Midwest Guns and Range closing???

[Expat]

Just an fyi. I asked about this subject before at many of shows in the area, and the most popular reply was, they were blackballed. They would show up, buy multiple tables and beat everyone's prices by significant margins. Did it enough to **** off all the other sellers.

I know ZX told me they run into the same thing. The other vendors don't like them selling stuff cheaper than them so they try to get the promoter to drop them from the shows.

 

[LP1]

Just an fyi. I asked about this subject before at many of shows in the area, and the most popular reply was, they were blackballed. They would show up, buy multiple tables and beat everyone's prices by significant margins. Did it enough to **** off all the other sellers.

Used to see them at the 1500 - can't say that I thought their deals were anything special. PSS and ZX were almost always lower. A few years ago I decided that making a loop of the area gun stores was a much better use of time and money than going to the 1500, since I'm not into rare or unusual stuff. I like visiting ZX and Midwest when I'm up north.

 

[Comiskeybum]

Here's the thing about Midwest...

The owner isn't in business because just he loves the gun owner community. He is a businessman, and this is a business. Thats not to say that is a bad thing, because you need to make money to stay in business. Anyway, the owner's focus was always to grow their wholesale business. I think it would surprise most of this forum to learn how many of their local dealers buy their stock from MGE Wholesale. Thats where the big money is at. The retail store barely pays the bills for the building. The range most likely lost money. The wholesale business was what supported everything else.

Five years ago, MGE Wholesale moved to a whole new building, separating itself from Midwest Gun Exchange's retail store. Since then it has grown even bigger. If I were to take a guess, the owner is just making a business decision that will make him more money, since the range was probably the biggest drain on the business. Same reason why you dont see Midwest at the gun shows any more. It cost too much to load up a trailer, pay 5 or 6 employees, meals, fuel, hotels, etc. There wasn't money in it, so they dropped it.

Just my opinion, having worked there for several years.

This. I worked for MGE at the Grape road store as a manager. Brad, the owner, only cares about expanding the wholesale side of the business. They were talking about closing the range even back when I was with the company. It does not make money and the location is horrible. If it had a better location maybe this would be a different story.

As much as I dislike Brad for the way he treats his employees and managers, I do understand this business decision. The future of gun sales is very much online and through wholesalers. Gun stores will still exist but not in the same way they have in the past.