SWFA business model?

[Fartrell Cluggins]

Are you also a member of those forums?

I signed up for AR at one point many years ago. am not active on it. I am not a member of the other forums.

 

[CorbLand]

I am somewhat loathe to start discussing SWFA's business model again. For those who believe the backorder issue is somehow recent or a product of the pandemic, it's not. The internet is replete with this being a common business practice with SWFA for a long time. Here are just a few of many examples.

SWFA always on backordered SMH - AR15.COM

Firearm Discussion and Resources from AR-15, AK-47, Handguns and more! Buy, Sell, and Trade your Firearms and Gear.

www.ar15.com

SWFA backorder

www.sniperforums.com

Bad experience with SWFA

Bad experience with SWFA

guntalk.club

I told myself I was done but I will play one last time.

This has been discussed well before you came in to this thread. SWFA has always had long lead times. This is nothing new, it’s been this way for as long as I have known about SWFA. The supply chain issues of the last couple years have amplified it. Seems to have been their business model for the last couple years and it hasn’t stopped them yet.

I know you believe supply chain issues aren’t a thing anymore and largely things are getting better but overall, supply is still very low. Companies do a lot to make it look like they have things. If you came into the store I work at, it looks like we have a lot, but it’s all double, triple, even merched five times. Yea, we have a lot of the same things. Corporate is sending us things we have, even if they are things we have tons of already or don’t sell well in our market. We have more ground blinds in the back than we have sold in nearly 10 years of being open. That’s in the back not counting the ones on the floor. I got in trouble a couple months ago for telling a customer that he could have any gun he wanted as long as it was 6.5 creedmoor and a Ruger because that is all we had. We had 10 Ruger Americans in 6.5 CM spread out to make it look like we had more guns than we do. We do the same thing with bullets, ammo and powder.

The store I work for is 100x the size of SWFA. If we can’t get inventory, there is no way they can get it. If you pull up our website it will show that we have a lot of guns. That because if we have one, in any store, it can be shipped to another store. We have nearly a hundred stores. Scale that down to SWFA size, we are hurting just like everyone else. In the outdoor pond, SWFA isn’t a minnow, they are the sperm trying to find an egg to become a minnow.

Diverting resources to more successful entities is not contraction. If I have a million dollars that I split 50/50 between two products, then decide to change that to 60/40. My business is not contracting, it’s changing priorities. You keep looking at one thing and saying “they are failing” but I don’t think that is true. I remember when everyone said that Netflix was failing when they stopped doing DVDs. If they failed that was the most successful fail I have ever seen.

Retail is going the way of the internet. Staffing issues, real estate costs, large amounts of needed inventory are all issues and can largely be eliminated by going online. One store in a town of 100,000 has the potential of 100,000 customers. One online store has the potential of 7 billion customers. We won’t even get into the cost of supplies to just run the store (toilet paper, sticky notes, coffee, etc.)

The bottom line is this. SWFA builds a hell of a scope. There is nobody building what they are for the price they are putting on it. That price comes at an additional cost to the consumer, that cost is it is not readily available. If you want a SWFA, you are going to have to wait. If your willing to do so, you get a good scope at a damn good price. Me personally, I have more time than money, so I wait. The model they have chosen seems to work for them. It’s not the model that is going to make them the most money, or put product in everyone’s hands but it works.

If there is one thing I have learned in 8 years of working with the general public in retail it’s this. There is no way to make people happy. Keep prices low and don’t have the product, they bitch. Raise the prices to curb demand and have product, they bitch.

 

[sndmn11]

Which one is that? Money Order On Delivery?

Potentially...
Is that a thing?

 

[Billy Goat]

I dont

Potentially...
Is that a thing?

I don't know.

You said MOOD. I was trying to figure out this additional acronym.

 

[fwafwow]

 

[sndmn11]

I dont
I don't know.

You said MOOD. I was trying to figure out this additional acronym.

I thought it was clever.

 

[TheCougar]

I came here for the memes. I’m disappointed that the meme ratio is so low. What has Rokslide become?!?

 

[Drenalin]

I came here for the memes. I’m disappointed that the meme ratio is so low. What has Rokslide become?!?

There’s a gang of people you need to @ with these sorts of statements. But I think one of the party poopers warned them off a little earlier in the thread.

 

[TheCougar]

There’s a gang of people you need to @ with these sorts of statements. But I think one of the party poopers warned them off a little earlier in the thread.

 

[TheCougar]

 

[Billy Goat]

I know my creative juices have been pretty maxed, clearly others still have some in them.

Mine are starting to turn from light hearted to directed, and might not keep me around.

 

[Billy Goat]

View attachment 497061

It's actually:

 

[TheCougar]

 

[TheCougar]

I know my creative juices have been pretty maxed, clearly others still have some in them.

Mine are starting to turn from light hearted to directed, and might not keep me around.

 

[TheCougar]

 

[TheCougar]

I know my creative juices have been pretty maxed, clearly others still have some in them.

Mine are starting to turn from light hearted to directed, and might not keep me around.

This is what happens when I fence into Rokslide once a month lately. I missed the whole party. I’m like the guy who shows up to the party at 2am with a bottle of everclear and tannerite. Puke and Rally!!!!

 

[Billy Goat]

This is what happens when I fence into Rokslide once a month lately. I missed the whole party. I’m like the guy who shows up to the party at 2am with a bottle of everclear and tannerite. Puke and Rally!!!!

Dude you more like 7am.


But as long as you got some eggs, bacon, and bloody Mary I'm ready. Party til the cops show back up.

 

[TheCougar]

 

[TheCougar]

 

[Fartrell Cluggins]

Wow, who would have ever seen this coming? Copied and pasted from another forum.

So I asked SWFA if they were closing. This is the response I got. They said it was fine if I posted their response.

SWFA, Inc. is a family owned and operated business, specializing in hunting and shooting related products since 1973. In the 1970's we had a single retail location, in the 1980's and 1990's we were a traveling company (roughly 110 gun shows per year), in the 2000's we transformed into a mail-order operation, in 2014 we went back to operating a retail store alongside of our mail order operation. We've always evolved with the market and technology.

During this timeline for SWFA, Inc., an unforeseen fork in the road occurred in 1994 when we acquired the exclusive rights to the "Super Sniper" riflescope line of optics. The line consisted of four models (10x42, 10x42M, 16x42 and 20x42). SWFA, Inc. had always treated the Super Sniper products as it did other product lines by offering them for sale as a retailer.

As years went by, we expanded the line to include a 6x42, 12x42, as well as scope rings and mounts. In 2010, we developed our patented Mil-Quad reticle to be an improvement over the standard USMC Mil-Dot reticle. Prior to marketing the new reticle concept, we officially took complete ownership of the "Super Sniper" line of scopes. The first thing we did was start our own branding by developing the logo and changing the name from "Super Sniper" to "SWFA-SS". We expanded the line further by introducing four new HD models (10x42HD, 1-4xHD 3-9xHD, 5-20xHD). As the SWFA-SS line of optics continued expanding, so did the need for resources to keep up with the growing SWFA-SS brand.

As of today, SWFA, Inc. is in the process of transitioning from being a retailer of many different brands, to solely being a manufacturer/retailer of our in house line of products in order to fully concentrate resources to the continued growth, expansion, and success of the SWFA-SS brand.

Regards,

Wendy
Customer Service/ Accounting Manager