I wish I was making up the price point retailers are setting for .22 LR right now.
Disgusting. Yeh, I know, a bunch of you Free Market Worshipers are going to scream that the system is working, supply vs. demand, etc. I’m not saying that we need laws against it, or any of that bullshit. But I am allowed to say things like, I dunno, “I will never buy ammo from Cheaper Than Dirt again because they are price gouging like shitheads right now.” (They sold that exact same ammo for $230 14 months ago. I still have the catalog on my bathroom toilet.) My distaste and derision is also part of the free market. A lot of Hardline Capitalists tend to forget that consumer opinion is also part of the Free Market. They want to dismiss unhappy customers, and say that retailers can charge anything they want. And they can! And customers like myself will tell those retailers to eat shit, and call them horrible people – but oh no, I’m not allowed to have an opinion! That makes me a COMMIE!
The reality is that ammo retailers right now are price gouging like motherfuckers. Any company that tries to gouge me today will not get my business in the future, when the Obamascare Mk II goes away. Cabela’s, for instance, will keep my business – because if they have the ammo, they’re selling it for what it retailed for in 2010. This means they run out of bullets fast, but they at least have some fucking integrity. Meanwhile, my local Walmart just got a shipment of 9mm, a big stack of it. Federal ball ammo. Boxes of 50 rounds. And today, I had them price check it. They’re selling this craptacular plinking ammo for $22 a box.
Fuck that.
Speaking of Grade-A assholes overpricing .22LR ammo, this has got Omar beat: http://www.cheaperthandirt.com/product/AMM-0551
No it doesn’t. They’re sellling *500* rounds for $200, or 40 cents a pop. Omar’s selling *250* rounds for $155, or 62 cents a pop.
Why would you buy from CTD in the first place? Doesn’t anyone remember their pulling of online firearm sales after Newtown?
Second, I don’t know if your comments are general or based on last strips comments, I didn’t see a comment comment saying you can’t have an opinion/you are a commie.
You are certainly entitled to your opinion, even if it isn’t based in economics.
See response here.
The only time I ever bought ammo from CTD in a large quantity was during a Christmas sale for some Uly 7.62×39, other than that their online ammo prices are too high with only a few decent deals on some types of ammo ( I have purchased some hollow point 9mm from them) however, they have some good deals on milsurp and other cool non gun related stuff. the only thing that keeps me from shopping with them more often is their stupid high shipping costs and how bad they charge when there is more than one warehouse involved in the order.
…i certainly hope that you are the one holding http://www.cheaperthanyourmom.com...
🙂
It bothers me somewhat that CTYM sells lingerie, unless it’s those neat little bra-holsters. Those are kick ass.
I shudder to think of what lingerie Omar puts on the shelves.
“Police Trade-ins!”
Have you tried Gunbot? Sometimes cheap .22 shows up there for like 4 or 5 cents a round. It sells fast though so you gotta be quick.
Most of my .22 got donated to a local 4-H club so I’m using my shotgun more when I want to shoot. I missed breaking clays.
Well, gosh, you don’t have to buy any product at a price you find unacceptable. But that’s different from casting your price preferences as though it was some sort of moral issue. They really aren’t.
I haven’t bought ammo from CTD in quite a while because their prices are too damned high. But the thing about CTD is that they actually have had a lot more stuff in stock over the past six months than other places. Places like Cabela’s or TargetSportsUSA have kept stuff at the lower prices, but they’re almost always out. If you needed something NOW, and price was far less of a consideration, CTD probably would’ve had some in stock. I’m guessing that there must be enough people who fall into that latter category, otherwise CTD wouldn’t have been able to keep up their pricing strategy for so long.
i am not going to touch whether or not CTD’s wishy-washy behavior vis-a-vis firearms is a reason to boycott them permanently.
CTD really is cheap in times of No Scare, because their McKinney outlet is about 20 minutes from my house. In 2010, I was able to grab Ulyanovsk 7.62×39 for a staggering $3.15/box when they had it on sale in store. Stocked right up on it. If you don’t have to pay shipping, they’re normally the least expensive option for ammo in the DFW area.
But they can eat my dick henceforth.
Someone looking for 22 LR? Massive disclaimer at the top, but I’ve alays had good luck and good customer service from them
http://www.sportsmansguide.com/net/browse/rifle-ammo-22-ammo.aspx?c=96&s=903&stk=1
I’m also not familiar with any “Hardline Capitalists” who opine that consumers are not “allowed to have opinions”.
Straw men make good target-holders, though. 🙂
I see that opinion online all the time. They are the vocal minority who understand nothing abut what they spend all day typing about.
The usual response goes something like this
Rational Person: I believe that company X is immoral and that they suck! I am never buying from them again
Internet Moron: Then don’t buy from them, but they can behave anyway they want and you are a commie bastard. people like you are the whole problem with America!!
I haven’t encountered any such persons. Perhaps I live a sheltered life. 🙂
The basic statement “Then don’t buy from them” is pretty good advice. If enough people don’t buy from them, they will either lower their prices or get competed out of business. The consumer IS an integral part of the economic equation; he goes by the name of “Demand”. Shaking one’s fist and cursing “price gouging profiteers” is the other side of the attitude you describe, though, and just as silly…
My WM has that federal 9mm ball in stock too. its 22 a box of 100. which is 11 a box of 50. When they were selling it before, it was $9 a box of 50.
To me, not a horrible price increase, given the price of everything else that has increased in the same time frame.
I don’t think there’s any moralizing here, just the fact that a lot of economic philosophies at their core fail to take to heart the fact that many people are intelligent consumers and know when they’re being cheated. A perfect example is Gamestop. I used to buy all my games used, mostly because I was behind the curve time-wise and picked up four or five decent games at $10-15 each at a time. Now I rarely ever buy anything used from them, because I’d rather give my money to the people who created the games.
Supply and demand is a gross oversimplification of how our system actually works. Sure, there are a lot of people who either don’t care about the business practices of the stores they shop at or consider low prices a higher priority, but there are a lot of people who do. I understand businesses need to turn a profit to survive and grow and I’m sure Jay does as well, but the point is that when retailers use the supply and demand excuse to drive their prices through the roof, they’re going to piss off people who know just how much they’re overcharging.
i just got 500 9mm and .380 and 1000 .300 blk for a little less than $800 (there went my suppressor budget!)
I will not be buying ammo from CTD in the future again either. Freedom Munitions, Midway and a couple of others however will keep my business and I will even recommend them to friends.
The toilet is a good place for that catalog…
What many supporters of free-market capitalism seem to forget is that customer opinion, also known as word-of-mouth-advertising is a central aspect of ‘the invisible hand of the marketplace’, that represents pressures to keep price low, and to push business to those who are better filling consumer needs. Customer opinion rightly encompasses issues of price, quality, perceived business practices and ethics.
So by trying to stifle negative opinions, in any form, they violate the basic tenets of their beloved free market.
A true free market absolutely depends on what you just described. The invisible hand of the market is driven by consumer opinion among a multitude of other things. I very much doubt that 230 per box was supply and demand driven, and even if it was, it is the consumers absolute right to eschew doing business with any company for any reason at all. Anyone who disagrees needs to look up the definition of “free”. As in, “free” market. Because I don’t think that word mea ns what they think it means
Exactly. In a real Free Market(NOT what we have now), any company is free to charge whatever they want for their products and services, and to refuse service to anyone for any reason. Whether we like it or not.
And if I think they’re being assholes, I’m free to not do business with them until: 1) they stop being assholes, 2) I’m done being pissed at them and/or 3) the end of time. Whether they like it or not.
This supporter of free-market capitalism understands the concept just fine. I don’t know why people believe we don’t, except that they’re possibly all bunged up that we’re not jumping on their little COMPANY X IS THE DEVIL AND IF YOU EVER BUY FROM THEM LIKE EVER EVER EVER IN A MILLION YEARS YOU’RE A BIG STUPID EVIL RACIST DOODOO HEAD AAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! bandwagon. We all pick our battles, and this one isn’t–in my own personal opinion–worth going all Crimson Jihad over. I’m simply not going to buy from CTD until they start living up to their name again. Others can do as they see fit, but problem solved, AFAIC.
It’s never been “supply & demand”. That whole theory is a naïve fairy-tale/propaganda.
It’s always been “Whatever The Traffic Will Bear”.
And The Bear Don’t Care how narrow the traffic gets, as long as some of us pay the toll and keep on comin.
P.S. you were right about what you said in the beginning. I’m getting to kind of like Omar.
He kinda grows on you. 🙂
If there isn’t enough ammo (or whatever) to go around at acceptable prices, how should it be allocated? Lottery? Whoever has time to hang out at the shop when shelves get restocked? The shop’s highest grossing customers? If a shop has the chance to buy ammo at a stupidly high price, but one they think they can still sell at a slight profit, should they?
That’s up to the retailer to decide. It’s basically a question of what you can do without alienating customers, along with how much alienating customers matters to you. There may be people who want to pay any amount of money in order that ammo is available when they want it. There may be people who look at that as price-gouging and will refuse to patronize the business henceforth. Each business has to decide/guess what will be best for them in both the short and long term.
Your post makes me wonder, though: how much is ammo wholesaling for? If it’s much more expensive than it used to be, that implies that Cabela’s is losing money on each box of ammo; if it isn’t, it means CTD is price-gouging. I find it difficult to believe that Cabela’s and other inexpensive-ammo places are selling at a (potentially huge) loss, but I guess I don’t actually KNOW that; perhaps Cabela’s views ammo as a loss-leader.
Y’all keep using this word, I do not think it means what you think it means. Raising ammo prices during a shortage caused by politics is not price gouging, raising gas prices during a mandatory evacuation is price gouging.
Raising prices during a shortage can be gouging depending on the degree to which the prices are raised.
From a legal standpoint, Snakedriver is correct; the CRIME of price-gouging generally requires a declared state of emergency. However, the term “price-gouging” is also used colloquially in the way we’ve been using it here, primarily because there isn’t a clear, succinct alternative term. (“Profiteering” comes closest, but is much less precise.) If you like, replace every instance of the word “price-gouging” with “charging a price much higher than justifiable given the short-term and long-term costs entailed and a reasonable profit”. When that takes place outside of an emergency, it’s not a crime; the lack of an emergency doesn’t automatically make it ethical or acceptable, however.
What mechanism is better than price to determine who needs gas to keep their life saving insulin cold and who needs it to keep their beer cold?
What mechanism better than price controls to make sure people don’t bust ass and take risks to get extra gas where it is needed most, or to invest in what it would take to stock up for emergencies? During Katrina, people wanted to stop a guy who spent his life savings on generators and gasoline bought at retail, and hauled them down to Louisiana at his own expense and risk in his own truck–and sold them at “too much” profit to willing buyers.
I think what a lot of people really want is to be able to buy the ammo that CTD has in stock, but at Cabella’s prices. if CTD were charging Cabella’s prices, they would be out too. (I wonder if any of the “fair price” ammo dealers are protecting their image by quietly wholesaling to other dealers at closer to current market price?)
For me, CTD lived up to the name, because they have not one but TWO physical stores within 30 minutes of me. They also had some damned good in-store sales from time to time, as well as carrying some of the weirder ammo for our collection cheap (10 gauge 000 Buck for $6 a box, e.g.)
Price as the sole mechanism merely means if you’re sufficiently rich, you have cold beer, and if you’re sufficiently poor, you have no insulin.
That said, I agree that price controls potentially remove motivation to go to extra effort to get supplies where they’re needed. That could be an entrepreneur like you mentioned, or it could be a business that builds extra infrastructure so they can stay open through an emergency and make back their investment. Either way, if I don’t have motivation to go to that effort (or worse, if I’ll be accused of price gouging when trying to make back my investment), why bother?
The question is whether CTD (etc) is charging more because it’s costing them more, or just because they can. If they built an extra warehouse before this whole mess and stockpiled huge amounts of ammo, and now they’re selling it at a price that includes amortizing the warehouse, then good for them. If they’re buying ammo the same way everybody else is, but charging more for it, then boo on them. Personally, I strongly suspect it’s the second, but I don’t actually know.
One of our local shops is selling 22LR at $5 for a box of 50. One box per customer/day though.
Perhaps if you need insulin you have an incentive not to be poor. And you would work harder and be more productive. And society would benefit as well from that.
Unless of course society has created programs to give it to you free or at artificially low prices. In which case no one benefits except you.