“It’s Like Black
Friday, Every Day.”

On any given day, Ace Sporting Goods has somewhere around 4,000 guns in stock. Any given day, that is, before 2020 went off the rails. By summer, the shop in Washington, Pa., was lucky to hit 60% of this total, with a raging pandemic, protests and calls to “defund the police” driving intense demand.

“What we sell each day, I can’t replenish. I’ve had distributors tell me they don’t have a single semi-auto in their warehouses,” said Ben Romanoff, who owns the business with his father. “What’s happening now — it’s like Black Friday, every day.”

Not surprisingly, a considerable chunk of this new demand is coming from a rather unlikely place — people who’ve never owned a gun before. Throughout this buying surge, shops across the nation have been swamped with buyers whose fears have forced them to overcome reluctance, or even outright hostility, toward gun ownership.

“It’s opened a lot of people’s eyes to the idea owning a gun isn’t such a bad thing. If you were on the fence, you jumped onto our side,” Romanoff noted.

It’s a dynamic that brings a new set of challenges. With limited supplies and logistical problems created by the coronavirus (many stores are operating with customer capacity restrictions), shops are trying to meet the needs of their regular customers, while also handling the influx of novice buyers.

Ace Sporting Goods, for example, allows only 10 customers in the store at a time. Entry is granted to those who are there to buy, not browse. But there’s nothing quick when it comes to first-time buyers.

“It’s tough. You’re in here doing a ‘Handgun 101’ tutorial while there are 15 people standing in line outside,” Romanoff added.

No one wants to send a new gun owner out the door without at least a rudimentary understanding of how to operate the firearm safely.

“You try to educate them as much as you can,” said Scott Stirrat, owner of Idaho Guns & Outdoors. “We’ve denied selling guns to some people. We had customers we didn’t feel comfortable with because of their panicked nature.”

What Are They Buying?

Before the chaos hit, business at the Boise, Idaho, shop was steady and slowly gaining steam. Popular guns were the typical GLOCKs and Rugers. The Springfield Armory Hellcat was in demand. And in the budget range, the Taurus G3 and G2c were nice sellers.

“Taurus has been doing great at its price point. They’re making good guns for less than $300,” Stirrat observed.

The panic buying following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic changed the complexion of the market, with customer choices driven more by availability than by personal preference.

Indeed, this isn’t the ideal time to be a picky customer, shared Will Reynolds, co-owner of LeadFeather Guns & Archery in Winter Haven, Fla.

Six months ago, a customer could walk into the shop and ask for something particular — say, a GLOCK 19 Gen4 — and have a pretty good chance of getting what they wanted. Today the same customer is far more likely to be disappointed, and directed to what’s actually in stock.

“God knows when I’ll get another one in. It could be tomorrow. It could be in four weeks,” Reynolds opined. “It’s pretty much take what you can get right now.”

First-Time Buyer Preferences

Still, according to Reynolds, when given a choice, first-time buyers tend to be driven more by price than anything else. Options from Taurus, SCCY and SAR USA go first. (The Springfield Hellcat and SIG SAUER P365 also are popular with this crowd.)

It may also pay to approach these customers differently than your regular customers. Offering too many choices can be counterproductive, said Romanoff in Pennsylvania. A better approach is to figure out what they need and then show them a couple solid options.

“If you start showing them three, four or five guns — you’ve lost them,” he shared.

Keeping The Shelves Stocked

After several years of easy access to inventory, the industry has quickly slipped back into a now-familiar mode where you have to fight to keep your store’s shelves stocked.

It’s going to be particularly tough for smaller shops and those that don’t have rock-solid relationships with distributors. This latest cycle reinforces the value in building strong bonds with at least one or two suppliers.

“A lot of them are focused on their top 10 or 20 dealers. Fortunately, we’re one of those, but we work on those relationships,” Romanoff said.

It’s also a two-way street: “You see who your friends are. You talk to some of these distributors all the time — and now they stop calling. If you blackball us right now, I’m going to remember it,” he added.

At Idaho Guns, the quest to keep inventory flowing is a daily endeavor.

“It’s opened a lot of people’s eyes to the idea owning a gun isn’t such a bad thing. If you were on the fence, you jumped onto our side.”

Ben Romanoff Owner Ace Sporting Goods Washington, Pa.

“We make lots of phone calls every day to our various suppliers to get as much as possible,” Stirrat said. “It’s not like it was at the beginning of the year when you could order whatever you wanted.”

A strong relationship with one distributor in particular has relieved some of the demand pressure. This, he shared, is the key: “You need to be a loyal customer when things are a little slower.”

The timeline for a return to normal is anyone’s guess. 2020 has proven to be a year of surprises. And with the presidential election on the horizon, there’s little reason to expect calm seas anytime soon.

Things have to slow down somewhat, Stirrat predicts.

“People can only buy so much stuff for so long,” he said. “Eventually people run out of money.”

Recently, they’ve added a new well-received feature: video inventory reports. They walk around the store with a camera to show followers exactly what’s there, with a new video posted every few days.

“It gives all our customers an understanding of what we’ve got here,” Reynolds said.

Ace Sporting Goods in Pennsylvania uses billboards, email blasts, social media and radio spots. The latter have been particularly effective with inexpensive five-second “ad-lets,” which play between songs at a popular Pittsburg rock station.

“They play over and over again. They stay on people’s minds,” Romanoff confirmed.

An important thing to keep in mind, though, is demand will fall. Those lines outside the stores will fade.

“What happens when things quiet down?” Romanoff asked. “You still have to have your name in front of everyone.”

Dealers, how are you staying proactive throughout the pandemic? Do your experiences mirror the business owners here?
Contact the SI team: comments@shootingindustry.com

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