On one hand, a Biden victory could mean more political pressure on gun rights. A Trump victory could see continued turmoil.
“Those riots drive a lot of sales, too,” Cabahug added.
Bastean agrees: “I think we’re going to continue to see raised demand regardless of who wins. There’s pure venom and hatred for Trump — and for Biden too.”
Echoing the concerns of many gun owners, Van Leiden worries a Biden victory could result in new gun-control measures. If Trump gets re-elected, he expects the market to return to normal by April or May.
“If he doesn’t get re-elected, I don’t know if it will ever get better,” Van Leiden said.
Castaline sees a Trump victory as the quickest path back to normal. While it would mean a drop in demand for guns and ammo, he’s ready for a change.
“Do I like all this craziness in the store? No,” he stated. “We are to the point where we’ve stopped answering the phone on Saturdays. Everybody is looking for ammo. We just put up a recorded message.”
How will you adjust your advertising and marketing strategies to account for the changing market?
When customers are buying stuff as fast as you can put it on the shelf, it might be tempting to rethink the advertising and marketing budget and even some of your social media strategies.
This would be a mistake suggests Bastean at Ultimate Defense in Missouri.
The Year Of The
First-Time Gun Buyer
Dealers Predict How A Wild 2020 Will Impact 2021 Business
Dealers have had to pull from their experience with previous demand surges to
accommodate both first-time customers and regulars over the past nine months.
Let’s be honest. This year turned out pretty much nothing like anyone expected it to. As if we needed a reminder, the business of forecasting the future has its limitations. Yet here we are again, putting one year to bed and getting ready for the next.
Perhaps more than any other year in recent history, 2021 stands to be heavily impacted by the year that came before it. The coronavirus, social unrest and a heated presidential election delivered a triple whammy to the industry, driving demand to levels not seen since the fallout from the Sandy Hook tragedy in Dec. 2012. Some measures — record gun sales, for one — suggest 2020 exceeded even that chaotic period.
To get a better idea of what the coming year might have in store for us, we spoke with employees and owners of four gun shops scattered across the nation. Our panel includes: Marco Cabahug, sales manager at Magnus Sports in Las Vegas; Paul Bastean, managing director at Ultimate Defense in St. Peters, Mo.; Jay Castaline, owner of Wyoming Guns in Homosassa, Fla.; and Tim Van Leiden, owner of The Gun Guys in Ottawa, Kan.
We wanted to know how they expect the chaos of 2020 to affect operations in 2021. What’s going to happen with all those new gun owners? Will any customer shopping habits change? And what about the presidential election?
Now, off to the questions:
Among other things, 2020 may be remembered as the year of the first-time gun buyer. What do you see happening with those customers in 2021?
Cabahug, at Magnus Sports, expects a lot of the guns sold to these new shoppers to eventually make their way into the used market. Like others, he’s hopeful those new customers will take advantage of training opportunities and see the value in gun ownership.
“I like to think they’ll keep it up,” Cabahug said. “Maybe they’ll open their eyes and see guns aren’t evil. They’ll see a lot of the stuff they’ve heard isn’t really true.”
Missouri’s Ultimate Defense has long put an emphasis on its training programs and range memberships. Early returns in 2020 suggest many of the new buyers are willing to do more than just grab a gun and shove it in a nightstand. By early fall, monthly range memberships were up 40%, Bastean confirmed.
“We’re trying to get them involved in shooting leagues and training opportunities. We hope it’s not a one-and-done kind of thing,” he shared. “Once you turn a new shooter into a regular shooter, they’re lower maintenance.”
At Gun Guys in Kansas, the shop has a trainer on staff who has found himself with a full calendar of private lessons.
“Two-thirds of the people we consider to be first-time buyers are asking about training. They’re not just buying the guns and taking them home,” Van Leiden reported. “With all the riots and stuff going on, they’re realizing they’re going to have to take some responsibility for their own protection.”
Castaline, at Florida’s Wyoming Guns, said nearly half of the shop’s sales this year have been to new buyers. He sees the prospects for those people holding onto those guns being directly related to the November election.
“If Trump gets in, they’ll probably relax and get rid of their guns,” he predicted. “If Biden gets in, it will go crazy again.”
With all the first-time gun owners entering the scene, do you see any hope for a revitalization of the hunting segment?
Perhaps this won’t be surprising, considering the self-defense emphasis of the gun-buying frenzy, but the shop owners aren’t expecting any changes in the hunting market.
Castaline, an avid hunter, sees little hope for a resurgence in hunting, barring some sort of major disruption in the nation’s food supply chain.
“I don’t see people transitioning to hunting. At least not in our area,” he concluded.
His customer base includes a lot of retirees from New York and New Jersey, and they just don’t have much interest in hunting. The same goes for younger people, who are more interested in video games, he said.
“In another 10 years, it will be a lost art,” Castaline predicts.
Van Leiden is always hopeful for a resurgence of hunters, but each time he boosts his inventory, he ends up selling it off at a discount. “It just fails every time,” he said.
Still, he’s not ready to completely give up on the idea some of these newbies might get the hunting bug.
“You don’t know. Some of them might start enjoying shooting,” he contended. “Maybe they’ll have friends who hunt. There’s always hope.”
What about your longtime customers? How have they been affected?
Most experienced customers are familiar with the demand spikes of years past. Some of them even learned enough during those crazy periods to stock up on ammo or reloading components. Still, these valuable customers are undoubtedly affected by the chaos.
For Magnus Sports — where competition shooters are a key customer segment — ammo shortages are more significant than the lack of guns. Most of those shooters tend to focus on higher-end guns for their games, meaning the shortage of GLOCK 19s and other polymer guns is a fairly minor concern for them.
“Once you turn a new shooter into a regular shooter, they’re lower maintenance.”
Paul Bastean, Managing Director Ultimate Defense, St. Peters, Mo.
The regulars generally have the guns they need. Feeding those guns is what could be a challenge, Cabahug noted.
“The issue of ammo is the biggest stress,” he added. “There’s also a primer shortage right now.”
Bastean, in Missouri, sees the annoyance factor as the biggest thing for the regulars.
“They’re used to walking into the store and buying a box of .45 and jumping onto the range. They like to be able to come to the store and not have to wait,” he said. “I think most of our clients realize, though, the more people we can get introduced to Second Amendment rights, the better it is for us.”
With this annoyance factor in play, Castaline came up with a strategy for his Florida store. He doesn’t want regulars to find themselves waiting a couple hours for the attention of salesmen busy with newbies.
“We’ve got one guy who handles our regulars right now,” Castaline shared. “We get them in and out so they’re not held up.”
How do you see the turmoil of 2020 altering customer buying habits going forward?
If 2020 teaches customers anything, it’s likely to be in the area of ammo stockpiling. It seems somewhat surprising many longtime shooters would be scrounging for ammo after having lived through the Obama years. Based on the volume of customers desperate for ammo, it appears many of them were caught off guard.
Even though we’ve been down this path before, Bastean thinks it may be different this time. Unlike last time, there’s been a significant increase in wholesale prices — with his 9mm ammo costs tripling.
“I think they’re going to be looking at buying in bulk and not having to pay the inflated prices happening now,” he said.
Van Leiden agrees.
“We haven’t had ammo on the shelves for months. We haven’t even had the rental guns out lately because we don’t have ammo for them,” he stated. “Once ammo starts coming back, they’re going to buy it and stockpile it a little more than they have in the past.”
How has this year changed the way you will stock and manage inventory next year?
In an industry not known for stability, there are limits to lessons that can be learned from another period of chaos. It might be tempting to follow the instincts of those stockpiling customers and just grab everything you can find, but the past offers ample reason to rethink such a strategy.
Castaline in Florida figures he’ll be even more cautious going forward. For example, a Biden victory in November won’t necessarily prompt him to load up on ARs without knowing more about the specifics of new restrictions or laws. There’s too much danger in building an inventory that can’t be sold.
“If I get stuck with them on my shelves, what am I going to do?” he asked.
A Trump victory would carry its own potential problems. The buying will only continue for so long — something he keeps in mind as he agrees to purchase guns from suppliers he wouldn’t typically carry.
“It’s going to come to a screeching halt at some point,” he said.
Cabahug, in Las Vegas, plans to keep ammo stocks higher in the future. Without ample supplies of ammo, it can be tough to sell guns. (Though they do try to keep a few boxes back for new purchases.)
“It’s like buying a new car and not being able to drive it,” he reasoned.
For Bastean, in Missouri, these troubled times have served as a solid reminder about the importance of developing strong relationships with suppliers and sales reps. Compared with many of his similar-sized competitors, he says he’s had a relatively easy time keeping ammo in stock.
“A lot of it is because of the relationships we’ve built with suppliers and wholesalers. It’s not something everybody is going to be able to do,” he noted.
A big unknown for 2021 is the result of the November elections. How do you see things shaping up with a Trump or Biden victory?
By the time you read this, the U.S. presidential election should already be decided. We wanted to know how the election — whatever the result — could shape the industry. There is general agreement there’s little reason to expect an immediate return to normal, regardless of who wins.
Cabahug doesn’t see a lot of hope, regardless of which candidate claims the nation’s top post: “It’s going to be crazy no matter what.”
“If I get stuck with them on my shelves, what am I going to do? It’s going to come to a screeching halt at some point.”
Jay Castaline, Owner Wyoming Guns, Homosassa, Fla.
While 2020 is the year of the first-time gun buyer, make 2021 the year of repeat visits. Your frontline
team is a valuable asset to assist in welcoming customers back in the store.
“If you’re going to capture more than your market share, you have to stay out there,” he advised. “We’re not at 100% capacity. Until we get to 100%, we’re going to continue promoting our business.”
The shop is making a strong social media push and is delving into geofencing — targeted advertising that relies on cellphone GPS data to pinpoint customers shopping at similar stores in the area. For instance, someone who drops by the local Bass Pro Shops might see a Facebook ad for Ultimate Defense.
One way to handle these times of extraordinary demand is to look at them the same way you might look at Christmas and other busy shopping periods.
Van Leiden, in Kansas, notes his typical advertising strategy involves heavier expenditures during those busy times, while cutting back during the slow summer months.
To put it simply: You should be advertising when people are ready to spend.
“When you know you’re going to be super good is when you have to advertise extra,” he said.
Still, it doesn’t mean there aren’t some areas where you can make some changes.
Magnus Sports in Las Vegas, has pretty much stopped putting new stuff on its website.
“Right now, if I get something in here, it’s pretty much guaranteed to sell within the week if not that day,” Cabahug declared. “If it gets slower, we’ll probably start updating the website again. But right now, there’s no point.”
