Personal Defense
Trends Observed...
When I first walked into FITS, I noticed two things: Every single person behind the counter was female, and every single customer on the buying side of the...
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Selling Eye, Ear...
Surveys show more customers buy guns today for home and family protection than for hunting or target shooting. The gun is not the only protective element...
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Selling...
In any retail field, some products are universally desired by the buying public, and some will increase or decrease in popularity depending on regional...
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Finding Out What...
You don’t need anyone to tell you a key to successful sales is to offer something the customer wants. This goes for us, too. Responding to a request from...
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Advising On...
It’s common for customers to ask gun shop staff for advice on defensive ammunition, and the question is particularly frequent among first-time gun buyers.
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Selling More Of...
When something becomes a best seller, it’s nature’s way of telling us to sell even more.
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Promising...
The 2023 NRA Annual Meeting in Indianapolis served up a healthy dose of potential self-defense options. What stood out?
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Finding A Niche
In a world full of competitors, how does a business establish itself? Sometimes, the key is to offer the customer something different.
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Dispelling...
In our past couple of columns, we’ve touched on giving customers a shorthand education on when they can (and can’t) use the lethal force of a firearm...
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Self-Defense...
Last month in this space we laid out the basic legal formula for the justifiable use of lethal force, focusing on the foundational elements of Ability,...
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Explaining...
Since the beginning of the pandemic, and concurrent with civil disturbances around the nation, we now have 10 million or more first-time gun owners.
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What Will Be...
Past is prologue. There may not be any startling changes in the world of the gun and personal-defense market in 2023, but we can extrapolate from what...
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And The “F”...
The recent introduction of the Walther PDP-F pistol is seen largely on the gun-related internet as “a handgun for ladies.” Designed with a short reach...
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Leading Your...
Personal illumination devices have probably advanced faster than firearms in terms of “lighter, handier and less bulk with more power.” Have your...
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Selling The 1911...
The classic John Moses Browning design finalized in the year 1911 remains a steady seller, if not the best seller, in American gun shops today. There are...
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Relics Or Rescue...
A few months ago, I witnessed an interesting dichotomy in a couple of gun shops I visited during the same week.
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Global Events...
I come from the generation that grew up huddling under elementary school desks doing “atomic bomb drills.”
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Hot Defensive...
It wasn’t a “perfect storm,” but it was still an ugly one.
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New Tech...
It’s a given most defensive firearms have historically been designed by and for males. There have been recent developments which improve the situation....
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A 10mm Resurgence?
When the 10mm pistol cartridge was introduced in the early ’80s, one of its godfathers was Col. Jeff Cooper, who predicted it would replace his beloved...
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Selling Guns...
When a product strikes a certain chord and skyrockets in popularity, it sells itself. Why should someone selling that kind of product even think about how...
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Perspectives On...
Noone who reads Shooting Industry needs me to tell them prices on guns — and particularly ammunition — seem to have gone through the roof, nor that...
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When The...
For going on two years now, we’ve been seeing a lot more first-time buyers in gun shops. How many of them will become return customers?
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Follow Current...
In any retail enterprise, it’s obvious the seller has to stay on top of buying trends to maximize product movement and profits. It follows that...
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Supplement...
The public seems to think gun shops are going through boom times, disregarding the fact many stores can get few guns, and less ammunition, to sell. A dealer...
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Customers’ Pet...
If you’ve been reading Shooting Industry for a very long time, you may remember when this magazine had a monthly feature on dumb things customers did and...
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Defy Stereotypes...
You’ve probably heard (and experienced firsthand): The previous 15 months have resulted in record gun sales. A significant driver of this trend is a rise...
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Cordially...
In the January 2021 issue, Shooting Industry kicked off its useful Best Practices column with an excellent article by Doug VanderWoude titled “Best...
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Joining Business...
Many a gun-shop owner chose to enter the firearms industry because guns and shooting were his or her hobby. Let’s examine a case of such an enthusiast who...
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Continued Unrest?
We all know the record-breaking sales of 2020 — driven by COVID-19, the summer’s unrest and presidential election — won’t last forever.
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Serving The...
In serving the lawful self-defense market, we’re helping people from becoming prey by successfully warding off predators. It’s a biological truth:
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Handling Q&As...
In the past year, several million first-time gun buyers came to stores like yours. They found out firsthand they had been lied to about purchasing guns,...
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Budget Guns For...
Not every customer has the budget to walk into your shop and drop thousands of dollars on a premium-quality firearm. You didn’t need me to tell you that,...
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Carry Optics: A...
Carry optics — a compact non-magnifying red dot sight on a handgun, usually a semiautomatic — has become an extremely hot trend. It hasn’t taken over the
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After The Gun &...
With this issue landing in your inbox prior to Election Day, the outcome is obviously unknown at press time. If Joe Biden becomes president-elect we can
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Sales & Safety:...
Pocket guns are incredibly popular, especially these days. If you follow online gun forums, you would easily gain the impression pockets just might be the...
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