Was talking to a friend of mine the other day about a new gun he bought on line and the transfer fee he paid for the "service" was $50!
It got me wondering what different gun shops charge for what is mostly a bookkeeping exercise.
I did some cchecking around NH and found transfers ranging from a low of free to $50+ dollars.
Now its reasonable for a gunshop to charge a person for services rendered, but at what price does it stop being a service and become a rip off?
What more service do you get for a $50+ fee over a $15 or $20 fee?
I'd like to hear from the group what you pay and why a higher transfer fee is better than a lower one.
At what level do you think the fee is just a gun shop rip off?
Yes you can call around for rates, but some people are limited by location to only a few shops.
(as for the Gun shop with the free transfer fee.. sorry you have to do the digging on your own to find them)
Your thoughts?
It's called a free market you can, and SHOULD go somewhere else if you don't like the price. It's not a "rip off" unless its accompanied by shady business practices. (like some guy saying it was one price and then trying to charge you a higher one after the fact etc, or not fully disclosing terms up front etc. ) Don't pay it, vote with your wallet and operate the market that way.
The fee assessed is based on the dealers value of their time, overhead (including labor costs, rent, electricity/heat/utilities, insurance, licensing and legal fees) and general/perceived aggravation level. All factors are going to vary from dealer to dealer. Joe KitchenTableGarage dealer charges $15 because hes retired and his overhead is the equivalent of discarded coins found near a sewer in some big dump city. On the other hand a shop that charges you $50 is doing so because they've determined the time cost value of doing a $15 transfer is dog shit/poor/waste of time.
"Time Cost Value" embrace the concept a little and it all becomes clear.
Also a lot of dealers see this "I bot my gun onlyne cuz it wuz cheapah!" skinflint trend customer as a general minus. These people literally will never buy anything from you becuase most of them are too busy flinting. Ironically I have to laugh my ass off because most of these people could have gotten very close to the "onlyne" price with the local guy. That $50 guy probably sees a lot of these people. The transfer is $50 because they know like 50% (or more) of those people will never buy anything from them otherwise because they're too busy flinting on the
internets.
Also Protip: if you actually buy shit from a shop on the reg and ALSO use them for inbounds (and build a relationship with a dealer) a lot of the time your transfers, like magic, will suddenly become cheaper. Or staff might say "hey if you pick that up on X or Y at P or Q time I can give you a big cut off the fee" etc, so on and so forth.
Point of contrast- I run a small PC service/repair business on the side from my day gig. I have VERY low rates compared to avg. I still charge $65 just to show up and thats for people who are already a big customer. The one offs are $100-$150 minimum. That's before even doing any work. If they can't even buy me a whole thank (now its like 2/3rds a tank lol) of gas or sometthing I literally can't even be bothered to show up. I make exceptions for friends and family but that's different. that's not a money thing thats an "I appreciate you existing in my life and I want to do something to help you" thing. Hell in a TCV sense I lose money on all of those but I dont care about the money in that context.