Unfair business practice?

[shawn mccarver]

It is days like today when I have no tolerance for people griping about S&W.

A recent situation with SIG Sauer makes me appreciate the excellent customer service at S&W.

In case any of you do not know, under the guise of a "magazine shortage" SIG began shipping its pistols with only one magazine effective March 19. They gave no notice, did not change SKU numbers, and worst of all - did not reduce the price of the pistols.

The retail price of a high cap SIG mag is around $44.00. Thus the price of their pistols just increased by $44.00, since the buyer must purchase an extra magazine to just get a complete package. If you are an officer and want two, your pistol price just increased by $88.00. Prices quoted are from SIG's web site "store."

Below is the reply a friend received when he nicely e-mailed SIG, provided his serial number, and asked if he could receive his second magazine when the situation was resolved. The response he received is copied below.

Just for the record, I think this is just an unfair business practice since no notice of this change was made. My friend has an FFL and even his sales person at the distributor was unaware of this change. SIG is clearly taking advantage of the climate of fear concerning new gun laws to make extra profit on its pistols. It obviously takes far less time to punch out magazine bodies than it does to make an entire pistol.

This is not the first problem friends have had with customer service at SIG. Another friend wanted to install night sights on his P226. He bought the night sights, and wanted SIG to install the Trijicon sights he purchased. He would have had to pay next day air shipping both ways (about $70.00) and the job takes five minutes with a sight adjustment tool, yet SIG wanted one hour labor ($60.00 or so at the time) to do the job. My friend could find no individual or dealer nearby with the SIG tool, and he did not want to tap the sights into place fearing damage to the tritium vials.

So, for all of you who think S&W is hard to deal with - I will say that I will take S&W customer service over SIG any day of the week.

SIG's response on the recent magazine issue, including grammatical and syntax errors:

Dear Sir,
On March 19, 2009 our company had to make the decision to ship all of our pistols from that day forward with only one magazine as a result of the critical shortage of magazines.
We know this was not going to be a popular decision but we needed to make it in order to keep our products shipping.
If we did not make this decision it would have caused longer waiting periods for all of our firearms.
Unfortunately I can not ship a magazine to you.
We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.

Regards,
Natasha

 

[Practical]

I agree that SIG should tell people when they change the number of magazines shipping under an SKU number.

However, you have NO comprehension of business costs. The job of putting on sights might take 5 minutes but MORE than 1 hour of labor at various rates goes into receiving a return.

1. Arrange the return
2. Receiving.
3. Internal delivery
4. Repair
5. Documentation/billing
6. Return to shipping
7. Shipping.

The act of putting on the sights for your friend might be a loss.

Frankly, you don't realize gun companies are not really large businesses. If I recall S&W is less than a 10-20million dollar business. That is tiny these days.

 

[HAWKEYE10]

sig like any other company needs to make and sell the product they make. if they have a sortage of mags.they have to cut production or cut mags. if you was running the company what would you do. i do agree they should tell people.i have noticed a price increase on other guns so i can't give an opinion on reduceing the price. this is just my opinion..

don

 

[Toyman]

Walther/S&W did the same thing with the PPS model

 

[oldRoger]

I too am caught up in the one magazine thing. I ordered a P220, yes I should have bought a 4566TSW, but wanted a frame mounted decocker, OK I could have looked for a 4576, and should have, water under the dam now.
My dealer called the nice CS people at SIG-They said 5-6 weeks, that was fourteen weeks ago! Still no pistol- SIG finally said they are having trouble in Germany with frames. No estimate is available.

In the middle of this delay we get the one mag thing. Allegedly they could not ship due to the lack of mags, I asked the dealer to call and tell them to ship my pistol without mag, that’s when the no frame excuse came to light.

Subsequently the SIG mags start showing up at SIG dealers for the one mag guns. The only source is the very guys who have none to ship with guns.
By the way a quantity price for the mags in question is about $10 ea.

I wrote a very subdued letter to the CEO and copied the COO. No answer.

If you go to the SIG forum you get endless stories like this. On this forum I see 99% praise for S&W, my personal experience could not be better at S&W.

Sorry for the Rant.
Roger.

 

[Swabby]

It seems to be a sign of the times. Does it surprise me that they give one less high cap magazine? No. Does it surprise me that essentially the price of a high cap handgun went up? No. Does it surprise me that they politely declined the request for a second magazine? No. Does it surprise me that your friend will never buy another Sig? No. Customer service is key for repeat business, whether you're a billion dollar company, a "small" company like a gun manufacturer or the corner lemonade stand. I may not know about big business, but I know I would not spend my hard earned cash on another gun from a company that tried to soak me $130 for the use of their sight pusher for 5 minutes. You can buy your own sight tool for less than that. By the way, I owned a P226 back in the early 90's and it was the sweetest shooting semi-auto I ever had. Oh well.

 

[another41]

I called Sig for a Tech question.
Got a recording how important my call is. I was caller #5. After holding too long I left a message that was suppose to be returned asap. Never heard from them.

I did call S&W once. They had a live operator. That's a good start.

 

[jimmyj]

Hi:
In the past I was informed by Sig-Sauer Company Rep. that Their #1 priority was "Making Money" and everything else was "second".
Jimmy

 

[Erich]

Then there's the question of whether the P238s actually come with the aluminum stocks that were advertised . . .

http://sigforum.com/eve/forums...771065361#6771065361

 

[oldRoger]

To belabor this dead horse a bit; The mags which originally caused the problem were not high cap. They were rather straight forward 8rd .45 acp mags, now expanded to cover almost all their mags.
I certainly think that SIG should make money as should S&W. But a business model that says scr** the customer only works for government. Since SIG does not have taxing power they must figure out a way to keep us coming back.
Unless I had a major failure I would not use SIG warrantee service I would go to Greyguns and eat the costs.

I had some minor problems with a 1982 M17 that I could have found someone to fix around here, I sent it to S&W for repairs, super service, reasonable cost, even reasonable shipping. Hoo Rah for S&W.

 

[Big Lou]

Another perfect example of why I've never owned a Sig & never will!

 

[mike1]

Good info guys I was actually in the market for another 9mm. I guess I'll be looking elsewhere.

 

[bill_in_TX]

After working nearly 30 years as an International managment consultant, my reaction is that Sigs attitude is a very typical European one to a foreign market vs S&W's old line American market attitude.

The Germans are caught in a currency exchange problem (strong Dmark, weak dollar) so they're not seeing the cash flow they want. Their response is to cut every corner they can in the foreign market to get the $$ repatriated -- and the magazines are just the latest gambit.

The one good thing that I will say about the firearms (rather than the company business philosophy) is that they are so streamlined and easy to work on that you hardly ever really need Sig again if you get an initally well-built one (as long as parts are still around

).

 

[RGAmos]

The people who ran Kimber are now running Sig in the US. What do you expect?

 

[jaegan]

Originally posted by HAWKEYE10:
sig like any other company needs to make and sell the product they make. if they have a sortage of mags.they have to cut production or cut mags. if you was running the company what would you do. i do agree they should tell people.i have noticed a price increase on other guns so i can't give an opinion on reduceing the price. this is just my opinion..

don

I'm thinking option C). Increase magazine production. I'd probably have bought a used S&W over a new SIG anyway though, but that's just me

 

[681ismyfavorite]

while i am no fan of their klinton lock and will never buy one of their guns with one, in my experience S&W has the very best Customer Service ive ever had to deal with.

 

[andyo5]

There is no legitimate excuse to remove content without lowering price or informing the customer. It is a rip off pure and simple.

 

[OU812]

There is no legitimate excuse to remove content without lowering price or informing the customer. It is a rip off pure and simple.

Now that hits the nail on the head without informing the customer it is a rip off

 

[Ogandydancer]

Here's the one that really gets me; the P6's coming in all come with TWO mags and now places like J&G are holding one back to sell seperately and you now only get one with each pistol. I feel it's just a ploy to make more money off the same product.

 

[Deputy]

Well I think we pretty much know WHY SIG and other places are reducing the number of mags. It's the same reason why Walmart is limiting ammo to a certain number of boxes to be sold. The writing is on the wall. When the time is ripe, BO is gonna re-institute the hi cap mag ban as well as the assault gun ban. No, the P220 isn't a high cap mag. But ALL mags are gonna make a major jump in price.

Heck, I'd be HAPPY with just one mag. I remember the Bren 10 that came with NO mags and each mag for that cost $129, IF you couuld find one.


BTW....I've had a SIG P226 Navy and P226 Blackwater Tactical on order for 3 months and still no word.