why are gun parts/accessories shops so un-modern?

ive ordered several parts recently thru various online parts/accessory shops.

almost all of them are just like ordering from wish as far as time to ship, and actual shipping time.
and the shipping cost is so high at every single one. $6 to ship a $2.30, 1" spring via usps!?!

and if they get the part wrong, or it is defective, its on your dime to ship it back. making you responsible for their mess-up.

its sad when WALMART! has a better online presence than shops like midway that have been online at least 5x longer than walmart.

i have been going thru amazon even tho i pay a slightly higher price, because i KNOW ill get it fast, and if there is an issue, they will take care of it. also they wont charge $6 to ship a 1" spring.

also making it near impossible to change addresses or payment info, sending partial tracking info, etc....

It cost a lot of money to update systems... Walmart has the money and the people to do it... Meanwhile who knows if the profits Midway makes justify dropping the funds on an upgrade to their systems... Maybe is the customers fire back more often then it would change... But it would have to be a whole lot of bad feedback... After all it would be cheaper to lose just a few customers then upgrade their systems and re-train everyone... Cost/benefit thing...

I have ordered from midway and had to ship a defective item back. They send me a free shipping label for shipping. I also order a lot of items from OpticsPlanet with the same thing and most of the time free shipping. No I don't get two/three day shipping but 4 and 5 is good. I also don't have to pay extra for the product and that prime yearly fee.

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I've had this same issue with optics planet a few times. Ordered several items and got one of their confirmations with a tracking number pretty quickly. That being said, that tracking number surely didn't have any information on it for quite a few days. Emails to them usually take a day or so to hear back. I've now started to find the same items on Amazon. Like you, don't mind paying a bit more and have it with a definite ship and deliver date. Usually I'll hit up the two independent gun stores by me first. If they are too expensive or I'm in a time crunch I'll mosey along and try to locate it on Amazon.

Look at Primary Arms. Large selection, OK pricing and superfast shipping albeit at similar pricing to others

Lets_Ride said:

Look at Primary Arms. Large selection, OK pricing and superfast shipping albeit at similar pricing to others

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they sell only ar/ak type stuff.

bowhtr1 said:

I have ordered from midway and had to ship a defective item back. They send me a free shipping label for shipping. I also order a lot of items from OpticsPlanet with the same thing and most of the time free shipping. No I don't get two/three day shipping but 4 and 5 is good. I also don't have to pay extra for the product and that prime yearly fee.

Sent from my SM-T537V using Tapatalk

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this wasnt midway, sportsmans guide iirc.

sportsbud said:

It cost a lot of money to update systems... Walmart has the money and the people to do it... Meanwhile who knows if the profits Midway makes justify dropping the funds on an upgrade to their systems... Maybe is the customers fire back more often then it would change... But it would have to be a whole lot of bad feedback... After all it would be cheaper to lose just a few customers then upgrade their systems and re-train everyone... Cost/benefit thing...

Click to expand...

Thas a croc of crap.It doesn't take much at all to update a server.Hire a decent IT guy.
He will spend maybe 3-4 days maximum updating EVERYTHING!!!

Company's are rich and lazy,such as midway.Id rather eat wal mart pizza than to order
from that fraud.

Sportmans guide are good folk as many others in the industry.Nothing wrong with
ordering from amazon or ebay.If they have it and its fair price and fast ship,
there is no reason not too.These nay sayers of amazon,eflay and others are just
FOS. Most are fat tubs with a crossfit holster LoL

A couple of years ago, I needed to replace the exhaust system on my boat. The exhaust consisted of black iron pipe, but I needed the gasket to attach to the engine. The gasket was $2.30, but they wanted $18 for shipping. I called the company and told them that was nuts. They agreed and sent it for $5. Still high considering, but I didn't argue. It would have been a pain to try to find another or cut one, etc. this probably wouldn't work with Walmart, but you never know. They probably ship it to your store for free. That reminds me, I have been looking at handgun for my daughter and browsing the Academy website to see what's on sale. They had one of those "put it in your cart to see our awesome price" and I noticed they didn't have it in the local store, but would be happy to charge $10 extra to ship to the store. Oh, well, I'd rather pay a little more and support a small shop anyway.

Deerslayer440 said:

Thas a croc of crap.It doesn't take much at all to update a server.Hire a decent IT guy.
He will spend maybe 3-4 days maximum updating EVERYTHING!!!

Click to expand...

I'm a 20 year veteran of the IT industry, having worked as an enterprise architect for companies ranging from startups to a Fortune 50. I've worked in the trenches through just about every imaginable problem that computers can get themselves into. These things are never as easy as they look, and imagining that a "decent IT guy" can wave his wand and fix everything is wishful, to put it mildly.

Shipping logistics are one of the most complicated things for an online system to calculate (and I don't say that lightly, since the entire product fulfillment process is a lot more complex than most people understand it to be). Amazon does it extraordinarily well; they also have the nearly limitless resources to build the incredibly sophisticated algorithms to model how various items might get optimally package in a box. Most companies don't have these resources, and they have to resort to simpler (and inevitably more expensive) ways to estimate shipping costs.

The real problem here is that fulfillment, packaging and shipping isn't that complicated of a process for a human being to do, but it's extraordinarily complicated to teach a computer to do that given all of the variables at play. Case-in-point: it may seem entirely logical for a computer to calculate a box size for a drinking glass and a heavy gun part, but a human being would intuitively know that the drinking glass is going to need extra packaging around it to prevent damage from the heavy gun part.

Let's not forget that the idea of sophisticated shipping algorithms is a fairly new thing. It wasn't that many years ago that shipping costs were based on the total cost of the merchandise. Or, you'd order something not knowing what shipping would cost, and there was an additional back-and-forth to relay the cost of shipping (once someone had manually worked out the cost).

There are lots of fantastic online solutions for running an online store. Anyone with a decent camera and some patience can setup an online store, accept orders, and take payment through a variety of robust mechanisms. But when it comes to fulfillment, most software solutions are still in the 1990's -- and no tech guy is going to magically fix that.

Don't even get me started on updating software. Any idiot can run setup.exe, but coming up with a comprehensive plan to regression test all of the existing functionality, and then actually doing the work (and managing the defects and redevelopment efforts needed to make **** work like it did before) is a fine art honed over many years of practice.

Mike

RaleighReloader said:

I'm a 20 year veteran of the IT industry, having worked as an enterprise architect for companies ranging from startups to a Fortune 50. I've worked in the trenches through just about every imaginable problem that computers can get themselves into. These things are never as easy as they look, and imagining that a "decent IT guy" can wave his wand and fix everything is wishful, to put it mildly.

Shipping logistics are one of the most complicated things for an online system to calculate (and I don't say that lightly, since the entire product fulfillment process is a lot more complex than most people understand it to be). Amazon does it extraordinarily well; they also have the nearly limitless resources to build the incredibly sophisticated algorithms to model how various items might get optimally package in a box. Most companies don't have these resources, and they have to resort to simpler (and inevitably more expensive) ways to estimate shipping costs.

The real problem here is that fulfillment, packaging and shipping isn't that complicated of a process for a human being to do, but it's extraordinarily complicated to teach a computer to do that given all of the variables at play. Case-in-point: it may seem entirely logical for a computer to calculate a box size for a drinking glass and a heavy gun part, but a human being would intuitively know that the drinking glass is going to need extra packaging around it to prevent damage from the heavy gun part.

Let's not forget that the idea of sophisticated shipping algorithms is a fairly new thing. It wasn't that many years ago that shipping costs were based on the total cost of the merchandise. Or, you'd order something not knowing what shipping would cost, and there was an additional back-and-forth to relay the cost of shipping (once someone had manually worked out the cost).

There are lots of fantastic online solutions for running an online store. Anyone with a decent camera and some patience can setup an online store, accept orders, and take payment through a variety of robust mechanisms. But when it comes to fulfillment, most software solutions are still in the 1990's -- and no tech guy is going to magically fix that.

Don't even get me started on updating software. Any idiot can run setup.exe, but coming up with a comprehensive plan to regression test all of the existing functionality, and then actually doing the work (and managing the defects and redevelopment efforts needed to make **** work like it did before) is a fine art honed over many years of practice.

Mike

Click to expand...

Thank you with my limited IT training (mainly database management and some MIS courses) I know there are soooo many variables in implementing new hardware or software solutions that nothing is simple anymore... I just didn't want to sit down and explain how the whole process works... Hardware is cheap now... software is not...

Still calling CROC!!!

You may need to update your ways.

Everything you spoke of can be bought.period.You really don't think that
72million millennials haven't come up with more algys than a chicken farm?
and programs that update servers in hours?Seriously?

As far as shipping goes,that has nothing to do with anyone,except usps,,ups,,etc.
They set the shipping prices due to weight and size.Which is fairly accurate or im
pretty sure those billion $ company's wouldn't be doing it that way.

I think what the original statement about this problem was focused on the
monkeys that have made serious $$$$ off of high prices for their products
during the obama,,demo era"s.I thought the post was speaking of why dont
these large company's have their sites updated to today's world,such as
shipping ,inventory,etc.. Some sites are just saying the shipping is $25
because we said so kind of senerial.But I maybe wrong.lol

Deerslayer440 said:

Everything you spoke of can be bought.period.You really don't think that
72million millennials haven't come up with more algys than a chicken farm?
and programs that update servers in hours?Seriously?

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Do you even know what you're talking about? I suspect not, but I'll bite anyways.

Yes, all of this software can be bought. Logistics software, shopping cart software, software for accepting online payments, account software, inventory software, and everything else required to run a modern business. Putting it all together and making it work together is another thing. Think of it this way: imagine that instead of buying a car, you buy an engine from one company, a transmission from another, a hood from another, a seat from another, etc., etc. Sounds good until you have to put it all together, and you realize that not everything fits together as promised. And then, if by some miracle you get it all working together, imagine how uncomfortable you'll be about making one little change to one part, since you know that everything else depends on that part. It's not just a "thing" -- it's an ecosystem.

Same thing with online stores. They're complex ecosystems, and you can't just "update" everything and expect it to work better (much less to have it work at all).

Deerslayer440 said:

As far as shipping goes,that has nothing to do with anyone,except usps,,ups,,etc.
They set the shipping prices due to weight and size.Which is fairly accurate or im
pretty sure those billion $ company's wouldn't be doing it that way.

Click to expand...

Packing and shipping are two different things. Let's say someone wants to buy a spring kit, a trigger kit and four magazines. What size box will those need? How much packing will the box need? Which arrangement will minimize the chances of damage (which will come out of your profits)? And how do you do all of that programmatically, inside of a computer, in a fraction of a second, so that the customer can know the actual shipping cost? And how do you do this when you're already selling on paper-thin margins to compete with the giants like Amazon?

Once you know the box size and the weight, the shipping costs are easy to get. But the box size and the total weight (including the weight of the box and the packing materials) is a much more complicated thing to calculate.

If you think it's easy, then I encourage you to bring your expert millennialss into the discussion, because I know companies that would pay obscene amounts of money for better solutions.

Insomuch as updating servers is concerned, the problem there isn't the update itself, but everything else that it can break. Ever had an update to your phone break an app? Any idiot can push a software update out to a server; it takes a skilled professional to know that everything else will actually work with that update.

I think you're imagining that this is some sort of big conspiracy. As someone that's spent two decades in the world of high tech dealing with these (and a multitude of other) problems, I can assure you that it's not. If you think it's that easy, then by all means do it better yourself.

Deerslayer440 said:

I think what the original statement about this problem was focused on the
monkeys that have made serious $$$$ off of high prices for their products
during the obama,,demo era"s.I thought the post was speaking of why dont
these large company's have their sites updated to today's world,such as
shipping ,inventory,etc.. Some sites are just saying the shipping is $25
because we said so kind of senerial.But I maybe wrong.lol

Click to expand...

And the answer is pretty straightforward: updating these sites isn't nearly as simple as you imagine it to be. It has nothing to do with Obama or Trump whoever else you want to blame, and everything to do with the fact that this is far more complex than you imagine it to be.

Or maybe I'm wrong ... that's cool. Bring some fact-based evidence in (preferably in the form of real-world experience solving these problems), and you'll find nobody more willing to learn than me. My livelihood depends on staying on the cutting edge.

Mike

sportsbud said:

Thank you with my limited IT training (mainly database management and some MIS courses) I know there are soooo many variables in implementing new hardware or software solutions that nothing is simple anymore... I just didn't want to sit down and explain how the whole process works... Hardware is cheap now... software is not...

Click to expand...

Hardware *is* cheap, and a lot of the software has gotten really fantastic. Case-in-point: with a $20 per month web hosting account and the phpCart open source package, anyone with a few spare hours can create a very professional looking online store. With a PayPal account, that store can accept online payments. But it starts to get a bit trickier from there ... how do you get sales data into your accounting system? How do you manage inventory between the accounting system and the online store? And how does your accounting system (and online store, for that matter) get up-to-date tax information, so you can make sure you're charging customers the right amount of tax? And when a customer orders something, how does the shipping system interact with the online store and the accounting system, such that the customer can get the tracking number as soon as possible?

How, in all of this, do you do smart analyses to know which products are most profitable, which products you're losing money on, etc., etc.?

And outside of the software problems: who receives the order, pulls the inventory, and packs and boxes it? How do they know which size box to place each order in, since the size of the box will determine shipping costs. Did the customer pay extra for insurance -- and if so, who is going to make sure that the shipping label includes insurance? If the customer is having the order shipped to a PO box, how do you make sure that your fulfillment system doesn't try to send it via Fedex or UPS?

How do returns get handled? Not only does the customer need a refund, but the product(s) need to be returned back into inventory (after they're checked for damage).

And then there's the legal stuff. If it's an online gun parts store, which parts are regulated by IATA, such that they can only be shipped to certain countries. Ditto for things like magazines, that may be legal in one state and illegal in another. How do you make sure that your software is aware of all of this, such that you don't accidentally ship a 17 round magazine to California -- unless it's to a law enforcement agency? Who is going to stay on top of the ever-changing legal landscape? Yes, there's software to help with this, but it's another piece of the jigsaw puzzle to integrate into an already complex landscape of ever-changing software packages.

Etcetera, etcetera. This is just a glimpse into the complex world of running an online store; something that some people imagine is simple, and with problems that can be solved with a software upgrade.

Amazon does most of this with remarkable efficiency, but they also have a nearly endless supply of money to develop the cutting edge with. And since Amazon sells their fulfillment services, they have every interest in patenting and protecting this intellectual property.

Mike

The major I was thinking of going into was Management of Information Systems (MIS) didn't go to far but it was a business focused IT degree that went into all of that... I caught a glimpse of the process and it was far from simple! And that was 9 years ago! I can only imagine how much more complicated it has gotten... As the simpler it is for the consumer the more complicated the back end is... And as a consumer things are pretty damn easy now...

sportsbud said:

The major I was thinking of going into was Management of Information Systems (MIS) didn't go to far but it was a business focused IT degree that went into all of that... I caught a glimpse of the process and it was far from simple! And that was 9 years ago! I can only imagine how much more complicated it has gotten... As the simpler it is for the consumer the more complicated the back end is... And as a consumer things are pretty damn easy now...

Click to expand...

Yup. It all looks simple until you get under the covers and see how much is happening.

Here's an interesting tidbit: the average automatic transmission now has more lines of code in its computer than the computers on board the Apollo spacecraft.

Mike

Plus places like amazon, and even walmart now are simply drop-shipping nearly everything, make an order and its not like someone actually works for them goes and boxes it up, they just order it to your adress from someone else eating the cost of space and inventory management.

Stop being cheap and support your local dealers.

Love me some Midway!