Up until the past few months, most gun prices, especially handguns, could be expected to fall with in a certain price range. To be more specific, Glocks would fall into this price range, Kimber in this one, Smith&Wesson in that one, and so on. Lately, it seems they are all over the map. With conservatives winning the 2016 election, the gun scare to "buy before you can't" is over. Some retailers and gun dealers don't seem to have gotten the message. Take my local gun store for example. I have shopped at this store for years, but I haven't been there for a few months because life got busy. I was looking to buy a Taurus model 85 revolver to become my every day carry weapon. (The debate on why I would switch to a revolver over a semi-auto is for another time.) The same revolver was actually priced higher than when I looked at it last winter. Simple laws of supply and demand would say to lower that price so you can move that product. They will still make a decent profit off of it.
The flip side of that is that I went down the road to a regional retailer, they had that very gun on sale for $45 less than my locally owned gun shop. They also gave me another $20 off through a separate discount. Now, some people might say that the regional retailer is using it's sales volume to price the local guy out of business. While that does happen (Walmart), that is not the case here. The local shop is the biggest in three counties and does very well.
The point is that pricing is not very competitive right now. I get it. You had a great ride on the demand wagon of the threat of more restrictive gun laws. It's capitalism at its finest. But, it's time to be more reasonable with the pricing now. For the uninformed gun shopper, they will either overpay or settle for what they can afford from overpriced places. For the overpriced places, they will lose sales volume from the informed gun shopper and the loyalty of their customer base. It's a lose lose scenario for all involved. Now, to the good, my local store still is still very reasonable on accessories. So much so that I bought some replacement grips for my new revolver from them.
Below is a pic of my new Taurus Model 85 that I bought for $240 with the Hogue grips I bought at my local gun shop.
-Just the thoughts of a SplinteredMind..
