Your right. As soon as they didn't give him a price over the phone he should have gone on Gun broker and not even bothered heading down. He was a dummy to try and support a local shop while expecting to pay a reasonable extra cost for a gun. Businesses tend to forget who their competition is. The reality is people can get most things cheaper online, the only thing lgs (and any other local stores)offer is customer service for the most part. I always love how people push push push to support your lgs but then they are given a pass for unreasonable high prices or poor customer service.
His is post is capitalism and reality. It works both ways, gun shops can charge what they want (in a panic or otherwise) but expect that when you unreasonably gouge or anger a customer they won't comeback.
I support the shops that give me a reason to support them.
ohh and $60 + transfer fee (20$ or so) on say....a $400 gun is 20%. That and it needed to be shipped and I'm betting the seller made some sort of profit. Of course if this is a $1,200 gun we are talking about something else and you are right...60$ isn't much.
To some extent, I understand the price over the phone thing.... Many, many people spend all day calling around to find the lowest price, and will drive 2 hours to save $60.... Some places of business don't consider that type of person a "customer" and don't really want to do business with them. I persoanlly have no issues with $60 more on a $500 gun, so long as I don't have to take a number like I'm at the damn delI counter. There is no markup in guns, so if you want to bay 5% over cost, expect to go to a place like Four Seasons or gunbroker. Your trade off is, an employee migjt shoot the display case of guns your looking at, or some crappie gun broker dealer might rip you off. Nothing wrong with either, just a different way of running a business and a different way of shopping