Our local Cabela's has descended into the crapper, in my opinion. There are so many things you can't get there, and the used guns are priced ... oddly. They still have a pretty good selection of used guns, as long as you're careful to check the prices to be sure you're actually saving something. As for "tee shirts are the high profit items," and "big retailers are wizards of finance," if they were so smart, I'd still be buying my tools at Sears.
While not necessarily wizards of finance, they do understand the double edged sword of carrying low profit/slow moving items. If they decide to do so, it's mostly from a viewpoint of being customer oriented, or at least customer friendly. The idea that having X will bring customers in to purchase Y and Z. This greatly affects cash flow. Rolling the money. Every square foot of both floor and shelf space has to produce for the store
each and every month. Producing either profit or attracting customers who will buy other things that will produce the higher profit.
What's bringing down many brick and mortar retailers is a complicated mix of reasons, but many lie in the hands of consumers. Ages ago things were produced and consumed on a local basis. As an item's longevity was a major factor. People would spend more for the best quality that was affordable to them to purchase items that would last. With the advent of mass produced items available from all over the country, pressure was put on the local craftsman. As trade became international, pressure was put on the national manufacturers to compete. Now were are a disposable society. Few things are repaired, just chucked out and replaced by some other cheap item.
At no point in this process did a significant group of consumers consider that, at first, they were hitting their neighbors in the wallet, and following the internationalization, the pursuit of getting something that cost less either bankrupted manufacturers or forced them to make a cut quality product to be able to match the cheaper import. Many companies and their brands were sold and the products often suffered.
Now with internet buying, the SHIBES are back in full force. Instead of buying locally, they are shopping locally, handling the guns and making their purchasing decision in their LGS and then ordering online. Eventually the LGS is going away or thinned to the point of almost non-existance. People forget the customer service rendered in a good local store will be far better than and easier to deal with than with some far away internet dealer. Many of the dealers online don't stock the items they're advertising that they are selling. I've done many ffl transfers for items bought online that came direct from distributors and were never in the selling dealer's possession. When the biggest deciding factor in someone's purchase is strictly price it's hard for a brick and mortar store to compete with an online retailer who, in many cases, has no physical store or warehouse or in some cases employees.
As things stand right now you can't buy an American made (Made in USA) television, Blu-ray player or almost any other piece of electronic hardware. Much of the tech in those items was discovered, developed or refined here and than handed over to other countries to produce to make a cheaper retail price point.
If this wasn't true, you'd still be buying your tools at Sears.
The gun locks irritate me too. It seems of a parcel with walking the purchase to the door--apparently because the doors only let people out, not in. While I appreciate that insurance companies can be blamed for some stupid policies, that doesn't make the policies smart, and it seems a clear instance of "The Politician's Fallacy."
I'm still trying to work out your first sentence, but it doesn't matter whether the policy is smart or not. Not following the policy and losing your insurance because of it certainly isn't smart.
I'm not sure exactly how that's the same as a politician's fallacy, insurance companies do everything they can to limit possible indemnity, something I'm painfully aware of living in Fla where we get the occasional hurricane and yet housing insurance is hard to get and expensive. Most big insurance companies have actually pulled out of the state. This isn't doing something just to do something for the sake of doing it.
I'm still trying to figure out how the presence of a trigger lock on a display pistol affects the evaluation of said pistol.