Here is the deal when Brian Enos was dealing in Dillon he had a deal, he had everything dropped shipped from Dillon the only dealer they were doing that for.
So, if you have no overhead, do not pay the shipping from Dillon to your warehouse you can do things like offer free shipping and still make money.
The mark up on Dillon products is not very much. Then factor in dealers pay for shipping from Dillon and then have CC charges. So their end is not all that much!
And, imagine paying for shipping across the country from Mesa! Dillon probably has a great contract with FedEx. Small dealers do not have leverage.
A lot of Dillon stuff can fit in flat rate boxes, but other stuff is not dense so to speak. Say a case feeder comes in 14/14/14 box and weights about 10# it gets dinged for not being dense.
There is more to shipping then most you "Think" someone has to fetch the product, boxes to ship cost money, printers and labels cost money. It is not just cost of postage or FedEx/UPS
So, there are many many vendors out there that have minimum order thresholds without incurring a service charge for a small order.
Not as straightforward as some of the supposedly enlightened parade around saying.
Graf is about the best option for non-dealers as previously stated.
And, if you have a dealer account at Graf you can get a bit of discount on items but dealers pay freight!
But, no dealer is going give you free shipping on small orders. They would losing money!
Yes Dillon keeps a tight collar on dealers.
One potential one here in MN was advertising 20% off list. This was so he could build up a large order so as to meet min order of $10 wholesale to be a dealer. His little posting on a local gun board had him returning money paid up front soon there after....
Scheels a midwestern sports equipment dealer got throttled last fall for advertising 550 presses without the conversion kit and a discounted price. They got their noodle whipped for that.
Go look on amazon there is no dillon stuff hardly listed at retail price because Amazon takes too much money from the seller.............. inflated prices and with shipping included.