommendations are just there to upsell, if they have a customer there already, willing to buy and not sure on what they want. But they'll sell a model to a customer who already knows what they want.
Ive worked at my current job for 6 or so years, and we sell firearms, and before that I'd been known to work a few gunshows with a buddy of mine for a shop I frequent to this day.... Ive had people ask about many different things, under different circumstances, or want to know my opinion about a specific item. I'm one of those people that if you ask me "Hey, what do you think about this *IO AK*" that I WILL NOT lie. It's trash. Look at something else. I may not *say* it that way, but I will wholeheartedly try and point someone elsewhere. Also if someone comes in wanting something like a heavy magnum revolver and seems to have *zero* understanding of what they are asking for ill ask a bit to get an idea of it is truly a good idea to continue down that path... sometimes people get told that they "need" something for nebulous reasons and just don't know better. ( Had a little old lady come in once wanting a .44 magnum revolver... for some reason she was under the impression it was the *only* choice that would work for home defense.... in the end we talked it through, and showed her options, and she left with something she not only could handle, but enjoy shooting for fun.) Sometimes a gunshop employee is trying to help, sometimes that help is colored by individual experiences. Sometimes they just want to see you buy *anything*. Sometimes it's somewhere in between.
Usually when someone says “I want it cause I want it” means I think its cool but dont know anything about it. If I was a gun seller I would also point them in the right direction and get something practical and worth buying . Anyone can make a sale and yes a business is out to make money. However, I want my customer to make a good purchase and let them know they are looked out for, instead of being an a hole and trying to make a sale. Shitty businesses who dont put people first dont last. My grandma was a business owner in the food business. She put people first and so many happy customers loved to come and eat there. They would leave and thank everyone with smiles. RIP grandma.
Well said!
Cause two things: A lot of gun shop employees are either jerks or so burned out by government regulations and dumb customers that they just don't care anymore Gun shops stock showcase guns cause occasionally they will sell, and they get people to gawk and spend more time in the store
The 2nd point. It drives customers in the door if you have unique stuff. They nost likely won't buy it but one lgs by me just has run of mill stuff. I don't bother going in ever cause it's the same stuff dunhams carries.
One of my LGS has a couple SCARS and high-end AR's. According to the employees, they do sell. Another store goes the opposite direction. Not as many high-end stuff, but a lot of low-end guns (Charter Arms, HiPoint). A Glock 19 would be an upsell there.
If I was stocking a gun store, I'd build inventory in a few categories. 1) Cheap and reliable. While I wouldn't trust the life of my worst enemy to a Turkish shotgun, for whatever reason, Turkish pistols are OK. 2) If it's good enough for a military somewhere around the globe within the past 100 years, it's good enough for you. Glock 19. SIG p226, 229, 320. H&K VP9. Beretta 92.9 AR-15. Mossberg 590A1. Steyr AUG. AK-47. Springfield VHS, M1A, XD. And so on... 3) Fudd Stuff. 1911s. Marlin & Henry lever actions. Revolvers - Ruger, S&W & Taurus. Break-open shotguns. M1 Garands. Bolt-actions galore. 4) Deuce-deuce. Ruger 10/22, MkIV. Revolvers that shoot .22s. Volquartsen aftermarket parts for the Rugers. Taurus TX22. 5) Concealed carry. SIG p365, Sporingfield Hellcat, Ruger Max-9, M&P Shield 2.0, S&W airweights, etc. 6) The Trade-ins. All the retarded stuff people trade in to buy categories 1-5. Thanks to categories 1 & 6, you could conceivably end up with stuff in your glass case that's serviceable but not exactly recommended. If a store is stocking new guns that are garbage, they may make a sale, but they may not make a repeat sale.
Have fun trying to tell the companies you DONT want to order their shit products and then them coming back with "too bad, order 20 of these pieces of shit nobody wants and then you can have *insert popular item*
They're trying to make a profit. You don't make a profit by having people walk in and walk out because a $650 Glock 19 is too much (I'm using typical gun store pricing). If you can sell that guy a Taurus,Kel-Tec,SCCY,etc you're one step closer to making payroll. There are a lot of borderline unusable IO AKs sitting in closets that haven't seen more than 500 rounds for this reason.
I’d argue that taking the money, and making the sale is a lot more important than upselling the customer. Especially because in that instance, the customer walked.
Yea, don't buy from a shop that tries to "steer" you into anything.
Exactly. They should give advice or help guide you when asked. But never steer.
You get a lot of guys that have spent way more time on the internet reading about guns than they have using them. Then they gotta be macho men to prove what they know. The big box stores are the worst. You’re as likely to get good advice about what gun to buy at a sportsman’s warehouse as you are getting good advice on building a deck at Home Depot. As the wise sage Ron Swanson said “I know more than you”. There are people out there that can sell you a gun that know what they are doing, but man it is tedious finding them.
Ugh, sportsman’s warehouse. Employee’s name is/was Jack, the jokes wrote themselves. I overheard Jack-ass telling a customer that they were crazy to go out hunting in bear country with anything less than a 375 H&H Mind you, this is Montana, not Botswana or Alaska. Vast majority of hunters use 30 cal, some as small as 6mm and others as large as 338. Rarely does anyone use 375
There are a ton of reasons why shops carry guns that some employees recommend, and some don't. First of all, every employee is different, employees are human beings, and they have different experiences therefore they have different thoughts and different opinions. You can go into 3 different gun stores and get 3 different opinions about the same gun. Employees don't always choose what they have stock. Yeah, just because there are SCCYs and Hi-Points in stock, doesn't mean every employee is going to recommend them. But guess what? If SCCYs and Hi-Points continue to sell, than shops are going to continue to sell them and have them in stock. Could you imagine if every gun store just sold Glock 19s and Daniel Defense ARs? Likewise, could you imagine if every car dealership just sold Priuses and Civics? To sell products you need a variety of products that fit every customer base. Yeah most salesman are going to have similar ideas. At the end of the day, employees are going to have opinions. We as consumers, trust employees to have valuable opinions. However, the helpfulness, the knowledge, and the passion an employee has is completely different from the next.
It's not the gun shops necessarily, it's the distributors. Guns have a mandatory useless level of distribution that must be separate from the retailer, kind of like booze. The distributors, in order to get rid of all the guns people don't want, package them with the guns they do want. Does your shop want that brand new, hard to get piece? Well, you order twenty of these bullshit things we can't offload, and we'll send you a new hotness. So all gun shops just slowly fill up with horseshit, because you have to sell terrible guns to get access to the good ones. When you bitch that your LGS doesn't have X new gun, it's usually because they'd have had to buy too much other bullshit to get it at that time. A couple years back, if you wanted the new steel-framed Canik from my distributor, you had to buy a dozen Ruger LCS-es, the old model that preceded the ECS. They're just trying to clean out the warehouse. But, of course, a lot of GSEs just like to shit-talk guns they don't like.
Poor people make poor decisions. I worked at a shop for a couple years in college. Upsell upsell upsell. Some guy mentioned wanting a gun to pass down to his kids. I sold him a $3000+ Wilson combat 1911. Would a Glock last long enough to pass down to his kids? Absolutely. The aug to a saint is stupid as fuck though. He probably liked you and wanted to make sure you knew what you were getting into.
I mean passing down a wilson combat is much different then passing down a glock. Kids will be much more proud of inheriting that then a cheap plastic glock
Point is, the dude came in looking to spend $500 and I talked him into spending $3000
I worked in retail sales for far longer than I care to admit. There's a lot that goes into exactly why this happens, I'll give you a quick list: 1. Spivs/commission. Sometimes a manufacturer will run a thing where you get an extra $20 or whatever on top of your normal commission, and some products have more margin or just inherently earn them more 2. Sometimes stock is ordered and we realise it's a piece of shit, they keep coming back faulty, start having repeat issues. Like it's one thing to get a return for a fault, it's another to just have a run of bad luck where random unrelated things are going wrong. It's a whole other thing if you keep getting them back for the exact same issue. The issue might not be publicly known, but *we* know, because we have to deal with it, and that's a PITA 3. The person serving you genuinely knows their stuff and doesn't like selling garbage and isn't afraid to tell the truth. This also helps foster repeat customers, do you want to go back to the place that isn't afraid to lie to close the sale, or the one that is honest, listens to your needs etc.? 4. People have these prejudices (especially with firearms) that their opinion is the best and everything else is wrong. What's the joke? You get 3 gun guys together and the only thing they'll agree on is that the other 2 are wrong. As for keeping the gimmick guns, it's probably mostly just to get people in, and keep them in. Almost like when a shop has a really cool PC on display running some sick game for you to try. It's not because they really expect to sell them (at least not many), it's because it has wow factor, gives the customer something to be excited about (excitement increases sales, that's why they tend to play high BPM music in fast food places), and can give you an opportunity to engage with the customer more than "Hi how can I help". Much better to go "Ahh, yeah, it's cool isn't it. Bit pricey for me, I'd be more likely to go with *xyz*. Anyway, what brings you in?" That guy with the 1911 is an idiot though.
I had a dude at PSA try to downsell me from a Benelli M4 to a Turkish clone from EAA. Saying it was just as good. Like dude I'm standing here about to give you 2k for this, why are you trying to sell me something that costs 1/4 of that?
> It's more likely to be a one-hit kill than 9mm and that's precisely why more Medal of Honor recipients carried a 1911 than any other pistol. This is so obviously idiotic it made me a little angry to read.
It's a full on bullshit statement. Hey Elmer, you know WHY more MOH recipients carried a 1911 than any other firearm (lets assume he means modern firearms), it's because that's what they were issued. World War I 124 Haiti 1919-1920 2 Nicaraguan Campaign 2 World War II 464 Korean War 133 Vietnam 246 >>>>>**9MM** Somalia 2 Operation Iraqi Freedom 4 Operation Enduring Freedom 6 Operation Inherent Resolve 6 **It's an outright lie if we count ALL MOH recipients:** Conflicts Recipients Civil War 1522 Indian Campaigns 426 Korea 1871 15 Spanish American 110 Samoa 4 Philippine Insurrection 80 Philippine Outlaws 6 Boxer Rebellion 59 Mexican Campaign 56 Haiti 6 Dominican Republic 3 *edit: formatting
Right there are a couple things going on here: World War 2 is when most MOHs were awarded, and that's what everyone carried. MOHs are not awarded based on one-hit-kills. Or any kills at all. It's not a high score award, and this isn't Call of Duty. Your KD ratio doesn't get you anything. Troops are not doing most of their combat with sidearms. They carry fucking rifles!
Instructions clear, Colt 1851 is the best currently available carry gun based on this very reliable metric.
I mean, was the first guy old? Because he might have just been on fudd autopilot and not thinking about profit.
Is 45 years old considered old? To a 21 year old kinda, sure. But in retrospect he was a middle-aged guy.
Wow that's pretty young to be reciting the 1911 script
Fudditry knows no age. I've talked to 19 year olds who regurgitate the muh tu world wars shit.
The gun store can always move a cheaper gun over a more expensive one, so if you seem to have the means, they’ll try to up-sell you into something else. Then there are incentives from the manufacturer.
I get incentives that would apply more to the saint over Aug. But to recommend someone a nighthawk (that's probably more expensive that steyer he wanted) over a Glock....... Why spend 600 dollars on this when you can get you this 2500 dollar 1911 that's really just my shelf queen and will never see 1000 rounds put through it.
I've never once had someone talk me out of buying a gun I asked for. Some I wish I had
Okay, I’m prepared to be downvoted to oblivion, but please do me the favor of reading and thinking about my whole statement, before downvoting after. The whole “gun shop guy steering the customer” thing can be good or bad. What’s good is when a scared newb comes in and is like “I feel like I want a gun for home defense, but I’m taking a concealed carry class next week. I don’t want to carry now, but maybe get something for carry if I have to.” (Or a thousand other versions of that) and he steers her towards five or six viable options, hopefully asking questions about prior experience, budget, etc. What’s bad is when my sister and I walk in and she says: “I want to look at subcompact 9mm’s for concealed carry. Something double-stacked and striker fired, but not a Glock.” He ignores her, turns to me and says: “She’s never gonna hit anything with a handgun, Bud, you should get her a shotgun.” As a firearms instructor, you learn certain… call it “categories” of student. The guy who “knows all about guns” because he handled an M-16 for a few weeks before spending 4yrs aboard submarines… etc. One that comes up fairly often is “Middle-aged to Elderly Woman Who Shows Up with Gun in a Bag”. Quite often, the gun is a 5-shot, snub-nosed, .357/.38, with loose rounds also in drawstring bag. She has never fired the weapon. Occasionally it “was her husband’s” but far more often it’s what someone “told her she needed”. Sometimes that’s a gun store employee, and shame on him, no doubt. But sometimes it’s her son-in-law, on the phone, from half a continent away, saying: “Just get a snubby .38, that’s easiest to use.” In which case, if the gun store employee sold it to her without even offering her another option… is he really her friend? If I’m selling something, anything, my goal is to make my customer happy. Not sell them what they came in for, make them happy. I would be polite, respectful, not arrogant, these things are basic. But if I worked a hardware store and Paul Bunyon came in for a new axe, I might very well say: “Have you tried chainsaws? They’re pretty nifty!”
It’s a bikini car wash sales tactic. Get the uninformed inside the store with the idea of the glorious Yeet Cannon Hi-Point and then upsell them a Nighthawk 🙃
Because most gunstore employees don't work on commission. So if you want the crappy gun, they could care less about selling you the crappy gun
Anecdotal response from a former LGS employee: We don’t really get much direction from “management” on what to sell/push. So what you really get is a hodgepodge of personal preferences and group-think that comes from hanging in an echo chamber of a gun shop for 10 hours a day. And I didn’t get commission so no there wasn’t any upselling there
Bought one of those Turkish bullpup shotguns during COVID and the salesman kept trying to talk me out of it because it wasn’t American. Also said they wouldn’t sell me a gun unless I registered to vote and used that as a second form of ID. Why even stock it if you don’t want to sell it?
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but trust me, you want the Desert Eagle.
Because money. Because that Kimber has a much better margin for the shop, and has been sitting in that case for a year and a half. They're *salespeople*. Their job is to sell you things that make money for them, not things you need.
Just like they say in the used car game, "There's an ass for every seat."
Because just as many dumb gun shop workers as there are, there is exponentially more dumb gun buyers out there. People who think they need the barrel velocity and to be able to do cqb as a 1 man team and they want a tavor. Or the people who think their wife wants a purple sccy
Just buy guns online. Even with transfer fees, you pay less.
Margins
As with a lot of things people have as passionate hobbies: Almost anyone can open up a store, but not everyone is good at running a business. Some people want to own a gun shop because it's their hobby. They may not always survive long, but some can do enough business to stay open even when they're actively turning down more profit. Think of those guys like the comic book guy from the Simpsons. He'd probably tell someone "Oh no, don't buy that Green Lantern waste of paper. Green Lantern is just a cockamamie cash grab, worst character ever!"
Manufactures will give deals on stuff they want to move which is usually stuff that doesn't sell well.
Shops typically don’t make that much profit on guns. They usually make their profits on accessories and ammunition.
You get free beer when you distribute it. You get reduce rates, up to a point, when you work for a bank. Nothing new with that business model. What do you get when you sell firearms and ammo? Yup.
Supply and demand. Also, never, EVER, buy Ashley Furniture. [Source: 4 years in the factory]
Opinions! Shit guys even do it with their own friends… I happen to prefer SA handguns, I’ll always convince a buddy to grab a 1911 over a striker fired gun. Another friend thinks DA/SA is the best, he convinced me into buying a p220 I never shoot… and sometimes it works in your favor. I wanted a competitive gun for steel shoot on a budget and was talked into a p320x5 legion. Couldn’t be happier with it
'more Medal of Honor recipients carried a 1911 than any other pistol.' It's so weird that MOH recipients carried the **official service pistol of the US Armed Forces for 70 years** more than any other pistol.
When I worked at a small town shop I always aimed to find the best piece for the customer, I had a list of questions I'd start with: Experience Budget Planned use (carry vs car vs home vs range) Medical issues including arthritis Then I'd pull out a few options for them to try while I observed them for fit, comfort, make sure they can manipulate the slide, etc. I'd do the same with long guns too. The only time I'd actively try to steer someone away from a specific weapon was if there were known issues.
It probably boils down to one of two categories. They really have a preference and pushbit hard(not as likely), or they have a larger profit margin from whatever they're pushing. Whether that's because it cost them less to get it, they buy it in bulk or even have a deal with the company that made it. At the end of the day, they are a shop out to make money, they're going to try to make more money but getting a customer to leave is much worse than making a smaller profit and that's just bad sales
Because some people will buy them
Trying to sway a first time buyer from a Glock to a 1911 is wild. Definitely just trying to push the more expensive product.
The MoH argument is super dumb. How long was a 1911 standard issue sidearm? As if those MoH recipients had much of a choice?
Sometimes, people just wanna buy what they wanna buy, recommendations be damned. I once had a couple come in to my shop and they would always buy Hi Points. They’d get the 9mm when it was available, then they got the 45 and 40, then the carbines. Can’t tell you how many times I tried to talk em into a better gun, but despite all my logic, they simply wanted the Hi Points. Part of it is price, and people can’t always spend the money to get a nice 1911, but sometimes they just want something a little different cuz why not. Me, for example, I’d pay money to buy a DC Tec-9. Why? Cuz I think it looks different and would be a conversation piece. Not cuz it’s a great gun. Could I afford better? Shoot yeah, and I’ve bought better. Sometimes I just want something different than what the sales rep is preaching. Everyone is entitled to their own wants and opinions.
When I worked at a gun store I only gave my opinion when asked and also some manufacturers did offer incentives if we sold more of their products. Only ones I remember that did do it were magpul and dead air
Gun shops still carry guns they don’t recommend because people still buy them.
He was trying to upsell you from a $500 handgun to a $2000 handgun. A good gun shop will try and steer you toward something that will actually suit your needs and purposes, and not every gun is for everybody, so recommending something different isn't necessarily out of line, as long as it's done with the intent of understanding what the customer is actually hoping to achieve with it. And some stores just want to upsell you no matter what. Some people literally believe a "glock" is just a generic term for a handgun. Some people walk in wanting a particular gun because they've seen it in a video game, and that's all. Some people have done their research know what they want, know the drawbacks, and want a particular firearm anyway. So it's useful to have one in inventory to sell, as long as you are certain the customer actually wants it and is going to be satisfied with it, and not leaving a bad review because you sold him a "junk gun". Just because something's crap doesn't mean it's not popular, so it's kind of in the gun shop's best interest to let you know, "hey, you're probably not going to be happy with that thing if you buy it, but if you insist, I'll sell it to you. Just don't say we didn't warn you." And, of course, some guys in gun shops are just douchebags who think you should only like what they like...
The company I work for carries guns we don’t care for simply because some people want them. We offer other suggestions but we ultimately let the customer buy what they want. No one at my place of work would ever talk you out of an AUG. We also refuse to carry certain guns due to lack of QC and to many out of the box issues (heritage rough rider and sccy).
Usually there's a difference between the guy ordering inventory and the guy selling it. Therefore you get a guy selling something other than what's in inventory. For a lot of guys it's hard to put their personal biases aside and let the customer buy what the customer wants. Another reason is that stores will carry something like a Taurus G2C because no matter how much you tell people it's not reliable enough for carry, there will always be customers who cannot comprehend spending more than $300 on a defensive gun.
Brother owned a gun store until he was bought out. There are sellers that will make you buy a certain number of X to get Y. A lot of times they like allocated products (bourbon, tequila). Shop owners have to build a relationship with the sales people in order to get the best products on their shelves which means they have to buy products of the salesman that nobody wants.
Distributors make them take them in order to get more of what really sells.
Whoever told you .45 is the best pistol round is just wrong. Between 9mm, .40, and .45; there are more benefits to 9mm. We have a LOT of data from multiple government agencies supporting this.
Worked in a couple stores for a decade. Was an assistant manager for one. Sometime you carry what people want even if it's not the best. Either sell it or sell nothing. Some manufacturers and distributors (the wholesalers) require younto buy a lot of slow sellers to build a good relationship before they offer the ones you want, or they make you buy five of this thing, and three of these in order to get one of what you really want. Also, it comes to allocations. If distributer gets 18 of a high demand item, they give their reps a few they can sell o their accounts. The account... the atore... that has spent the most with him will get first pick. This was commomnwith ammo too during the shortages in 2008, 2012, and after candy hook qhwn people were panic buying.
The last 2 guns I bought were 100% useless for anything but fun. Got a cheapo 12 gauge bullpup and a 410 lever gun. So much fun and they didn't try to talk me out of either.
Springfield bullpups and all their polymer framed guns aren't even American. They're made by HS Produkt in Croatia! Fkn fudds
Find a better gun shop. Good shops ask what you want, what you want it for, and what your budget is and offer you stuff that fits and maybe some slightly over your budget. I often call the shops you speak of fudd gun shops. Is he wrong about the deagle being a gimmicky gun? Not really but to some of us we want that nostalgia of running the deagle with an Aug. Now if you said you wanted a CCW peice and pointed at the deagle id hope they would steer you clear of it. As far as bullpups they suck... But only because I'm left handed and don't want to have to convert it to lefty configuration rofl. Other then that a lot rifles triggers suck, bullpups are just another rifle and like any rifle if you want a badass trigger you either get a high end gun or swap out for a better trigger.
I know when I turned 21 and went shopping for a Glock, I found a Gen5 MOS that I loved. Guy at the counter kept pushing me to buy the Sig M18 that was actually cheaper at the time, which I thought was strange. This makes a lot of sense.
There's a lot of gate keeping in the gun community and people shaming one another for their purchases. As a sop owner they shouldn't do that to you and instead provide education about the product line any good sales person would.
That explains why the guy at my shop was trying to steer me away from sig and into the Springfield. Fortunately I just went elsewhere and bought the gun I wanted.
The people who own gun stores are gun people. And gun people are very opinionated and often very biased. It may or may not be intentional but this stereotypical behavior also creates a relationship between them and the customer. "If this guy is shit talking one gun he must be honest, knowledgeable and trustworthy "
Gun people are highly opinionated and they'll do whatever they can to convince you that the gun they would buy if they were you is the best choice in the world. It has nothing to do with business, and everything to do with people being overly assertive with their worthless opinions
Guy at the Super Boomer gun shop tried to talk me out of the S&W 327 snubnose that had been my dream gun for years. “It’ll kick pretty hard, not enough weight to it.”
I think there absolutely are guns that are popular but that most people should be advised against buying - unless that's what they really really want. There are two contrary ideas in retail, and most stores seem to operate under some mix of both of them: you want to give the customer what they want. But (this is the more old-fashioned idea) you also want the customer to be satisfied with their purchase. If you have time to find out where they're at in terms of experience and preferences, you can help them find what they really want. You can still find good retail experiences, but those tend to be in shops that are run by the owners or who pay well enough to keep good staff.
This is why nobody my age likes salesmen, they’re not there to help you make an educated decision, they have some reason to get you to buy something that benefits them regardless if it’s a good decision for you or not.
They carry those products because variety brings people in and generally having a large variety of products allows more options for people to buy. Now why people will steer you towards a certain gun could be because they have a bias towards a brand whether it be experience or some financial incentive. If you already know what you are looking for, it’s easy to ignore the people pushing sales or their opinions. If they want to make it difficult for them to earn business, I’m sure there are plenty of other places.
In your case, probably some kind of sales incentives or profit margins. In general, it could because they’re not the guns they recommend *you* buy. It could be that they’re trying to sus out what you want to use the gun for, so they can recommend the gun that will work best, not the gun you want. I’m sure they’ve had a bunch of guys walk in asking for videogame guns because it’s all they know without realizing that a good AR will do all the same things better.
It's not just guns. It's a common trait with crappy salesmen. I've experienced it with guns, but also all sorts of other things. Every time I go car shopping I find a car salesmen trying to talk me into an SUV instead of the performance car I want, watch salesmen convince my wife the watch I wanted was too expensive, and i even walked away from our first realtor when shes arguing the house I wanted was too big for a couple with no kids. I led a team of computer sales years ago, and their biases were always something I was trying to beat out of them. "You ask qualifying questions to lead them to what THEY want not what you want, and recognize when they know what they want and just freaking sell it to them"
Getting a gun for my wife was one of the biggest challenges of my life. She wanted a Glock, every sales person kept trying to sell her those tiny gun, and everyone kept trying to sell her on the rainbow anodized finish. She's talking about performance and they are saying things like "But this one is pretty" and "This would fit really nice in your purse" "It's Pink. That alone should be good enough for you." She now calls these "Rainbow Snortry Guns"
People let their bias get in the way of a sale. Simple as that- happens at REI, Bloomingdales and even gun stores.
It’s like an ice cream shop, every flavor to savor
Anyone trying to tell you to choose a 1911 over a glock 19 in todays world should not be trusted
I quit going to my LGS (GATS Guns) because of how ill informed the employees were. It’s like they hired a bunch of gun haters fresh out of college.
It all depends on the shop specifically. Sounds like you had someone trying sell you a gun that's out of your budget and they didn't like Glocks.
A gun salesman is a salesman, be suspicious of their motivations.
I know that Keltec makes stores buy essential sets of guns especially when a new one comes out, it has certain quotas to get them. When the CP33 came out, my LGS said that they had to also get a certain number of KSGs and other models to get it.
I worked at a pet store in college and we carried a lot of animals we didn't recommend as pets. People still bought them.
Opinions are like buttholes…. Buy what you want.
They have an ulterior motive or, more likely, fail to understand that their subjective preferences may not suit or be shared by other people. It takes a certain minimum level of cognitive function to broadly understand the difference between subjective opinions and objective facts. Sadly, there are many people who limbo right under that level and sincerely can not understand how their preferences are not objectively better. I do not care for Glocks. The polymer frame and blocky shape are visually unappealing to me. They are also quite light without a full magazine and don't feel as steady in my hands. This does not change the fact that Glocks are excellent handguns. They are accurate, reliable, notoriously durable, light enough to carry, and have decent triggers (for striker fired). If I NEEDED a pistol and was handed a Glock, I would be relieved and satisfied. I would prefer my CZ P-01, but a Glock will do the job.
Because the distributor the store gets its inventory from sets conditions like, "Okay, I'll send you the half dozen Glock 19s that you want, but you have to also take a Taurus Judge. And on those Springfield M1As you want, no problem but you've gotta also take a Styer AUG and a couple of these Turkish clone M4 shottys."
Opinions don't matter, money is money, why would a business NOT sell a product that they know will move regardless of how they feel about it
Most manufacturers place conditions on the selection of guns shipped to distributors & dealers. They'll bundle popular guns with unpopular guns and tell them it's all or nothing. That's how shops get stuck with a bunch of brand new inventory they can't move, and where the weird customer-steering shenanigans start.
Because you stock what sells, not what you like. Karsh
This is why it’s so important to find a lgs that has non arrogant pricks running it. A gun is a very personal choice. It’s like buying underwear. They have to fit perfect. I’ve taken many people new gun shopping. Most of the stuff they buy I would never recommend as I don’t like it myself. But for them it’s a great choice.
I trusted my life to a Glock 19 in various warzones throughout the Middle East. That old dude is still living in WW2...
It's the same thing with about every sales person. Ulterior motive. Kickbacks, better commission, trying to get rid of old inventory, get their numbers up w/e. It's not personal, it's shady af though. But then I've also shopped at places that genuinely want you to buy what you want. They'll never get rid of me.
I had this happen when I tried to buy a Micro Tavor. “You don’t want that- the regular one is fine. Here, hold it”. The best part is I was actually an Operator and had 2k in my pocket but they wouldn’t order it for me. SMH.
It's salesmanship. These people are not here to be friends but rather make money. Customers unwittingly get sucked by these people. Happening forever. Just have to be more street smart.
Gun stores carry guns they know people want, even if they are shit. My LGS carries a few Pheonix Arms and Taurus models, only because they're close to Detroit and they know that they will sell easily.
I went to 3 LGS before I finally found one that didn't try to talk me out of buying my fn fiveseven. Some gun shop workers are just morons.
Sometimes in order to get guns they want to sell from a distributor they have yo buy guns they don't want to sell. For example. My LGS told me that to get some colt pythons from one distributor he also had to buy 5 Taurus revolvers. Or to get some SABREs he had to get some freedoms.
I've been selling guns for years, and my rule has always been, try to stop a customer from making a mistake, but if they insist, let them make it. Lots of "My cop friend told me I should buy a judge or governor because it's a revolver shotgun and it's the best gun for home defense"
That’s called bad salesmanship and if I owned that shop I’d fire anyone that didn’t recommend a firearm. There job is to sell every single firearm in that shop.
I had a buddy who wasn't the most experienced with guns, but very enthusiastic. He wanted a Glock 19 and went into LGS (Bass Pro Shops in Hanover, MD) and asked about it. The guy proceeded to argue with him for 15 minutes about why he should just buy a Glock 45 or a Glock 17. I piped in and said "Hey, listen, (friend name), it's your money. You buy what you want. You'll be walking out of here with it, not this guy or even me." And my buddy finally put his foot down, and then the guy finally started prepping the gun for sale. I've also had an LGS guy look me dead in the face and tell me to sell my P320 M17 and then buy a $2,300 2011 because he thinks they misfire (even though I've had my 320 for 3 years with 5,000+ rounds through and not had a single issue). Whether they do or not, mine doesn't and I've specifically tested whacking the slide at many different angles and he didn't care because "Sig bad." Maryland GS are typically pretty shitty and I would say most are. Be prepared to argue and stand your ground with the occasional employee because they ran out of long cut and their girlfriend fucked the neighbor.
Same reason anybody carries anything they don't reccomend buying. Somebody is still going to want to buy it.
Because every employee has preferences/opinions, and to be frank, in gun shops your usually gonna end up with a lot of middle-aged/old dudes that are set in their ways and unlikely to change their opinions on guns unless it actually happens to them. Employees also don’t always get a say about what guns are available for sale. The shop owner is often the one buying the guns, and oftentimes they’re willing to buy cheap crap if it’s bundled in with good stuff for a decent price if the overall cost is low enough. Just as one example, I never recommend the cheap Turkshit shotguns to anyone unless it’s a break-action being sold through CZ or some other, more big name brand, but people will still buy them, especially the cheap bullpups, just because they’re cheap and they look aesthetically cool enough for the folks that want a real tactical looking shotgun that I’ll usually just shut my mouth and fill out the paperwork for their shotgun once they’ve made up their mind about it. Another thing to consider is frankly…a lot of customers in gun shops are just dumb. The smarts one’s are honest enough to tell you they don’t know anything about guns, but others just baffle me with the kind of stuff they say, especially when it amounts to Fuddlore they honestly treat as fact. Just last week I had to listen to an older guy tell his wife she needs a snubnose revolver in .38 Special for concealed carry. I recommended taking a look at a .357 Magnum with a 3 or 4 inch barrel if she’s more comfortable with revolvers, and the guy was shaking profusely asking me why I’d recommend she pack full power .357’s in her purse, before looking at me like I grew a second head when I told him that you know you can just put .38’s in a .357 and the recoils going to be a lot more manageable compared to an aluminum framed .38 snubbie. Had to walk away and have another employee take over when he convinced his wife to order one of those Smith 642 Ladyweight’s with a Crimson Trace grip laser telling her she just needs to put the laser on the target and keep firing until the cylinder clicks empty to resolve any bad encounter she comes across.