Ok. I've read through everyone's posts, many of which mad me laugh pretty hard. So thanks for that. I'll answer the questions I pulled from here in this first post and then hang on for a bit to see what follows.
First off, I'm not Serbian, Bosnian, or of any Eastern European descent. I am born and raised in America, as was my father and mother. My father works with me on this project and has over 10 years of international business experience. Sorry guys, there will be no stolen Ferraris on the boat with your primers.
We are buying from an importer in Canada with over 25 years in the international arms trade industry. He is buying direct from Ginex, hence the two borders to cross. We are engaged in a joint venture agreement with this importer and will also be bringing in 9mm, .223 and many other loads that they manufacture at his facility.
We began searching for ammo and loading components when the market turned upside down and through months of phone calls, emails and travel, we have arrived where we are now. We are also not the only US retailer who buys from this importer and manufacturer, but we are the only business engaged in a JVA to work together for the long haul.
The reason we are spending so much time working on imports of Ginex is because after contacting CCI, Federal and all the other big players including Sellier & Bellot, we were told by their B2B department that they have no plans to sell primers to the public for the next 3-4 years because they project their entire capacity for primer production will be needed to produce their own ammo brands at the volume they are making right now.
The pricing for our primers is $.06/ea. There will be no bulk discounts on these, and whoever said we are marking these up 200%, sorry bud. Not even close. We buy them for $.03/ea, are subject to federal tax, FAET tax (look it up if you don't know what that is), our operating expenses and overhead and everything else involved to run our business. Find anyone else that'll tell you what their cost is. My intention here is to be completely candid regarding the how, what, who, of this operation. I'm not going to disclose my source, however.
The availability is absolutely real. As with anything else in this business, there's tons of hoops to jump through in terms of regulations, licensing, permitting and more. We project our delivery dates as accurately as possible, but there are things that are out of our control which we will address as they arrive. Will this delay shipment beyond the date I have stated on the website? Quite possibly. Does this mean I'm illegitimate, a fraud, scammer, or any other speculated possibility of nefarious creature? No. Everyone is entitled to their opinion of somebody and I'm fine with that. If it does come that we have to delay shipment, the option to a refund is entirely up to you, and I will honor that request immediately. The funds are being segregated from all other business transactions and sale of other products and will not be touched until orders have been fulfilled. I will communicate via email to everyone who's made a purchase if we do have to delay as well as on this forum now that I'm here, and communicate the situation and what I plan to do about it along with my new estimated timeline. I will say, that at this point, I am confident we will be able to ship by our projected date, or very close to it.
The shipment at this time, is on the water. The final border to cross is from Canada to the US.
The address listed on my website is my PO Box. I don't list the physical address for privacy and security purposes, just as there is no sign for my business outside the door. I started this business last June, as somebody accurately investigated, as a drop shipping business for firearms accessories and 80% products because I am a firm believer in a person's rights to build a gun at home. The phone number listed is a VoIP phone number served through a company called Nextiva. Many businesses use this service because it allows me to run their app on my phone and use it for business, without having to give everyone my personal phone number, thank god! It is also for these reasons that I will not be accepting local pickup. If you don't want these shipped, you can contact me directly via email and discuss other options. Shipping removes me from the possibility of being robbed in the Costco parking lot though and while I'd like to believe nobody here would ever do that, with these things being kinda like bitcoin right now, I have to think that way.
As for the security of my site, when I started this business, I also had low expectations and wanted to start with the lowest outlay of cash possible but still not look like a fly by night cheap site. I use a platform called AmmoReady, which (if you're up on this stuff) is a more modern looking GearFire website. The idea is, their platform allows me to build a site which connects to various distributors like Lipseys and Zanders directly and their inventory will push to my site. It's set up for drop shipping so I don't have to buy a ton of inventory to get started. It also has 3rd party add ons I can subscribe to such as TaxJar for calculating sales tax, or ShipStation to manage shipments and held inventory. It's kinda like having a Shopify store, but for guns. My web guy has told me that the security issue that was brought up regarding this is because of the AmmoReady platform and how all of those things listed above are integrated. It's a legit site though and I have full control of it. We are also currently building a new custom site that will allow us to break away from that platform because there's a lot I've identified about it that I hate, but thats not anything we need to discuss here.
As far as permitting goes:
We have an import permit to bring primers, along with a number of other items into the US from our importer across the border. He deals with the initial import, and he and I deal with the one here. We are in touch with the ATF and the Explosives Division of the L&I department in Washington State making sure we have all required permits and licenses required to bring all items listed on our import permit across the border, so I'm not concerned there. That being said, US/CA Customs can hold an item up for any reason and make things really annoying, and we try to prepare for that but once it happens, there's little you can do until they decide to release your load. To address the 1.4 items question above, primers are listed as Low Explosive Materials and all the regs for non-importation of those items listed in the ATF guidelines are for High Explosive Materials. We had a lawyer verify and work on that for us. I assure you, these will cross this border.
I believe this addresses the primary concerns here. I'll be here working at my desk for another hour or so and will reply to those who have follow up questions. I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you all and want to assure you that I base my business on honesty, integrity, loyalty to my customers, addressing customer issues as fast as possible, and providing you all with the products that you want. Rest assured that if anything happens beyond my control that makes this thing go south, I will refund everyone's money without even thinking twice about it. It's not my money until you've received your product and verified it is what you were expecting to receive, and I've paid all the associated taxes I'm required to pull from it. Then we can call it square.
Thanks for your time.
-Noah
