Letter To The Editor: “Yes,
We’re In A De-Evolution”
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I just got my July copy of Shooting Industry and couldn’t agree more with Hank Yacek’s take on the industry (“Are We In A De-Evolution?”). It’s ironic: I just got finished penning an email to an executive at a major firearms company complaining about exactly what Yacek wrote about.
I, too, think this industry is committing suicide with its business practices and greed. The manufacturers are to blame for allowing drop-ship-only stores to proliferate. I’ve been in the gun business for 55 years and I’ve never seen such a mess as we have today.
On GunBroker, I found a link with 46 listings for a particular firearm. Out of the 46, only the top two sellers actually had this item in their possession. The rest were drop shippers that would have a sale fulfilled by a distributor. I also can’t believe they all have been approved drop shippers either.
Just what is the criteria to become a drop shipper? Storefront? Inventory? Overhead? Employees? Liability insurance? Breathing air? The only one I can think of is the latter …
We can’t have a healthy industry when manufacturers let the distribution channel become so diluted with people who have absolutely no business selling products they don’t have.
How would mainstream manufacturers react if they, as a manufacturer, had 100 other competitors trying to sell their guns to distribution — but they don’t have them and rely on someone else to fulfill the distributor’s orders? What if the distributors didn’t know who was a legitimate business and who was just a drop shipper? They have 100 choices. If their volume was diluted like ours is, how could they survive on a drastically reduced revenue stream? We don’t need a gas station on every corner.
The economy sucks and we all know sales are down — so why not take this opportunity to clean up this mess the manufacturers have allowed to grow into a pandemic?
— Edward Pepper, CEO/Owner
Osage County Guns
Wright City, Mo.
Dealers, what do you think? We want to hear from you: comments@shootingindustry.com.
