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I charge $50 for silencers/AOW/SBR/SBS, but raised my machine gun fee to 5% of value. I have an insurance policy on customers firearms in my possession. Two machine guns in the safe equal the value of everything else.
Every time I read about Backpage destroying your business growth I shake my head in amazement.
Amazement that anyone, anywhere would have used the smarmiest website possible to advertise gun sales. Gun sales next to ads for massage parlors, teenage escorts and the like. It's the online version of writing "Glock for sale $500otd" on the men's room wall right next to "Trixie 2for$10 blowjobs".
I get that it was an Arizona thing, but oddly I've never heard of any other gun dealer in another city selling on Backpage.
Maybe the clients/sales you were getting from Backpage were the worst possible clients/sales. Elevate your marketing and you elevate your clientele and sales.
I don't advertise one bit, I never sell on gun forums, I rarely sell on GunBroker and I only do five gunshows a year. Yet business improves every year.
Ten silencer transfers @ $50 will pay your SOT, as would SELLING two or three.
You might take a loss the first year, but NFA brings in customers that you might never have had.
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I think the BP thing was a big thing for Arizona. Atleast i did get some clients from there and i still continue to get some mainly from like online sellers and their customers pick me as the transfer dealer. Ive been known to cut some seriously slack on the transfer fees for regular customers with multiple transfer especially if you got our CCW which makes it a breeze.
Yeah i know the backpage thing is kinda lame, but like you mentioned maybe its an arizona thing is probably correct. I remember seeing alot of home based ffl dealers on there and also some shops too. you are right about the maybe some of the customers were crappy off backpage but i was new at that time and selling all sorts of stuff at like few bucks over cost to just introduce the business at that time. I did try to advertise here and there after their closure but honestly the impact wasnt as great. I DO think the demise of BP did kill off several homebased ffls and maybe a store or two but the stores not from just Backpage only, but possibly a combination of the closure and who knows what else.
At this time, im happy with the transfer aspect of my ffl business. Even though i cut some deals on the fees all the time. Its enough work to keep me busy and occupied at my business location (ffl is not the primary business here)
I keep thinking about the SOT thing on and off, because i think it was you a while back who said the same thing about 10 transfers would pay the SOT fee for the year. I dont think its the fee that bothers me. But more of the actual possibility of business not being generated enuff with it. YEa $500 aint shit honestly but i just cant seem to wrap my head around it.
The good thing (i think) is that the closest actual NFA Dealer to me is about 5.7 miles away and i think they are a 07 licensee so their business might not be the "greatest" for NFA for customers etc. The other one is exactly the same distance the opposite way. Which is a large private corp type dealer with 2 locations. They got a real nice setup with their stores. Blows away alot of the stores i seen. They got like a serious range in there thats used by like all the law enforcement around here. anyways, if i remember correctly there was another ffl that was closer than both of these but im not sure if they are still running or not. Mainly because i used the SilencerShop Dealer locator to find the closest NFA Dealer since i cant seem to think of any other way to find a list.
Theres a pawn shop (well like several. yes this place is ghetto as shit) like less than a mile away and theres another one (corp) like almost directly across from them. Going the opposite way theres like 2-3 more pawn shops but around 2 miles or so. I dont think any of these places deal in NFA as ive visited them prior to see what they do and didnt notice anything to tell me they did.
Ill have to rethink this whole SOT thing seriously since the application period is coming up for the following year. Last year same time, i filled out the app, wrote the check and then last min decided to forego it.
On a plus note, last year i did not have the SilencerShop Dealer info but this year i did receive it so i have a better idea on what that arrangement might bring per sale/transfer etc. The other reason i didnt go with it last time was the fact that they changed it up with the NFA process and added the backround check during the form review process. I think that current time it was in a cluster fuck of a situation with the fbi check putting shit on hold for people like crazy and that kinda made me think like wtf.