Firearms Shopping on a Budget

Ammo and Gun

Exurban Kevin writes that he wanted to do a blog post about inexpensive guns for carry. Unfortunately, none of the online retailers will allow price sensitive customers to sort by price.

It’s interesting to think about that problem since the vast majority of retail websites, even for other major items that you will use every day, typically have a sort by price feature. Is the industry potentially losing sales by people who are price sensitive, but also may not have the time to learn everything they can about all possible pros and cons of the guns in their price range. Can they even easily figure out what models are in their price range without a trip to every gun store in half a day’s drive?

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9 thoughts on “Firearms Shopping on a Budget”

  1. Vances in the Columbus OH area has a website that allows for separating firearms by price

  2. Quick Update: Able Ammo and Gunbroker allow me to sort for, say, 9mm’s by price, and add Gallery of Guns, OBN and NFDN to the long, long list of companies who create websites based on how their stockroom is set up, not how their customers shop.

    And don’t EVEN get me started on people wanting to shop for eventual use of the gun, not necessarily the name brand of the gun.

  3. Probably in part because online shopping for guns is usually a precursor to “stop by the gun store to fill out forms”, the sellers tend not to pay full attention to building their web page.

    Incidentally, I just checked Gander Mountain’s website. They have a drop-down on their pistol page which has these options: “BestMatch/HighPrice/LowPrice/MostPopular/Brand_A-Z/BestRated/BestSelling/Newest”.

    Not exactly the first place most self-defense purchasers would go. But they have many locations, and apparently a decent selection. I guess they ship-to-store, and finish the transaction there.

    1. You know what? I didn’t check the big sports stores websites, mainly because Bass Pro is so outrageously expensive, Mountain Of Geese isn’t out here in the desert southwest and our Cabela’s here is in Glendale, which is an hour’s drive for me. I tend to shop at Sportsman’s Warehouse anyways, because I’m a cheap Scotsman. :D

      Either way, if the Big Boys who have entire departments devoted to customer service are doing this, maybe the little guys should take note…

  4. 2 clues. Gunbroker.com does auctions for every kind of gun available. They have a list of FFL’s that will do transfers for $X. If you want to see a list of “specials” go to slickguns.com. It’s updated hourly and has some incredible specials. Bud’s guns had Rock Island Tactical 45’s (new, Novak style sights, all the good stuff) for $350. But all the compare in the world may only make a $10-50 difference.

  5. Impact Guns does price-sorting, regardless of what he thinks they do.

    I mean, I literally just went to their website, hit a category, and sorted by price. It worked.

    For that matter, “Price, Low to High” is the default sort, the way God intended.

    (They’re not remotely local to me, and I’ve never bought from them, but they have a good site and I typically use them as a reference for real-world prices.)

    1. True. But they don’t offer sort by price for, say, all 9mm’s. I can sort all Rugers by price or all handguns, but if I know I don’t want a MKIII .22LR in my results, there’s no way to filter that out.

      1. Actually, you CAN sort by caliber and price at Impact Guns’ website: The caliber sort is on the right-hand column under “NARROW YOUR RESULTS”.

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