Wal Mart Guns

[Mil Dot]

Much of the situation with Wally's pricing has to do with volume buying of specific models, calibers etc. If you think that Wally deals with the same wholesaler as a small gunshop owner does ... not! They deal directly with the company involved thus cutting out the wholesale middle men and their margins. Most of the guns you see on Wally's shelves are for example 30-06, 7mag, 270 or the popular caliber of the day. They are all about volume and moving product be it guns or tennis shoes. They don't like stagnant inventory either and monitor what moves in what stores so if they have certain guns for over a certain amount of time that haven't rotated, here comes a roll down in the pricing to move the stock and free up inventory $ for better movers or new looks. This is when you can pickup some outstanding bargains at Wally world. Now, that being said I've never seen any deals like this at the Super Wallys, only at the smaller size stores so it may be possible that if a new line of guns is coming in that the Supers' get the cream of new product and the older lines are reallocated to the smaller stores forcing them to eat the markdowns and keep the Supers looking like shining stars to the stock holders. Of course, I'm just speculating on the reallocation theory and you will never find any corporate official who would fess up to that, but ....

Most small gun shop owners deal with middleman wholesalers, not actual company reps and of course, they have their own
"volume pricing program". For example if you wanted to be a Remington salesperson and went to their website to apply for the position you get redirected to a company in whichever region of the country you wanted to sell their guns in and would have to meet the secondary employers requirements to sell remington guns.
So now as a customer you've paid the company cut, the 1st level resellers cut and the secondary sellers cut and then are completely dependent on the amount of merchandise your local gun shop has purchased from him in order to get his lowest pricing matrix and thus the lowest price he can sell it to you for.
In other words, there are a lot more mouths being feed when you buy from the local Mom & Pop shop. Then multiply it by the number of manufacturers they carry so the customer has some variety to choose from. You can't just sell Remmy's.

[Hawkeye6]

I recently picked up a Winchester Model 94 Trapper in .44 Magnum thought Wal-Mart's special order system. Basically, you have to put 50% down when you order it and pay the rest when you pick it up, perhaps a couple of weeks later.

The store will call a distributor when you come in to do the Special order and start the ball rolling if the distributor has it in stock. Don't know what they do if the distribuotr does not have it ready.

You need to inspect the item really closely when you come in to pick it up as Wal-mart has a no-return policy on firearms. The first Trapper in had rust on the rear sight so I refused delivery. The second time, I had to insist on them taking it out of the box and looking it over thouroughly.

Why did I buy it from Wal-mart? Price and availablilty. And curiosity. I wanted to see how their special order system worked. And a friend of mine had tried to order a similar rifle from a local gunshop a year or so earlier and they could not come up with one through their network. Said it would be another 6 months or so due to Winchester's production schedule. (He later found one "close enough" at the right price in another local shop.)With Wal-mart, the whole process, including hte return and the re-order, took about a month.

Would I do it again? Probably. Thinking about a Marlin Guide Gun for sometime next year. Again, the Wal-mart special order price is about the best I've seen.

Over time, I have purchased about half of my arsenal from large stores such as Wal-Mart and Galyans. The other half half hss been from smaller shops. The process has been aobut the same ineither case. And the knowledge of the people working the gun counter has been pretty good overall as well.

H.

[sladek]

Well I don't shop at walmart anymore because of their unethical business practices, and the way they treat their employees......as far as cheap firearms, I believe it, walmart has/will ask Manufacturers to make something cheaper so they can reduce their prices, forcing these Manufacturers to produce cheaper products to keep up the demand from walmart, if they can't walmart threatens to go over seas to china, so they either make cheaper stuff or lose their business to walmart, most of the crap from wallys is made in china, not usa.......but as far as Remington and others, maybe they sale the bargin guns to wallys, i could not answer that, but it would not surprise me......so we get cheaply mad crap from America or china, and we lose American jobs, either way we all lose with walmart...

[Ken14]

After spending 11 years with Wal-Mart Quality Assurance...let me tell you guys...they do buy in massive quantities...back in the mid 80's I helped count a 53' trailer loaded with Model 94's from front to back about waist high....and the prices on the purchase order..WOW...they did get a deal.

[wrenchman]

I have bought guns from the marts, Gander Mtn, Cabelas, gun shows and dealers. I like to buy them where I find them.
I can say my best guns come from shows and dealers but my work horse 870 I got from a Gander sale. I paid 178 dollars new
with a rebate.
I hunt deer with it most the time. I have had it so wet the stock has swelled and the receiver had a light rust on it.
I cleaned and oiled the gun, put it in the cabinet and you can't tell it looked that way a month ago.
I got the gun because I didnt want to ruin my favorites with the bad weather. The gun has held up well.
I didnt think I would like this post in the beginning. I was afraid it would turn into just a bash the marts. I do shop at them and I still go to my favorite dealer and shows.
The dealer in most areas are the go to guy for accessories and the nicer stuff.
I have been looking to replace a scope on my 270 with a Burris or a Leopold it will most likely be a dealer thing.

[Hawkeye6]

Originally posted by Ken14
After spending 11 years with Wal-Mart Quality Assurance...let me tell you guys...they do buy in massive quantities...back in the mid 80's I helped count a 53' trailer loaded with Model 94's from front to back about waist high....and the prices on the purchase order..WOW...they did get a deal.

And, Ken, are you able to offer any thoughts on the quality of these rifles?

Mass quantities do not, in and of themselves, indicate poor quality. A mass purchase will, oftentimes, lead to a reduced price from the manufacturer as he's running esentially no inventory risk or carrying cost and very little distribution cost comapred to selling the same number through ordinary channels. Sometimes its even very advantageous to the manufactuer as it may allow for a more eficient manufacturing run.

[Lone Star]

The days of "ethical" business practices for Walmart died with Sam. Today it is not all about volume; that is certainly a large part of it, but "forcing" vendors to sell to a particular price point is just as important, regardless of the volume. If a vendor wants shelf space in Walmart (and most vendors will kill to get it - no shelf space at the world's largest retailer means a mediocre sales year for many companies) he has to meet Walmart's price. How does he keep meeting a lower and lower price every year (Remember: "Always Low Prices" and "Rollback!")? He reduces his cost of production. How? He reduces the quality of what he sells. More and more firms are having their products built in China to meet the price point - how many of you bother to look at where the Walmart products you buy are actually made? This includes the larger "name" brands too.

How does this apply to guns? Well: because Walmart is such a huge account for the gun makers it buys from, Walmart CAN have special runs of guns made just for its shelves, with cheaper stocks, cheaper finish, etc. The order volume is there and since they buy direct from the maker.....they get special runs just like Davidsons and Grice do. Does this happen often? I have no idea. But it can and does happen. Remember these facts when you go to Wally's, the quality of all their products is erroding as they insist on that hard-line price point. And we are their facilitators.....it's all about the money.

[Ken14]

All the ones i ever counted were of good quality...it was hard to look when the security folks were hovering around. Never saw anything different with labeling or such.

[fabsroman]

I looked closer at the Wal-Mart site today and found that they carry a bunch of bolt action rifles, the most popular of which are Browning, Mossberg, Remington, Ruger, and Winchester. However, there were a bunch more too, but I just hadn't really heard of them before. They could special order almost every bolt action made by Ruger, and I was really impressed with that fact. I could get the Ruger 77MKIIVT in .25-06 for $577. Now, I don't know if that is a good price in today's world because I haven't done any shopping around, and I think I got my Ruger 77MKIIVT for less than $500 6 years ago. However, once I have the chance to do some research on the gun (i.e., when I actually have the cash to buy it), I will have a better idea.

Anyway, I digress. With such a wide variety of guns offered from each manufacturer (i.e., almost their entire line of that type of gun), I would think it would be really hard and time consuming for the manufacturer to re-tool or use cheaper material just for a Wal-Mart run. Plus, I seriously doubt that Remington or Ruger would be selling a 700 BDL or 77MKII that is made crappy just for Wal-Mart. Those guns are these companies' bread and butter, and a bad rep on these guns would more than likely sink those companies.

I know I'll be looking at Wal-Mart for a special order gun when I am in the market, as long as they are competitive in pricing.

[Lone Star]

You actually think that Remington is worried about its "reputation" when there's money to be made? Don't forget, it offered the infamous Viper for sale. And it sells the plastic M710, aka the Walmart Special. And you didn't think that a company would re-tool to make firearms for Walmart! These two were designed to meet the price point of the big box stores, where Remington and others make a large percentage of their sales. Enough said about "reputation".

I'm not a rabid anti-Walmart activist - I shop there too. But I am an informed shopper and know the difference between decent quality and the "Wally-Specials" made cheap to meet a rediculous price point. Just because it says Black & Decker or Stanley on the label doesn't mean it is a good quality product.

[fabsroman]

Okay, lets assume that a Remington Model 700 rifle, with the exact same specs, is made a little cheaper for Wally than for Dicks Sporting Goods or another small retailer. Wouldn't there be a possible fraud action against Remington? The same exact model from place A to place B should be essentially the same. Now, what I do know is that some of these quality manufacturers might make things for Wal-Mart but package it under Wal-Mart's brand. For instance, Ol-Roy dog food is Wal-Mart's brand of dog food; however, I do not know if Wal-Mart actually manufactures it.

At the end of the day, I would believe that reputation does matter to small companies like Ruger and Remington. If I am spending $577 on a Ruger rifle at Wal-Mart, why wouldn't I just spend a couple hundred more to get something of quality from Sako instead of the Ruger, assuming that it was made like crap for Wal-Mart, or better yet, just buy the Ruger at a small shop and pay a little more.

I am sure we would have heard a lot from fellow shooters and hunters with the Wal-mart "garbage" Remington 700 rifle, but I haven't really heard of anybody complaining about a specific instance where their Wal-Mart gun was a POS compared to their buddy's identical gun that was bought at the local dealer instead of Wal-Mart.

With that said, I am sure that Wal-Mart does have some crappy guns made for it, like the Remington 710 that I would not touch with a 10 foot pole, but I have also seen that POS for sale at Dick's. I just think the 710, although crappy and probably cheap, fits the bill for the walk-in customers at Wal-Mart.

Another point is that the Ruger 77MKIIVT I want is listed at $577. That isn't necessarily cheap in my book, so I would assume that Wal-Mart is not getting a special run of them made by Ruger with crappola steel. Plus, how many of these target/varmint guns do you think Wal-Mart sells each year? I doubt a lot of people go into Wal-Mart and ask to special order it. In fact, I was thinking about buying mine from a dealer 10 miles north of me, and only stumbled across the Wal-Mart site through this website.

Sure, Wal-Mart probably gets a quantity discount from the manufacturer, and it definitely avoids the middleman, but I seriously doubt that Wal-Mart makes contracts with these gun companies to have them make cheaper guns. In fact, I am willing to bet that these gun companies are already making the guns as cheaply as possible. I have a friend that works in DeWalt's corporate headquarters as a bean counter. An assignment he once had was to put all their parts/raw material supplies for these tools on a spreadsheet and then call around to see if they could get the same parts/raw materials at a cheaper price and/or beat DeWalt's current suppliers into charging less. However, DeWalt never once thought about building anything that was less reliable. Oh yeah, DeWalt is owned by Black & Decker.

At the end of the day, I think a Black & Decker Model 919 (ficticious model #) screwdriver purchased at Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Ace Hardware, or the mom & pop store will be the same thing. Granted, every screwdriver will have a different failure point, but I bet on average the ones bought from Wal-Mart will be the same as the ones bought from all these other stores.

[Steverino]

I've been following this thread for a little while and have decided to chime in on this. Good post.

I have spent the past twenty years of my career in manufacturing Supply Chain Management and speaking from a pure cost-accounting/ manufacturing standpoint, part of manufacturing (Purchasing) anything is beating your supplier base to death to obtain the best component or raw material price. The fancy schmancy term of late that the consultant guru's like to drop is "cost-down initiatives" We go through it at my company continually and it is typically in folks annual goal objectives for those of us that work in this type of capacity. Any pricing reductions hit the standard cost of the item being manufactured/assembled and thus, in theory at least. the gross profit.

Obviously, negotiating these cost-downs vary upon different scenarios such as volume, delivery, warehousing, and payment terms. If a company can find components that match form, fit, and function, along with delivery- they don't care where they get it from.

The sad fact is that most folks at Walmart buy on price and price alone. If an item is truly crappy, I don't care how much of a deal that someone got on it-the item will not survive if the product does not function properly. A business turns out enough crap-it too will succumb to competitors. I can go on and on but I won't.

I do not know if Walmart actually has any models engineered and manufactured specifically for it's stores but if the volume and pricing points support it, I certainly do not see why a firearms manufacturer wouldn't build cheaper product lines if it is cost-effective to do so and they are a profitable line.

Personally, I have never purchased a firearm from Walmart (hell, I'm lucky if I can find an occassional box of target shells for my shotgun!) but wouldn't even try to special order because of the woes that I have read about over the years from other buyers.

I would do whatever you can to support the local shops because I believe they will at least stand for your Second Amendment rights. The Walmarts around me are crap and have succumbed to local ordinances and restrictions over the past decade in the surrounding area. I am all for business but as a sportsman, I try to support businesses that support what I believe in when possible.

[RUMLUVER]

I agree with supporting your local gun shops I do. I drive 7 miles farther from my home than my local Wal Mart is to do my shopping for my supplies. I pay more than Wal Mart prices but don't care because I get called by my name as I walk in and get deals on everything I buy. Most of all the people that work there are my friends now and we just hang out drink coffee and BS about eneything just like my farther used to do when I was a kid. I can't wait until I can take my kids there and teach them the value of business with a hand shake and a smile instead of Wally Worlds mass crap of get in and get out!

[fabsroman]

That is pretty true. We all want great service and somebody behind the counter that can answer our questions, but then we do not want to pay for it.

I guess that is why I use this board so much. I figure there are enough people on here that know something about what I need to know that I do not need to pay the premium price of the small shop.

Eventually, I think most business will be done via mail order and the internet. It was just too easy for me to order an air hose over Sears.com 2 days before Christmas instead of going to the mall, dealing with the traffic, and dealing with the lines in the store. Granted, it will probably take a week to get the hose, but I'm in no hurry.

[RUMLUVER]

I do my fare share of research on my computer and order things from time to time. But I find myself dealing with people face to face as much as possible. I buy jewelry for my wife from a man that my father did , he calls me by my name and we attend church to gether. We also do transactions with a handshake and a smile. He appreciates my pratronage and treats me well by doing things for and cutting me deals that he doesn't do for everyone. We had a conversation one day about a person that came to his shop looking for a ring once. The customer looked at the price and blurted out that it was way more than one he saw on line Brian the jeweler said then buy it on line then send it back to be sized and cleaned and repaired when damaged. The customer said the online store didn't do that and Brian said but it's cheaper online. I think that sums up chearer isn't always better and some things are worth the hassel of leaving home.