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I just found out last week that a dear friend of mine - and one of my clients - used to own a pawnshop and had an FFL. It's an interesting line of business. Being lenders, pawn-brokers are subject to a lot of state regulations which do not affect other types of businesses.

Anyway, my friend has an interesting story to tell, full of God's grace and provision, but I won't share it here out of respect for that person's privacy. My friend is now in a completely unrelated line of business, and no longer has an FFL.

I've never dealt with Bachman Pawn except at a gun show as a window shopper, but I have noticed that the help is not particularly enthusiastic about helping. As a result, I've bought 3 guns over the last 2 years from the S.A.W. booth at the Ft Worth gun show - a Ruger .22, a S&W .22, and my M&P 45 - always from the same salesman, and have found their sales people to be helpful and friendly. After having comparison shopped the same models at both booths, I might have paid $10 more per gun at the S.A.W. booth, but that extra $10 was money well spent on courteous service and a friendlier atmosphere. And now, whenever I stop by their booth, the guy recognizes me, and we always have a great conversation, whether or not I buy anything.

If you want good sales people, you have to pay them a little better. If you pay them better, you have to charge slightly more for your products, since gun retailers operate on a pretty short margin already. The S.A.W. gun show prices are still better than their store prices, and their store prices are still better than MSRP. I'm not necessarily trying to advertise for them. I'm just trying to make a point. You get what you pay for. If Bachman Pawn's prices are better than everyone else's, it isn't because they buy at a deeper discount than other large retailers get from the same distributors. Their better pricing is because they are operating on a thinner margin, and therefore they have less money to pay good, courteous sales people.

Personally, I am willing to pay a small amount more for not having to deal with the aggravation of a Bachman Pawn. My opinion is that, given the realities of the market and of gun show pricing, don't complain if you get exactly what you pay for. I vote with my wallet.

jimlongley wrote:ROFL! Never been there, but reminds me of buying a piano for my late wife.

We had seen the piano through the showroom window on a Sunday, not the best way to shop for pianos, but what the heck.

I was feeling real flush, with $10,000+ of overtime accumulated and burning a hole in my pocket, and she needed a new piano.

On Monday, on my way back to the garage after a long day of climbing poles, I walked into the showroom, still in my grungies.

A VERY condescending salesman came over and asked, in his best Brahmin accent, "Moy Ah Help You, Sahr?" and when I told him I was shopping for a piano for my wife and I wanted to know the price of that one, he asked "She plays does she?"

Of course this just riled up the redneck in me, so I dumbed my language down a few levels and told him that we was thinkin' of gettin' her lessons now that the passel of kids was gettin' up to an age where they didn't have to be coddled and suckled all the time and we kind a liked that purty one over thar.

He gave me to understand that if I had to ask the price I couldn't afford it and ushered me out of the showroom as quickly as he could.

That night my wife's piano coach was at our house, and we mentioned the store, and the piano, and she, the coach, trold us that she knew the salesman and he was just that stuck up, and BTW, her mother also worked at that store, and she would be glad to arrange a showing for us.

So the next Saturday we all trooped in, my wife, her coach, her mentor, and one of her professors from college, our son, and myself, and met the coaches mother at the door. Mr. Snotty watched us in amazement as we ALL sat down at the instrument in question and played (of course all I could ever manage was a barroom boogie, but there was a principle at stake) and then I whipped out $10,000.00 in cash and paid $9,800.00 after tax for the piano.

As we trooped back out the door I turned to Mr. Snotty and told him, back in my redneck accent, that he'all should make better sure how he handled folks in the future or he would miss a lot more commissions like that. Up until tha moment he hadn't recognized me, but you could see dawn break just then, as he sputtered.

Instant karma can be a good thing.

I have a story like that... One of my dad's college room-mates named Randle married waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay above his station in life back in the 1950s. Didn't know until after he proposed to her that his fiance was a Boston heiress worth something like $50 million in her own right (in 1950s dollars). He found out when she insisted they fly to Boston to meet mummy and daddy before getting hitched, and they were met on the airport tarmac by a chauffeur driven Rolls Royce limousine.

They moved to San Francisco, where they still live today with all the other rich liberals, and he eventually founded a cookie company. But back in the 50s when he was still a "starving" artist with only $50 million in the bank, he wanted to buy a new car, and he literally could not decide between a Rolls and a VW bug. He liked the economy and proletarian nature of the Bug (getting rich made him into a cheapskate), but the Rolls came with a lifetime warranty with their road-side service program, etc., etc., etc. He finally decided that buying one Rolls Royce which would last him a lifetime would be cheaper than buying a series of VW Bugs for the next 50 years. So one day he walked into a Rolls dealer in SF, with $35K in cash rolled up in his pocket. Back then, you could drive away in a pretty nice Rolls for under $35K. Randle walked into the showroom wearing paint-stained chinos, a t-shirt (he was an artiste, dontcha know), and a pair of work boots. He waited and waited and waited, and nobody would talk to him. So he finally walked into the sales manager's office, interrupting a phone call, waved the cold hard cash under his nose, and said, "I came in here prepared to pay cash for a Rolls, but you folks are idiots and you need to fire your sales force. I wouldn't buy a Rolls from today forward, no matter how much you lowered the price," and he went across the street and bought the VW Bug.

I remember my dad laughing his butt off when Randle him told the story. I must have been about 7 or 8 years old at the time.