Gander Mountain marketing fail

[meaneyedcatz]

All sporting good stores are basically shoes and clothes stores with some cool accessories on the side.

 

[alwaysoutdoors]

Sometimes it is bait-and-switch.

But generally, you'd have to know the business well enough to make a judgment. Blanket condemnations may miss the mark.

Most frequently with large retailers, like Cabelas, it comes down to departments. The clothing VP says we want to do a 20% discount, the camping guy says we'll go along with that, and the fishing guy says we can do that. So we have almost a business-wide coupon, but the firearms guy, whose business is more low-volume/high profit per item, says my bottom line can't afford that, so you end up with the exclusion in the fine print.

Where it gets dishonest is when a coupon is marketed as a general discount and then excludes the core business in the fine print. If for example Midway, as in the post above, which is known mainly as an ammo business, excludes ammo, I would call that deceptive marketing.

I've never done business with Gander, so I don't know how harsh to judge them based on the OP's facts.

I'm not disagreeing with you. However, your post reminded me that the local GM has a very large selection of guns and even has a used firearm section. I may go back if they ran a new gun on sale I wanted. But I hardly buy a brand new gun.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

I have a Cabela's Visa Card, I use it for everything. So I walk in and pay my bill, walk over to ammo and use my Cabela's points to get over priced but free ammo. It has been working pretty good the last few months , now that the have 22 ammo again.

I can remember walking into Wal-Mart in Ashland, Ky. and buying Federal bulk pack 22's for $8.88 per 550. Those are just pleasant memories now. Wal-Mart also had in the mid 90's a line of Federal 12 and 20 gauge shells that were 7/8 and 3/4 ounce respectively at 1410 fps, for $2.88 a box, over a 2 or 3 year period I must have bought 100 to 125 flats. They had 100 round boxes of regular Federal 12 & 20 for $8.88 back then also, but for Sporting Clays it kicked too much!

Ivan

 

[JohnRippert]

I got that one as well. As soon as I read the fine print it went into the recycle bin. I do occasionally buy a used firearm from GM but rarely anything else.

That said, it is starting hunting season. They are just trying to get more people in the door so they can push their high profit items.

 

[SquarePizza]

My local GM reduces the size of their guns and ammo section every year. I would say in the last 4 years they have cut it by almost 50%. By contrast they greatly expanded their clothing sections, and even made room for a yankee candle store too.

Must be millenials want to wear their $90 columbia flannels and smell like the great outdoors, but don't actually want to go there.

 

[e3mrk]

I'm glad the Gander Mountain near Me is closing.They were usually over priced and hardly ever had what I wanted except cleaning supplies.I wanted to trade a Ruger GP-100 357 Magnum with a six inch barrel in on a new Pistol and all They wanted to give Me was $100.00 in trade when the Gun was worth six hundred at the time,So that was a no go.
I'm much happier with Cabelas even though They were bought out by Bass Pro. Maybe They will keep things the way things are and make everyone happy.