Midway USA to eliminate dealer accounts

[dogtown tom]

Gougerphobes..............time to give it a rest.

Warp You can't have your cake and eat it too.

That is, you can't have a lower-than-everybody-else price on something AND have it stay in stock so that you can buy it when you want to (or get to it in time to buy it at all, in many cases)

But, but, but..........its gouging! (for authenticity use a whiney nasal voice when speaking)

Anyone who uses the term "gouging":
1. Doesn't understand the legal definition of the term.
2. Doesn't understand capitalism.
3. Doesn't understand simple economics or the law of supply and demand,
4. Likely has never run a gun store or any other retail business.
5. Didn't have a sufficient supply of ammunition of their own before the panic of 2012.
6. Didn't learn a thing about ammunition shortges from the panic of 2008.
7. Thinks a gun dealer who sells ammo at 50% markup is a gouger but a nondealer who does the same is not. (even on this very forum)
8. Blames everyone else for buying up all the ammunition at WalMart.
9. Blames Homeland Security, Obama, ATF, the Bilderburgs and the U.N. for the lack of .22 at WalMart.
10. Praises those retailers who didn't raise their prices during the panic.........but didn't have jack squat in stock. That's just plain stupid.

 

[Trent]

I personally like Newegg business's model. On Newegg's retail site vs. business site, the only difference is businesses get quantity discounts on items. Newegg traditionally smokes wholesale pricing (compared to ASI, Ingram) on many consumer items such as SSD drives, etc. While the wholesalers beat newegg on large volumes of higher end items (server chassis, CPU's, memory). It keeps us shopping around so we can get the best prices on any given order.

This is similar to when I had my Federal Firearms License. We had traditional wholesalers (lipseys, g. zanders, davidsons, etc). And then we had sites like Midway that had "psuedo" dealer programs.

The key difference here, the lesson to be applied, is Midway's "dealer" program would have worked out a lot better if they did tiered, automatic, price breaks on quantity orders. Dealers - true dealers, not C&R holders - are more likely to order X+10 of any given item.

While the discounts they extended to C&R holders are a great gesture (I am still one, my dealer FFL has long expired), C&R holders aren't really dealers and with few exceptions, rarely order anything in volume.

So from a business perspective they are really no different than a normal customer. Indistinguishable. MidwayUSA added another layer of complexity to their operation for no real gain, for either side.

The fact that they aren't getting large quantity orders from true dealers is indicative that they simply aren't competitive over wholesalers, carry the wrong products (no firearms), etc. When I had my FFL we used to run a semi truck for ammo. You simply can't order that volume from Midway. And if you do, there certainly aren't any volume discounts to entice you, as the large distributors do.

While I can understand peoples sentiments about being a little miffed, it's a business, and a good business move to optimize and streamline their operations is being made.

 

[Ken70]

Before the "troubles" I would order from Midway. Used the $10 off coupon that paid for most of the shipping. He was about market on most stuff, sometimes less, sometimes more. I could get more of an order together, from one place, with one shipping charge. Last 10 months, no coupons, everything on backorder, and they will charge $16 to ship a $15 part that was on backorder. If and when things get back to normal, I might go back.

 

[primalmu]

Anyone who thinks Midway's shipping prices aren't a joke... I was about to order a few items, namely one of their shooting mats. The shipping on the shooting mat was $16, which I can sort of understand since its a large item. After deciding to add on a Hornady LNL Overall Length Gauge and the modified .308 case, the shipping jumped to $25 for UPS Sure Post. Are you kidding me? I even tried to get them to immediately revert my account back to a regular account but they refused.