Why buy firearms locally? Cheaper online..

[Younggun]

Really? It seems like you're trolling because you're bored. The second vendor that I ordered from and will be receiving from today was in fact less expensive [than buds] for a duplicate firearm.

What I expect, is for things to flow smoothly and efficiently no matter what the price is. That's what everyone should expect. Good customer service, efficient delivery and processing, and support after the sale. No?

I go to Walmart cause stuff is cheap....and expect 0 customer service.

I don't expect to pay the same price to get the product I want AND good service because good service requires good people. Good people cost more.

 

[TAVM]

Wow. So you guys just have low expectations and likely poor codes of conduct. When I do my job, I do my job. I do it to the best of my ability because I'm agreeing to do so at that accepted rate of pay. From when I was a kid working fast food to being in the military to becoming a civilian working in the private sector again...I always performed to the best of my ability. In the military the phrase was to have "excellence in all that you do" and guess what? I expect others to do the same. That's all. No more no less.

That's where the problem lies. It used to be that you could get a good price on something and expect the good service, because people in general were...good.

 

[tXfactor]

Who's to say they [Bud's] aren't doing their job to the best of their ability? They are possibly the largest online retailer of firearms and I'm sure they are always operating on a backlog. They hire X employees to fulfill their orders because they have an overhead and profit margin to maintain, to continue to sell their inventory at such low prices. If they hire more employees, their overhead goes up, and thus their prices go up.

Most people are ok with waiting an extra few days, because the savings are worth it. If you wanted expedited shipping, then you should've paid for it, at the very least. Even better than that, you should've bought it locally and would've even gotten it quicker.

The cliche, "you get what you pay for," couldn't apply any better than now, to this "rant."

 

[TAVM]

Seriously? That last post has to do you with you guys expecting less service because of price. It wasn't referring third party logistics. Thanks for the 9th grade business lesson though. Always appreciate the walk down memory lane. But part of the frustration is because there's no reason for them to be lagging at all. They've been in business for a long time, and as such should be continuing to improve their processes. From a business perspective if you're not moving forward, you're moving backward. Running a good business online or otherwise, requires a balance of resources from money to labor and everything in between that's true; and somehow, other businesses are able to provide competitive prices with efficient processing and delivery. So this being my first experience with Buds--from the difficulties with trying to reach a person, to a lack of information, to an inefficient level of processing, I probably won't be using them again. That's about it.

But yes, go ahead and respond with you telling me to shop locally, or read wikipedia and tell us again how business works. Don't forget to tell me the sky is blue or any other obvious thing that everyone knows already.

 

[BG1960]

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[tXfactor]

Seriously? That last post has to do you with you guys expecting less service because of price. It wasn't referring third party logistics. Thanks for the 9th grade business lesson though. Always appreciate the walk down memory lane. But part of the frustration is because there's no reason for them to be lagging at all. They've been in business for a long time, and as such should be continuing to improve their processes. From a business perspective if you're not moving forward, you're moving backward. Running a good business online or otherwise, requires a balance of resources from money to labor and everything in between that's true; and somehow, other businesses are able to provide competitive prices with efficient processing and delivery. So this being my first experience with Buds--from the difficulties with trying to reach a person, to a lack of information, to an inefficient level of processing, I probably won't be using them again. That's about it.

But yes, go ahead and respond with you telling me to shop locally, or read wikipedia and tell us again how business works. Don't forget to tell me the sky is blue or any other obvious thing that everyone knows already.

Feel free to open your own firearms online retail business.

 

[Younggun]

Wow. So you guys just have low expectations and likely poor codes of conduct. When I do my job, I do my job. I do it to the best of my ability because I'm agreeing to do so at that accepted rate of pay. From when I was a kid working fast food to being in the military to becoming a civilian working in the private sector again...I always performed to the best of my ability. In the military the phrase was to have "excellence in all that you do" and guess what? I expect others to do the same. That's all. No more no less.

That's where the problem lies. It used to be that you could get a good price on something and expect the good service, because people in general were...good.

I had a really good paragraph explaining why you have no idea WTF your talking about, but decided to not use it.

How does facing reality relate to my code of conduct. You buy a product, you pay for the product plus the overhead. Good employees get paid more than shitty ones. Some companies have a business plan that includes cutting costs by cutting CS. In some areas I don't mind that, in others CS is pretty important to me.

Apparently you don't know nearly as much as you think you do. It seems you want to get the bottom dollar price from a company with top dollar employees. **** the companies profits, right?


Sorry jack, there is a balance. Top dollar employees will find better paying jobs leaving the scruff behind. Another company will be able to charge more and pay the good employees more by finding customers who are willing to offset that cost because they value customer service.


Now go eat cat poop.

 

[tXfactor]

These days it's all about entitlement.

 

[tXfactor]

go ahead and respond with you telling me to shop locally, or read wikipedia and tell us again how business works. Don't forget to tell me the sky is blue or any other obvious thing that everyone knows already.

I own my own business of 16 employees. I do quite well. Thanks for the advice though. I'll be sure to not give a ****.

 

[TAVM]

On the contrary...I pretty much know exactly what I know. I just have higher standards and work ethic than some do apparently. Has nothing to do with entitlement, it has to do with running a business with process improvements in mind every single day. Employees' salaries have part to do with performance, but not all. The proof is all around you. There are employees that are driven to do the best they can because they believe in what the company is doing, they enjoy working where they work, and doing what they're doing. I've seen people take lower paying positions with companies passing up the higher dollars because the stress associated with that position wasn't worth it. Why? Because there are many other factors that come into play as well such as working conditions, company benefits, work-life balance, and providing an overall environment that promotes intrinsic motivation as opposed to extrinsic ones.

But that's besides the point. The long and short of it is this: I don't honestly care if you guys agree or disagree with my rant, which to be honest one just a moments thought. You two are spewing out nothing more than elementary business knowledge to rationalize the idea that customer service has to suffer because of pay. I've been able to help companies produce employees that are highly motivated at all levels of pay. I've also helped fortune 500 companies save literally thousands to millions of dollars through process change improvements.

So....that being said...if you two want to talk amongst each other about how you know how to manage 16 employees or how you learned that you can cut "customer service" (which by the way doesn't manifest on the books as a single business expense--because it's an intangible non-monetary aspect based on company strategy, employee motivation, and good structural processes) to save money in your business plan...go right ahead. The fact is you're just making excuses because there are other people and businesses who know better...and do better.

Now in an effort to get back to the ORIGINAL post...you buy products online for the same reason why you buy them locally--you benefit from whatever it is you find the most paramount in your consumer purchasing process. That could be price, it could be experience, it could be service, it could be all of the above. Neither is better than the other because as I said previously...pro's and con's.

 

[breakingcontact]

Keep going...writing my MBA thesis based on this thread.

 

[SIG_Fiend]

For those that don't know, Bud's doesn't actually physically have much of what they show "in stock". There are several major distributors they are setup with, whose systems they are plugged into, and who drop ship for them. It's one of the ways they are able to undercut most everyone in the industry and still make a buck. So what you may see in stock may actually physically be at another location in a completely different state, and as you can imagine there can sometimes be a delay in relaying the order to the actual distributor, as well as things actually getting shipped.

Bud's is basically the arch nemesis of small gun stores and new gun stores in this industry. If I had a dollar for every time a customer of mine lost a sale because their customer found a better price on Bud's, I could open my own gun store and then proceed to lose all of that money the same exact way.

 

[tXfactor]

Keep going...writing my MBA thesis based on this thread.

Yup.

 

[Southpaw]

For those that don't know, Bud's doesn't actually physically have much of what they show "in stock". There are several major distributors they are setup with, whose systems they are plugged into, and who drop ship for them. ......

I wasn't aware of this but that makes a lot of sense.

 

[breakingcontact]

The comment about shops having local monopolies is very interesting. The shops with horrible customer service should be punished by walmart, Academy and online sellers. We should reward the good shops.

My question is how do these notoriously bad shops stay in business when there are now more and better options?


The recent influx of new gun owners may bring them revenue but id think these new customers would soon find better LGSs or buy online as well.

 

[tXfactor]

if you two want to talk amongst each other about how you know how to manage 16 employees or how you learned that you can cut "customer service"

Wow, you really had to stretch to put that one together...

Speaking of Wikipedia...

 

[Younggun]

Wow, you really had to stretch to put that one together...

Speaking of Wikipedia...

Not worth wasting time on. He refuses to admit that there is a connection between employee quality and pay as well as the fact that companies can take actions which save money by changing the way customers are dealt with and the number of people available to deal with them as well as the knowledge of those people. But that has no monetary value

 

[SIG_Fiend]

The comment about shops having local monopolies is very interesting. The shops with horrible customer service should be punished by walmart, Academy and online sellers. We should reward the good shops.

My question is how do these notoriously bad shops stay in business when there are now more and better options?


The recent influx of new gun owners may bring them revenue but id think these new customers would soon find better LGSs or buy online as well.

Ultimately, supply and demand can certainly correct things. It's definitely what I'd like to see happen. Poor customer service? Higher than normal prices? A competitor will just come along and do it better than you. Even here in Austin there are now a whole lot more options than there were a few years ago. Now there are 3-5 new ranges that have opened or are opening just on the outskirts of Austin on pretty much all sides. A number of new gun stores have showed up as well, such as Blu Core in Round Rock, which sounds to be a very successful business from Colorado.

 

[breakingcontact]

I need to check out this Blu Core. Glad to hear we are getting some more good shops.

 

[Shooter McGavin]

The comment about shops having local monopolies is very interesting. The shops with horrible customer service should be punished by walmart, Academy and online sellers. We should reward the good shops.

My question is how do these notoriously bad shops stay in business when there are now more and better options?


The recent influx of new gun owners may bring them revenue but id think these new customers would soon find better LGSs or buy online as well.

Not sure how the LGSs are around you but of the five or so that are relatively close to me, I tend to only use one of them. When I walk up to the gun counter at Academy or Cabela's I'm greeted rather quickly and offered assistance. At my LGS's rarely am I even given a second look once inside and usually I have to initiate the interaction and ask for assistance, maybe my appearance or demeanor, IDK. So one gun shop sees me regularly and because of that I'll purchase from them. I can can almost always find the item I'm looking for on-line and have it shipped to my door cheaper than what the cost is at the shop but simply because they've done right by me I don't mind paying a few bucks more at their business from time to time. Plus I've hung out inside longer than I anticipated from being engage in good conversation with good folks.