Posted on 12/20/2012 8:30:33 PM PST by matt1234
In the face of possible legislation to restrict and possibly ban firearms and magazines over a certain capacity, waves of panic buyers have stripped shelves to the paint, at both retail and online gun stores.
A combination of demand and gouging has caused prices for rifle magazines and rifles, parts and accessories to more than double, with some vendors selling goods at five times what the average rate was just a few weeks ago.
Many online companies are selling magazines faster than their systems can handle, accepting orders for stock they don’t have and running out of stock mid-transaction.
Brownells spokesman Jason Corpus had this to say.
“I wanted to take a minute to shed some insight on the magazine situation if i can. First of all I wanted to offer an apology for the situation… with magazines being ‘In-Stock’ and back-ordered moments later… [The] demand for magazines actually exceeded the ability for the system to keep up with the volume that was being ordered. They way that our website works is that inventory is fed from our ERP system directly into the website in ‘real-time.’ Unfortunately, ‘real-time’ is the amount of time that it takes for the transactions to work both ways. During normal circumstances, it is nearly instant. However, we’ve been receiving orders at such a pace that these transactions have gotten slower. We absolutely apologize again, we definitely don’t want that ever to be your experience.
“To shed some more light on the magazine situation at present, it really has been unprecedented in the last 5 days. During a roughly the 72 hour period from Sunday afternoon to Monday evening we sold the ‘average demand’ equivalent of about 3.5 years worth of PMAGS, and and an even greater amount of our Brownells magazines. We’re working like crazy to get these orders to you as quickly as possible.” [Emphasis ours.]
He continued, saying that they’re working with Magpul and their own in-house magazine manufacturers to compensate for the sudden spike in sales. Magpul will be focusing on black magazines for the most part, which makes sense. They’re the most popular and they will spend less time re-tooling for other colors, focusing on production over variety.
This is not a truly free market. The threat of regulation has dramatically upset the normal flow of production and distribution. On the surface, it would seem like a simple supply and demand problem, except that the demand is being inflated externally, overstepping the capacity of suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and vendors.
Retailers from big national chains to your friendly local gun store are heavily dependent on credit with their suppliers. While everyone is definitely making more money now, if supply gets shorted by people in the supply chain withholding and stockpiling product, everyone will suffer.
And if the credit gets shorted, the network of finance that helps get the gun you want from the factory through the distribution channels to your gun store, dealers, distributors and other parts of the supply chain will not be able to cover their expenses the same way. That is to say, if this spike causes financiers to shorten the time on returns, favoring short-term business over long-term investments, then stores may be forced to close, especially smaller shops, and shops that don’t get the first bite at the supply apple.
Because this spike is going to be temporary, one way or the other, it doesn’t make any sense to invest in expanding on manufacturing and distribution. Manufacturers and distributors are beginning to stop offering discounts, and suppliers and distributors are already rationing their sales, meaning that their inventory is earmarked for select sellers.
When this happens, some stores just aren’t going to be able to re-supply.
“And since they can’t re-stock, the prices for existing items in inventory go sky-high. The reason for the rationing isn’t necessarily that distributors are looking to hike the prices. It’s more likely they’re simply out of stock. Period.”
So yeah, they might be selling an $600 M&P15 Sport for $1,200 today, but unless they get more—anything, really, beggars can’t be choosers—things are going to get a lot rougher.
We can hope that the companies going up the supply chain ration and distribute their products fairly, but that’s a business decision that also may be in short supply, particularly in the face of vastly rising short-term profits and the looming possibility that there will be little or no long-term profits if government regulation makes their products illegal.
Correction: Jason Corpus contacted us to correct their earlier estimate; they sold 3.5 years’ worth of magazines in a 72-hour period, not 36. Not that it’s any less mind-boggling.
Prices on many AR rifles and parts doubled in 48 hours, mags tripled, from what I have seen locally.
I just ordered a stag arms model 8 yesterday. I got it for about $1,200 which is just a really good price for a gas piston AR15. 6-8 weeks until delivery is what I was told. We’ll see what happens. The last time around, if you ordered a back ordered rifle, you could still pick it up despite the ban.
ping
What about all of those Newsweak Magazines that they couldn’t sell?
“A combination of demand and gouging”
Bias right there. Why do these liberals always call balancing sudden market demand “gouging”? They know if they sell at the same price they will run out of stock, and don’t want that. You up the price to keep yourself in business if possible, and not have to take off a day like this lady because you have no supply.
Gander Mountain was super busy last night. long lines for guns...many seemed to be newbies. no clue on how to fill out the BATF forms.
Panic waves of buying are a trademark of our culture, particularly firearm enthusiasts- not so much the regulars, but the periphery who awake suddenly late for work realizing they slept through the alarm and multiple snoozes.
It gets worse over time with the internet and whatnot.
Eventually the latecomers run out of money or are satiated and things sort of equalize.
Freaking out doesn’t get you real far. Might be a good time to trade an extra “assault weapon” for a few of those collectible niche fillers you’ve been looking for...
Right now, I wish I had several AR-15s, but I don’t.
Well that’s one sector of the economy that’s up —
I’m glad SOMETHING is being manufactured in the US.
The day before the shooting, I had 2 Colt ARs in my hand at the local wallyworld. I don’t need one, let alone 2, but wanted a Colt lower. I left when the clerk couldn’t figure out where the boxes and stuff were for either gun.
Even today, not sure I would buy even at the “pre-panic” price.
The Left salivating for an executive order to halt gun manufacturing.
CDNN Sports is no longer taking online orders. They can’t keep up with the demand.
The repercussions of doing something that grossly unconstitutional and *illegal* could be far greater than they comprehend.
OTOH, maybe it is time for the inevitable confrontation we know is coming. I hope all of these people running out and buying these guns have a genuine understanding what the left and its resident despot may be willing to do.
I wonder what % of gun owners are liberals and what % are conservatives. Something the left should carefully consider as they move closer to inciting violence. Interesting, isn't it? The left is out there urging violence against gun owners, not the other way around. There is meaning in that fact.
I've done well at my local gun shop by browsing the trade-ins that they've taken in over the years, and are now using to fill in the empty shelves and racks. These collectible and semi-collectible items are marked at their current fair pre-panic prices. They just never had the time in the last five years to catalog each one in their system before it goes in the rack.
I've been doing this all year long, after learning my lesson when I lost out on a Colt Anaconda early in the year, figuring I'd think about it for another day. Now it's an instantaneous purchase, if it's something I really wanted for ages (S&W M66 snubbie), or something I never knew existed (S&W 4x86 variation with a Glock-type action) that made me stop for a second look because something on it seemed a bit odd. No manual safety or decocker.
Last week, lightning struck twice for me. A variation of the CZ75-B that I never knew about, and they only got in three in all of 2012, and an American AK clone that was a one-off that they picked up at the 2012 SHOT Show for evaluation.
Those are nice.
Two things are going to come of this:
One, there are going to be a rash of accidental shootings from people dropping the mag and thinking it is unloaded
Two, ARs for sale that were fired once and dropped once.
Gonna be some good deals out there in the near future boys. Keep your eyes and ears open.......
There is a nation wide rush to purchase almost ANY type of weapon right now. My son wanted to purchase a small carry type rvolver for his daughter. The gun shop he frequents is located in a very rural area in northern Wisconsin. When he got to the sop, there were 14 people in line ahead of him inside the store (which is about the size of a small garage). He got the weapon he wanted. The store owner said that he had sold out all the semi-automatic weapons he had, there had been several in his original inventory that day. More were on order but were already purchased even before they arrived. Looks like the citizenry are arming themselves in great numbers in time for Christmas (or some other upcoming event). Prepare people!1!!
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