Yep, one of my two back orders was cancelled yesterday too. It was a little over a year old and I'd hoped that the order would come in but, in reality, I knew it probably would not.
I'm certainly not trained nor educated in the ways of retail sales but I would guess that some of it is a **** shoot. I say that because the retailers are betting on the come. If I order ten truckloads, for instance, will the demand be there? If I order all of that and it just sits then I've made a grievous error. Maybe even worse is that if I order all of that and try to postulate/hope/guess that if it arrives, the manufacturer distributor says it will arrive and then it does not come I've irritated customers by the thousands.
I've been around long enough to never 100% rely on retailers or anyone else that has a product dependent on the whims of the buying public. This shortage was brought on by the end users-us. Look at some of the posts that detail how someone bought way more than they could use so they could sell it or trade it. Others have bought the .22 by the cases when they normally would not shoot a case in their lifetime. Yes, you say, that this is a free country. Very true but that is what has caused the shortage.
This ordeal closely parallels the hate and discontent over Black Friday gun sales. One guy sitting in his underwear at his kitchen table does not understand why a retailer failed to live up to the ad. Well, consider that thousands of people sitting in their underwear were all after the same 50 guns. You have to understand that not everyone will not get the deal. After those 50 were gone, the price went back up. The problem was that it all happened online in seconds instead of standing in the rain in a line outside a Best Buy.
My opinion: There is no conspiracy going on regardless of what the tin foil crowd thinks. Supply/demand is just that. The prices go up when there are more buyers than sellers and the converse is also true. Prices really go up when there is almost no product. And, finally, Midway advertised ammo and took back orders, I'm positive, based on what the distributors or manufacturers told them. The other side of the arguments holds that Midway did all of this on purpose to alienate thousands of their customers.
Really, which side of the argument makes the most sense?
