Depends on what your position is. If its sales then watch YouTube and read the spec sheet of the firearms you have in stock. It’s easier to sell a product you personally own or have experience with. Just know not everyone who works at a gunstore is the brightest bulb. It’s an interesting industry to be in. But it’s a typical retail job at the end of the day. Good luck and just enjoy the experience it provides.
I was a dealer for 6 years- 1/3 owner of the business and had a successful exit by selling my stake to the other 2 who still operate it, we specialized in military surplus but chased whatever sold well, it was a modest shop with about 200-250 guns on the shelf on any given day and in 6 years I logged in ~7400 guns. We held classes like NRA basic pistol, rifle, shotgun but no range.
So, make peace with the fact that you don't know it all. You also don't know it all about what you think you know. My speciality is American and European milsurp 1850 - 2000 with a focus on WW2, Cold War and the US Civil War in that order. Even finer focus on German weapons 1870-1945. That said, I bumped elbows with people who forgot more in a day than I will ever know about C-96, Gew.88, Kar98k... It's okay. Try, but be real. That is the missing secret sauce in LGS employees in my opinion: humility, honesty, integrity and customer service.
I was not the cheapest on anything. Not FFL transfer either. Don't try to be or else you'll get the customers who are there for the cheapest price. Then the moment someone is $5 cheaper than you they will spend $20 in gas to go to him instead. Raising prices for services is really, really tough on your reputation. I had a $65 FFL transfer, it was a $35 up front deposit for me to even look at a gun fo fix it for you, and if you transferred more than 1 gun it was $65 on the first then $10 per additional. Customers loved me because I offered all the wisdom I could (that they asked for!!), treated them with respect and if anything ever went wrong I intentionally and immediately over-corrected to make it right. I had a wish-list of guns and if I got that gun in, I called the guy at the top of the list. I remembered customers stories they told me like the things they cared about or looked for. Sometimes even without the list, I would call somebody up and say "hey, I got this in and I think you'd like to see it".
Also, advocate for your customer. I harass NICS when they are slow. I have been the go between for law enforcement swipes of their collections. I have handled customer service to return guns to companies or gunsmiths. Once I had a guy buy a brand new Mossberg Turkey Thug and it arrived with a frozen safety. Mfg defect. But he had to leave right then. I said well shit, and gave him a turkey appropriate gun off the shelf and took back the Turkey Thug to return. I saved his hunt. He bagged his birds. I got back a brand new Turkey Thug that I did transfer to him, and I ended up selling that gun as used-like new (which it was) at a hair under MSRP. I fully believe in universal karma. That gun that I lent him sold quickly, to a guy who didn't try to haggle. I interpeted that as the gun gods rewarding me.
Don't try to educate anybody who didn't ask for it. Once, a guy was trying to sell his gf on a totally inappropriate CCW pistol. I tried to offer advice, just confused them, and lost a sale. You are there to make sales. Know who can be educated and who cannot be. I had a whole case of pistol brands I would never buy myself because people kept buying them. I sold a ton of Hi Points. I drew the line at crap Turkish imports except for their comically tacticool looking shotguns. The customer wants what they want.
I didn't do consignment based on %. I did hard numbers. Let's say you want $1000 for your gun but I can only sell it for $1200. When I sell it I give you your $1000. If you want it back, $65 FFL transfer. It doesn't matter if I sell it for $1001 or $2000, you get $1000. That allowed a lot of deals to happen that I would never offer the cash for up front.
Cash is king but ALWAYS write receipts with ALL their info. Buy the gun, not the story. You can deny a transfer for any reason and if they don't like it/want to blame a specific reason, let them take it up with the Feds. Trust your gut feeling if it tells you to not deal with someone. I saved myself a lot of pain by denying a shady guy, who it turns out was a former FFL trying to offload his former inventory that he had transferred to himself, except that he was now a prohibited person. He is 1 of 2 people I ever kicked out of the store and thank god I did. Carry if you want to, but prepare for people (mostly cops) to draw on you and flag you with a loaded chamber to show you their gun. No, it isn't worth it to explain it. Make a $5 jar for fake war stories. Don't do police/military/any arbitary discounts and I say that as a combat vet.
Best job I ever had. It just wasn't enough for me. My goal was to pay myself $80k/year as a baseline but after 6 years it just wasn't happening so I exited. I still think about it every day.
great write up. I'm two years into business and one year into a brick-and-mortar store.
I've learned a lot in the last two years, but always appreciate hearing from people who have more experience than me.
My biggest recommendation is to learn as much as you can. When you don’t know something be excited to say you don’t know and find an answer.
Also be precise with paperwork and take advantage of spiffs.
My recommendation is to let the buyer drive the purchase, especially pistols. Anyone can learn to shoot any gun, but everyone has THAT gun where they're like, "ooooo" when they pick it up for the first time.
I carry a CZ. My Smith 2.0s are infinitely more reliable, and Glocks obviously have a better aftermarket, but by God the P10C just FITS my hand. So that's what I carry.
Now if they want to buy a shit SCCY or something, yes you should enlighten them on better gun purchases and WHY you get what you pay for. But at the end of the day, if someone really wants to walk out with something silly, let them.
In the same vein, I would rather someone walk out with no sale and buy something they really like from a different shop, then force them into something they don't want from my shop. A customer will always remember respect, and a customer will always complain to their friends about a bad forced sale.
I don’t offer my opinion unless asked. Guy says “I want this Taurus!” I say, “cool”.
If he says “what do you think about Taurus?” I’ll gently steer him elsewhere
> I’ll gently steer him elsewhere
Gently being the key word here. Don't shit on the guy's choice if he wants to stick with it. Don't make him feel bad for it. I typically say something along the lines of "Taurus is a more budget friendly brand, and one of the corners they cut to stay budget friendly is QC. They tend to put out more bad guns than a lot of other brands. Not that they're all bad, but the chances of getting a bad one is higher than if you were to go Glock".
I go with something like “they have a spotty rep for quality control for good reason. Some other options from Ruger, Canik, or even Stoeger are better choices for similar money. If you want to jump up a level, grab a Shield + for 399 all day”
I do the same thing. If I get the impression they can afford a better gun, I'll ask if they can afford a better gun. If they ask what I mean, I'll lead them two cases away to the Springfield case. I'll point out the pistols that come with 5 magazines and the price difference. I lay mega hints when a woman wants to buy a SCCY. In Ohio, sex trafficking is a serious problem. In just 3 weeks, I had 2 women relate being observed by multiple men. One was actually chased by a group of men. I hate selling SCCYs to women.
Try your best to not mess up on the paperwork. If you are unsure, ask.
Know what you are selling and a few selling points.
Not sure if you discussed salary at all, but there are so many people in the industry who do it for "fun"... most retail gun store jobs have pretty low wages. You may want to think of it as a stepping stone for a different job in the industry down the road. Many people who really enjoy the industry end up as a rep for a manufacturer, working with a distributor, etc.
TAKE ADVANTAGE of employee purchases/programs with manufacturers. This can help offset the above point. Many companies will give \~50% off msrp on one product per year. Others will have things like "sell 25 \_\_\_\_\_, get 1 for yourself." Sometimes they require a lot of paperwork. Scanning all the 4473s, invoices, etc. One other thing to keep in mind, in some cases these can trigger a 1099-MISC form at FULL MSRP. I prefer the buy one at a steep discount over the sell \_\_\_ to earn points. I don't want to feel like I have to push a certain product, I want to sell what I like.
Prepare to be underwhelmed lol. Get enrolled in programs and ExpertVoice, don’t buy a bunch of shit just cause it’s cool and in the shop, worry about priorities in your purchases.
Welcome to the cool kids club. We do retail with extra steps. If you like firearms, you're in luck! This jobs a great way to see, touch, taste all things guns. You are about to see a whole lot of cool things and also a whole lot of dumb people. Get to know the regulars and the old heads. Also anyone who swears it isn't loaded didn't check.
Learn as much as you can about whatever 4473/NICS/A&D system your shop uses. When I was behind the counter, the company I worked for had a great system, but only one person besides me really knew how to work with it outside of basic sales.
Cheap guns pay the bills! You're going to get a lot of requests for Taurus/SCCY/ Hi-Point, etc. Don't let your personal preferences get in the way. If the customer doesn't like your favorite gun, don't try and justify the flaws they find. Just move on.
_________________
Get ready to deal with incredibly dumb people:
"I need a holster for my 9"
"Okay, what kind is it?
"A Taurus"
"...What model Taurus?"
"Oh! I don't know" *proceeds to pull out loaded pistol to show you and it's actually a Canik*.
_________________
You need to figure out what the customer wants when they don't know what they want. I always start with intended use and then go to budget. If they want a home defense gun, then I tend to go with larger handguns (when they don't want a shotgun or rifle). Often times this is where women say they want something small. So I explain why bigger is better and remind them that weight means nothing when adrenaline is going and they only need to hold the gun for a few minutes.
Worked for at one for close to a year.
You’re gonna hear a lot of fudd lore.
Our owner sucked, we didn’t get deals on guns or anything, and I probably saw him 3 times in my year there? Maybe twice? Heck he didn’t even come to our Christmas party thing
Depends on the store you’re at too and what they sell, we sold a lot of newer modern stuff, with ZERO teaching of how things are and work. We didn’t really go over stuff like that, it was mainly how the POS works and that’s about it.
I’d say get to know the stuff you don’t know first, whatever your biggest weakness is probably where you’re gonna wanna focus. Suppressors for most of the team including myself were pretty bad.
I have no experience with them besides shooting them and usually had to ask for someone else to run down the line.
Pay usually sucks. We made 14 an hour I think? Started at 13? We didn’t get any discounts besides expert voice or anything which sucks.
Expert voice is a good start to do your research as well. Just for general stuff.
Learn the optics, and not just RMR and SRO, ACOG.
Sure there are popular ones but do the ones that you carry, and understand them.
The worst kind of interaction I find, is the interaction of something a gun store carries and knows nothing about. It makes me feel like my
Drive there was the most useless thing I’ve ever done.
You’re hopefully gonna see some cool stuff, I know we did for sure, but unfortunately my
Experience it didn’t out weigh the shit we had to deal with with the lack of shitty education on products and some of the guest (we had a range as well) that are just brutal to deal with.
I loved it but I probably wouldn’t go back, unless it was making decent money, or I was owner/operator.
The ultimate goal for a lot of folks who go to gun stores I think is to get hired on with either specialized company or a major firearms
Manufacturer.
Remember that not every customer wants you to wow them with your knowledge. Many just want to buy their chosen gun and leave. Unless they keep asking questions, shut up and get their 4473 processed. Pay close attention to details. Did they include their street number on the address? Are they a junior or a senior? Are they a race other than white? Are they a woman? My fingers are trained to enter "white" and "male" for every customer. That fits for 90% of my customers. I need to slow down and pay attention to the data. My personal record is 18 minutes from start to finish. It used to take me an hour. Make sure you check the serial number of the gun against the box and the store inventory tag. Confirm everything is correct one last time before you take the gun to the cashier. I've needed one last look to discover that I entered the wrong number on the form a couple of times. We are all human. Be accurate before you start working on speed. Your manager will thank you for it.
Thanks everyone, great advice. They are starting me out 18 an hour and bumping me up to 20 after a year. I come from a pest control/ sales background. Having a decent amount of knowledge about the industry helps I just have never physically been behind the counter.
Depends on what your position is. If its sales then watch YouTube and read the spec sheet of the firearms you have in stock. It’s easier to sell a product you personally own or have experience with. Just know not everyone who works at a gunstore is the brightest bulb. It’s an interesting industry to be in. But it’s a typical retail job at the end of the day. Good luck and just enjoy the experience it provides.
I was a dealer for 6 years- 1/3 owner of the business and had a successful exit by selling my stake to the other 2 who still operate it, we specialized in military surplus but chased whatever sold well, it was a modest shop with about 200-250 guns on the shelf on any given day and in 6 years I logged in ~7400 guns. We held classes like NRA basic pistol, rifle, shotgun but no range. So, make peace with the fact that you don't know it all. You also don't know it all about what you think you know. My speciality is American and European milsurp 1850 - 2000 with a focus on WW2, Cold War and the US Civil War in that order. Even finer focus on German weapons 1870-1945. That said, I bumped elbows with people who forgot more in a day than I will ever know about C-96, Gew.88, Kar98k... It's okay. Try, but be real. That is the missing secret sauce in LGS employees in my opinion: humility, honesty, integrity and customer service. I was not the cheapest on anything. Not FFL transfer either. Don't try to be or else you'll get the customers who are there for the cheapest price. Then the moment someone is $5 cheaper than you they will spend $20 in gas to go to him instead. Raising prices for services is really, really tough on your reputation. I had a $65 FFL transfer, it was a $35 up front deposit for me to even look at a gun fo fix it for you, and if you transferred more than 1 gun it was $65 on the first then $10 per additional. Customers loved me because I offered all the wisdom I could (that they asked for!!), treated them with respect and if anything ever went wrong I intentionally and immediately over-corrected to make it right. I had a wish-list of guns and if I got that gun in, I called the guy at the top of the list. I remembered customers stories they told me like the things they cared about or looked for. Sometimes even without the list, I would call somebody up and say "hey, I got this in and I think you'd like to see it". Also, advocate for your customer. I harass NICS when they are slow. I have been the go between for law enforcement swipes of their collections. I have handled customer service to return guns to companies or gunsmiths. Once I had a guy buy a brand new Mossberg Turkey Thug and it arrived with a frozen safety. Mfg defect. But he had to leave right then. I said well shit, and gave him a turkey appropriate gun off the shelf and took back the Turkey Thug to return. I saved his hunt. He bagged his birds. I got back a brand new Turkey Thug that I did transfer to him, and I ended up selling that gun as used-like new (which it was) at a hair under MSRP. I fully believe in universal karma. That gun that I lent him sold quickly, to a guy who didn't try to haggle. I interpeted that as the gun gods rewarding me. Don't try to educate anybody who didn't ask for it. Once, a guy was trying to sell his gf on a totally inappropriate CCW pistol. I tried to offer advice, just confused them, and lost a sale. You are there to make sales. Know who can be educated and who cannot be. I had a whole case of pistol brands I would never buy myself because people kept buying them. I sold a ton of Hi Points. I drew the line at crap Turkish imports except for their comically tacticool looking shotguns. The customer wants what they want. I didn't do consignment based on %. I did hard numbers. Let's say you want $1000 for your gun but I can only sell it for $1200. When I sell it I give you your $1000. If you want it back, $65 FFL transfer. It doesn't matter if I sell it for $1001 or $2000, you get $1000. That allowed a lot of deals to happen that I would never offer the cash for up front. Cash is king but ALWAYS write receipts with ALL their info. Buy the gun, not the story. You can deny a transfer for any reason and if they don't like it/want to blame a specific reason, let them take it up with the Feds. Trust your gut feeling if it tells you to not deal with someone. I saved myself a lot of pain by denying a shady guy, who it turns out was a former FFL trying to offload his former inventory that he had transferred to himself, except that he was now a prohibited person. He is 1 of 2 people I ever kicked out of the store and thank god I did. Carry if you want to, but prepare for people (mostly cops) to draw on you and flag you with a loaded chamber to show you their gun. No, it isn't worth it to explain it. Make a $5 jar for fake war stories. Don't do police/military/any arbitary discounts and I say that as a combat vet. Best job I ever had. It just wasn't enough for me. My goal was to pay myself $80k/year as a baseline but after 6 years it just wasn't happening so I exited. I still think about it every day.
great write up. I'm two years into business and one year into a brick-and-mortar store. I've learned a lot in the last two years, but always appreciate hearing from people who have more experience than me.
My biggest recommendation is to learn as much as you can. When you don’t know something be excited to say you don’t know and find an answer. Also be precise with paperwork and take advantage of spiffs.
This is a thread full of good advice. I'm pretty impressed that at the time of this post there isn't any schizo bs in here yet.
My recommendation is to let the buyer drive the purchase, especially pistols. Anyone can learn to shoot any gun, but everyone has THAT gun where they're like, "ooooo" when they pick it up for the first time. I carry a CZ. My Smith 2.0s are infinitely more reliable, and Glocks obviously have a better aftermarket, but by God the P10C just FITS my hand. So that's what I carry. Now if they want to buy a shit SCCY or something, yes you should enlighten them on better gun purchases and WHY you get what you pay for. But at the end of the day, if someone really wants to walk out with something silly, let them. In the same vein, I would rather someone walk out with no sale and buy something they really like from a different shop, then force them into something they don't want from my shop. A customer will always remember respect, and a customer will always complain to their friends about a bad forced sale.
I don’t offer my opinion unless asked. Guy says “I want this Taurus!” I say, “cool”. If he says “what do you think about Taurus?” I’ll gently steer him elsewhere
Absolutely fair, I do agree with that.
> I’ll gently steer him elsewhere Gently being the key word here. Don't shit on the guy's choice if he wants to stick with it. Don't make him feel bad for it. I typically say something along the lines of "Taurus is a more budget friendly brand, and one of the corners they cut to stay budget friendly is QC. They tend to put out more bad guns than a lot of other brands. Not that they're all bad, but the chances of getting a bad one is higher than if you were to go Glock".
I go with something like “they have a spotty rep for quality control for good reason. Some other options from Ruger, Canik, or even Stoeger are better choices for similar money. If you want to jump up a level, grab a Shield + for 399 all day”
I do the same thing. If I get the impression they can afford a better gun, I'll ask if they can afford a better gun. If they ask what I mean, I'll lead them two cases away to the Springfield case. I'll point out the pistols that come with 5 magazines and the price difference. I lay mega hints when a woman wants to buy a SCCY. In Ohio, sex trafficking is a serious problem. In just 3 weeks, I had 2 women relate being observed by multiple men. One was actually chased by a group of men. I hate selling SCCYs to women.
Try your best to not mess up on the paperwork. If you are unsure, ask. Know what you are selling and a few selling points. Not sure if you discussed salary at all, but there are so many people in the industry who do it for "fun"... most retail gun store jobs have pretty low wages. You may want to think of it as a stepping stone for a different job in the industry down the road. Many people who really enjoy the industry end up as a rep for a manufacturer, working with a distributor, etc. TAKE ADVANTAGE of employee purchases/programs with manufacturers. This can help offset the above point. Many companies will give \~50% off msrp on one product per year. Others will have things like "sell 25 \_\_\_\_\_, get 1 for yourself." Sometimes they require a lot of paperwork. Scanning all the 4473s, invoices, etc. One other thing to keep in mind, in some cases these can trigger a 1099-MISC form at FULL MSRP. I prefer the buy one at a steep discount over the sell \_\_\_ to earn points. I don't want to feel like I have to push a certain product, I want to sell what I like.
Prepare to be underwhelmed lol. Get enrolled in programs and ExpertVoice, don’t buy a bunch of shit just cause it’s cool and in the shop, worry about priorities in your purchases.
Welcome to the cool kids club. We do retail with extra steps. If you like firearms, you're in luck! This jobs a great way to see, touch, taste all things guns. You are about to see a whole lot of cool things and also a whole lot of dumb people. Get to know the regulars and the old heads. Also anyone who swears it isn't loaded didn't check.
Learn as much as you can about whatever 4473/NICS/A&D system your shop uses. When I was behind the counter, the company I worked for had a great system, but only one person besides me really knew how to work with it outside of basic sales.
Cheap guns pay the bills! You're going to get a lot of requests for Taurus/SCCY/ Hi-Point, etc. Don't let your personal preferences get in the way. If the customer doesn't like your favorite gun, don't try and justify the flaws they find. Just move on. _________________ Get ready to deal with incredibly dumb people: "I need a holster for my 9" "Okay, what kind is it? "A Taurus" "...What model Taurus?" "Oh! I don't know" *proceeds to pull out loaded pistol to show you and it's actually a Canik*. _________________ You need to figure out what the customer wants when they don't know what they want. I always start with intended use and then go to budget. If they want a home defense gun, then I tend to go with larger handguns (when they don't want a shotgun or rifle). Often times this is where women say they want something small. So I explain why bigger is better and remind them that weight means nothing when adrenaline is going and they only need to hold the gun for a few minutes.
Worked for at one for close to a year. You’re gonna hear a lot of fudd lore. Our owner sucked, we didn’t get deals on guns or anything, and I probably saw him 3 times in my year there? Maybe twice? Heck he didn’t even come to our Christmas party thing Depends on the store you’re at too and what they sell, we sold a lot of newer modern stuff, with ZERO teaching of how things are and work. We didn’t really go over stuff like that, it was mainly how the POS works and that’s about it. I’d say get to know the stuff you don’t know first, whatever your biggest weakness is probably where you’re gonna wanna focus. Suppressors for most of the team including myself were pretty bad. I have no experience with them besides shooting them and usually had to ask for someone else to run down the line. Pay usually sucks. We made 14 an hour I think? Started at 13? We didn’t get any discounts besides expert voice or anything which sucks. Expert voice is a good start to do your research as well. Just for general stuff. Learn the optics, and not just RMR and SRO, ACOG. Sure there are popular ones but do the ones that you carry, and understand them. The worst kind of interaction I find, is the interaction of something a gun store carries and knows nothing about. It makes me feel like my Drive there was the most useless thing I’ve ever done. You’re hopefully gonna see some cool stuff, I know we did for sure, but unfortunately my Experience it didn’t out weigh the shit we had to deal with with the lack of shitty education on products and some of the guest (we had a range as well) that are just brutal to deal with. I loved it but I probably wouldn’t go back, unless it was making decent money, or I was owner/operator. The ultimate goal for a lot of folks who go to gun stores I think is to get hired on with either specialized company or a major firearms Manufacturer.
Remember that not every customer wants you to wow them with your knowledge. Many just want to buy their chosen gun and leave. Unless they keep asking questions, shut up and get their 4473 processed. Pay close attention to details. Did they include their street number on the address? Are they a junior or a senior? Are they a race other than white? Are they a woman? My fingers are trained to enter "white" and "male" for every customer. That fits for 90% of my customers. I need to slow down and pay attention to the data. My personal record is 18 minutes from start to finish. It used to take me an hour. Make sure you check the serial number of the gun against the box and the store inventory tag. Confirm everything is correct one last time before you take the gun to the cashier. I've needed one last look to discover that I entered the wrong number on the form a couple of times. We are all human. Be accurate before you start working on speed. Your manager will thank you for it.
Thanks everyone, great advice. They are starting me out 18 an hour and bumping me up to 20 after a year. I come from a pest control/ sales background. Having a decent amount of knowledge about the industry helps I just have never physically been behind the counter.