The Gun Counter

Nice to see this open, couple questions,
What is a tactical tommy and nosales people?
Does anyone know if the gunthing archives are available? They were very helpful to look at before asking dumb questions.
Thanks

grant1863 wrote:Does anyone know if the gunthing archives are available? They were very helpful to look at before asking dumb questions.
Thanks

No, the site is completely off line.

The only dumb question is one you don't ask.

Thanks for the answers, We used to have the no-sales people here in Tampa until the economy hit the skids and now they are bit more attentive. Still overpriced but that's another story.

I HATE the nosales people. HATE! They make me want to freak the hell out, which is probably not the best idea in a gun store.

I bet anyone in my area can identify this store pretty easily.

1. The supposed assistant manager of sales is constantly eating a batch of fried chicken out of styrofoam container. He can't be bothered to actually tell you anything about a specific gun. If you can get him off his ass, he will hand it to you, and stare blankly.

2. Their prices are the highest around, and their staff is probably the least helpful in the area. There is not a single deal to be had in the store, and by deal I mean a decent competitive price. Don't bother trying to negotiate either. That oddball lever action that has been on the shelf for three years is worth more sitting there collecting dust, then it is to make a sale for a fair price.

3. Prepare to be looked upon as a cheap bastard if you want to look at more than one gun, and actually talk about the differences between them. There will be no small talk while you are thinking about putting $500+ down on the table.

Aaaarrrrrggggghhhhh! It drives me nuts. We have a hard enough time getting new people into shooting, without them being turned off the first time they enter a gun store by these asshats.

Funny about no-sales people. It's not just the gun world that has them, it's all retail.

I'm willing to pay more for good service, and I'm not the only one.

I am willing to pay for it as well. The shop I talked about above had the best gun sales man I have ever encountered, and the fired him. He would spend 30 minutes with you if that is what it took, and I bought several guns from him, even though I could have gotten the same gun for $50 less 15 minutes down the road.

Another reason why I love the place down the street from me. The 2 guys that work there, and especially the owner, are quite personable, and will usually talk about whatever you happen to be looking at. Even better, they have better ammo prices than Wal Mart.

Fender Ketchup wrote:Even better, they have better ammo prices than Wal Mart.

Okay, spill it. Come on, you can't make a comment like that around a bunch of shooters and expect people to not ask where it is.

we have a shop full of nosales here. last time i was there, they had a non matching CZ-52 at a sale price of $399

Having worked on the other side of the counter, it can be so damn hard to find good sales people to hire. On the "nosales" side you've got your over-enthusiastic shooters who want to spend more time talking pros and cons with the customer then actually selling to them, your old-as-dirt veteran salesmen who know they're not going to get fired and couldn't give a shit, and my personal favorite, the salesmen who refuse to sell certain guns because they don't personally approve of them. There was always a long list of people interested in working at my store, but too many of them were the sort to say, "I'd love to work at a gun store... It'll be a great way to hone my shooting skills and really get to know guns!"

In case anyone's curious, I used to work at Mandall Shooting & Gun Supplies in Scottsdale, Arizona. The business closed down in December of 2004, but I'm sure anyone who used to frequent it can recognize at least a few of my former co-workers in the above descriptions.

For some reason we also seemed to get a fairly high number of out-of-work bums who'd come in asking if we were hiring. It was always good for a laugh when the conversation went something like this:

" 'Scuse me sir, I was just wondering if you're hiring?"

"Not really, but do you have much of a firearms background?"

"Nope."

"Well, this is a pretty specialized area of retail. We're currently at full staff, but if anything changes we'll be sure to put out a notice."

"Ok, ok... Hey, you wanna buy this watch?"