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DenverDave
07-01-2015, 00:48
Hey Rob, Mike and gang.
I called today and was surprised to learn you guys don't do do FFL transfers (online order from out of state dealer). I am curious why not? Seems like a good way to generate business, although your not making much on the transfer itself someone who is getting a stripped lower transferred to them from you is a way to get people in the door. And once they are in the store who knows what they will decide to buy. I realize that there maybe liability issues, or regulatory issues I am ignorant of, however if that is not the case I would reconsider that policy if I was you.

Best,
Dave

FireMoth
03-28-2016, 09:00
Dave,
Sorry for the late reply, i had missed this while on my back with knives in me.
The simple answer is TIME.
What people like about us is the attention to detail we give to the maintenance and customization of their firearms, and choice of parts purchases, from start to finish.
This means that even with all hands on deck, Sean and I are on the benches passing things back and forth, while answering questions, and mike is handling transfers, orders, and inventory, as well as answeribg what questions he can, Mom and Zach on the register and pulling product for customers or restocking.

Its not a huge place (for now), so adding more people wouldnt be feasible, as we dont have room even for more computers or registers.

We dont want to lose sight of the business model thats made us successful, and our customers happy, for what might be a net loss. I could both attract, and subsequently lose business by making people feel they are part of a production line, instead of a person we want to see as a happy shooter.

More over, it gives us an oppertunity to share business. We are NOT an SOT, but refer our class 3 inquiries to Andy at 303ARms, who we buy our own cans from.
And there are several local FFL, many who started as, and continue to be our customers, who do transfer business, that appreciate the referral.

Big stores will try to do it all, some times, but not often with success. One of our premier competitors, who also house a fantastic indoor range, is often complained about by customers who just discovered us. I dont think they go out of their way to make customers feel bad, unwanted, or hurried. I think that when you try to tackle everything in a wide are of endevor, things slip through the cracks.

So, as long as their are friendly businesses i can refer my customers to, and have them come back happy because they were treated well, i can focus on what made us grow in the first place, instead of risking becoming that faceless production line.

The secondary reason is economy. We SELL lower recievers, at fair prices, based on a quality standard we will not drop below.
Typically when customers are looking to purchase online and transfer, if the part is up to quality we would sell, it comes out close to or more than our price after transfer fees.
If it comes out less, its almost always a crap shoot purchase with an unreliable manufacturer.

A recent popular AR lower manufacturer, who we will call "A", has had discount lowers going out the door like crazy, at yes, prices lower than i can match.
But they do this by compromising quality control, mostly in rejection rate.
The problem here is, if i say who they are, there are a bunch of functioning guns out there on their lowers, and so people will defend their purchase, because the one or two they got worked.
But people come to us to solve problems, so guess which ones i see?

When i bring something in, build or repair it, im taking some responsibility for it. So a manufacturer with a 20% failure rate will have more happy customers then not, echoed on these boards, but im not willing to sell a problem to 1 out of every 5 of my customers.

If there is something special you want, often money can be saved ordering it through us. So do feel free to call.
But taking on every transfer out there would pass things through our shop we dont want to represent, so we wont change that model.

And again, we have a lot of friendly FFLs we are happy to refer you to. Because more gun shops, are better.

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FireMoth
03-30-2016, 08:06
Hopefully that answered the question DenverDave?

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