I haven't made an in-store purchase in 7-8 years and was curious if the dealers have to pay a fee for the instant background check. Apparently, some charge a fee for it. Just wondering if it is a tool some use to edge the profit margin up a bit.
There's no per-background-check fee, but it does cost a good bit of money to become a licensed dealer, and the time spent and record-keeping requirements make the fee entirely justifiable.
If you order a gun from somewhere else most charge a fee to run the check for you, basically paying for their time to receive, log, store, transfer, and maintain records of your purchase, since they did not make any money off of the sale. These seem to be $15 to $25 typically.
If you buy an in stock item, or order through the shop, the shouldn't charge an extra fee for the check, that is a requirement of the business. I've never heard of anyone doing that.
I've found a good shop will price match as close as they can to the online dealers, but there isn't much profit margin in new gun sales. I'll pay a few bucks more to support a good local dealer. Disregard this if you are ordering some rare or hard to find gun, not much option there.