Not today. Gun shows have become big business , for the promoter/organizer at least. Now it can cost $100 per table per day.
Tables are only 8' long. Gasoline is $3.50 a gallon. Motel rooms exceed $100 a night. Lunch inside the venue us often awful and costs as much as a decent meal. Supper out with buddies isn't cheap because the guys are hungry and out on the town. How is that no overhead? If you look at the per day cost its probably higher than your LGS per day. The big advantage is we do it for fun. And often we don't see any profit, just getting our poorly spent money back so we can "invest" it in another dreamed of gun.
I'm guessing anyone who goes to a gun show expecting a fat profit will come away disappointed. Its also fun to hear the vendors lament the prices they see out on the internet, and how they can't ever get anywhere near what they saw a item sell for last week.
Now for a tidbit of ultimate truth. Unless you're looking for a brand new production firearm, you won't find it at a LGS. If you want a recent production, but no longer made or sold through commercial channels, gun shops won't have it. If you're looking for a gun that is older than you, and want to be picky about condition, you'll almost never find it in a store. I don't often go to a gun show with one specific item in mind. Yesterday was an exception, and I'd seen it the prior weekend at a show.
We're seeing threads here about ammo shortages, or how WallyWorld is out of some calibers. Its not at all unusual to see vendors at a gun show hauling in pallets full of "hard to get" ammo at a time. I often wonder how it is that gun show vendors can acquire a pallet full of AR ammo but the local LGS can't seem to get any at all. But I know the answer. The show vendor will pay the price and buy the pallet loads at a time. The LGS wants to order 3 boxes of this, one case of that, etc. And then he'll want it UPS'd.
So the wholesaler tells everyone the same thing. Yes, he's got some in the warehouse. If you send a truck, his fork lift will put it on the tailgate. Cheaper by the pallet than by the case, much cheaper than breaking cases down and repacking it. The gun show vendor shows up at 0800 backed into the loading dock. He ordered it yesterday, got his total, and has a bank check in his hand. The LGS won't pay the wholesalers outrageous prices to do the custom picking, repackaging and then the UPS hazmat fees. Worse, the custom picked order takes a bunch of time, and they're backed up 2 weeks on those. The LGS total order might be $1000, but its credit and the LGS pays late all the time. His forklift driver can put 6 pallets on the dock in 10 minutes, the deal is pay in advance, and its sales of $50,000 now.
Walmart operates differently. They want to buy the manufacturers total production for the next week. They beat the producer over the head on price. It keeps volume up but there is very little profit, none if they only sell to one customer.
I personally like watching the ammo guys sell out. A whole pallet full of AR ammo gone in the first 6 hours of the gun show. Carted out one case at a time by gun nuts (not a bad term). Some of the ammo sellers are trying to figure out how to haul in a 2nd pallet later in the afternoon. The people I feel sorry for are the guys with off caliber ammo needs. Nobody wants to produce or stock slow moving items. The only market is the small seller who doesn't much care. He bought some minimum quantity last year and is still trying to sell it down. He's got to charge a fair profit just to eat.
Unlike most of the posters in this thread!
