The UK gun trade, bloody useless!

[deerstalker.308]

When will this great nations guntraders realise that customer service is a real thing and not some airy fairy nonesense, and is in fact the best way to get business!
I am in the market for a 20 bore and found the gun I like the look of most, the company are in mid Lincolnshire, and I am in south Norfolk, the gun is priced circa £1000. So I emailed the company with a few questions and expressed my interest, and asked if they would send it (at my cost of course) to my local RFD. No reply, mistake number 1.
I called them today figuring not everyone checks emails as regularly as I do, and they denied ever having seen my email depsite apparently checking them......I was then told that they wouldn't post said shotgun as "they had been let down so often in the past" when doing so. I asked how exactly, and the reply was that apparently guns got sent back damaged/test fired (heaven forbid a gun should get fired!!!)and that I was welcome to buy the gun based on their description, if not I could come up to the shop.
Its about a 2 and a half hours to their shop from me, and not a trip I want to do if the gun isn't for me, so I gave them another option... I offered a depposit of either £50 or £100 to assure them of my integrity, but alas no joy, forgive my rant, but do people actually want customers any more. Derek Lee, consider me to be a non-customer of yours, if this is your idea of a business model then good luck to you, and many others like you within the trade who routinely fail to help potential customers. I know there are some good ones out there, I have several locally, and I know of others nationally, but there are many who are still stuck in the dark ages!

Rant over.
(if anyone has a nice 20 bore, I'm still looking.......)

 

[danpd]

Unfortunately, the table turns both ways. You wouldn't believe how many idiots the average RFD has to deal with on a daily basis, and I'm afraid that anyone who has been in the business for any length of time will be quite jaded.

 

[chrisc]

look at the other side of the coin, can i give you £50 and take your car for a few days to see if i like it ??? i have sent guns around the country for people who are 99% sure that they wanted it and have been let down more times than enough so i can see where they are coming from so the only option is either pay the full amount for the gun or drive up for it and see it yourself.

 

[deerstalker.308]

I understand that, hence I didn't write them off straight away, but instead offered to pay a deposit. But still get nowhere, tarring us all by the same brush is a very foolish and short sighted way to run a business, especially when so many are going under in the current climate......obviously they have plenty of customers in lincolnshire they don't need the web based ones, which begs the question why bother with a website!

 

[timbrayford]

See if Steve Beaty at Ivythorn Sporting has anything that suits, he will send it to your local RFD.atb Tim

 

[pheasant sniper 1]

If i was shelling out a grand on a gun i fancied i wouldnt think twice about the two and a half hour drive up..

You cant be arsed to drive up and see it... they cant be arsed to send it having experienced enough previous disapointments that it doesnt make sound business sence...

The website worked perfectly in as much you made the call..

 

[Rake Aboot]

They are not all bad,
I live near Edinburgh, and the last rifle I bought was from Wiltshire Gun and Rod, and they were bloody brilliant. Sent to my local rfd with no hassles, and sent loadsa pics etc, said if the gun was no good, to send it back and all it would cost was postage.

 

[deerstalker.308]

If i was shelling out a grand on a gun i fancied i wouldnt think twice about the two and a half hour drive up..

You cant be arsed to drive up and see it... they cant be arsed to send it having experienced enough previous disapointments that it doesnt make sound business sence...

The website worked perfectly in as much you made the call..

I have lost count of the number of times I've driven to look at a gun only to discover it has been wrongly described or clearly isn't in A1 condition, etc, so forgive me not wishing to waste my time, also, I am not asking for it to be posted to me, but to someone within the trade who would surely treat is the same as any of their own stock, not quite the same as me having it for 'a test drive' to use your analogy.......

 

[deerstalker.308]

wiltshire rod and gun are good, never had a bad word to say about them, and used to live out their way, if only it was them I was trying to deal with....

 

[pheasant sniper 1]

not my analogy bud

 

[deerstalker.308]

Sorry, I stand corrected! oops!

 

[richard1951]

I think i must have misunderstood this post............ Are you actually saying you expect them to send the gun to a gun shop in your town for you to look at and make your mind if you want to keep it or not , then send it back to them if it suits you ........lol i know what i would tell you to do and it would not be polite.
If you want it go and look at it and buy it if you dont want it when you see it come home again,

 

[cjm1066]

I had the opposite situation, I have just sold a 20 bore, via gunstar. One approach was a dealer in the SW who wanted to do the deal over the phone based on my description and have the gun collected by courier, but I preferred a face to face sale and waited until it happened a few weeks later locally.

Sending a gun for approval is a lot of effort and the margin tends to be small on guns. When the gun is away on “approval” it not available customers at the shop, who provide the RFDs main income.

Lincolnshire might be a 2½ hour drive but we have shops close together at Wragby, Woodhall and Tunby Hill, so worth a visit.
While many approaches to buy a gun are genuine, the time wasters are tedious to deal with, and I can understand a dealer not wanting to send a gun for viewing, personally if I want the gun I organise a trip, the 20 was replaced by another that I drove 2 ½ hours to view.

 

[deerstalker.308]

I think i must have misunderstood this post............ Are you actually saying you expect them to send the gun to a gun shop in your town for you to look at and make your mind if you want to keep it or not , then send it back to them if it suits you ........lol i know what i would tell you to do and it would not be polite.
If you want it go and look at it and buy it if you dont want it when you see it come home again,

You read it correctly, plenty of places offer this service as mentioned by others, the likes of Steve Beaty and many more besides who want to do business with people, I have had several guns sent to my local RFD, it often works out signifcantly cheaper than trugging the length and bredth of the country only to be disapointed by poorly listed or described items, nothing new here.

 

[Brithunter]

Ahhh Derek Lee are now part of The Sportsman Empire so you probably had a narrow escape.

 

[Tamus]

I can't see why the OP is unhappy.

RFD one has gun, it's there for anyone to go and see and purchase or not as it pleases them.

The OP wants to involve a second RFD, what's in it for him? ... Does RFD two get a cut if the sale goes ahead? Because he'd surely be entitled to something for his trouble, especially if the OP buys from RFD one and bypasses RFD two's own stock. And what if the OP doesn't buy? that would mean the gun has been in transit, needing to be logged out of RFD one's register, then into and then out again in RFD two's register and then eventually back into RFD one's register again, plus shipping costs and effort two ways, all the while possibly missing a potential buyer who does get off his backside and visit RFD one's premises.

Get real, that's not service you're asking for that's just nuisance, as far as I can see. And, frankly if you're willing to dump enough money to cover all the trouble you are asking people to go to, you'd be cheaper and quicker just driving, or getting someone to drive you, to RFD one's premises in the first place, whether you actually decide to buy the gun or not.

 

[RED-DOT]

I have drove 100's of miles to appraise what is described as mint or as new and i have had many wasted journeys. Even buying new via the RFD route you can be assured they will send the one with the worst woodwork and keep the best for the customers in the shop, GMK are the worst for this and Beretta have massively different grades of woodwork in the same model.

 

[richard1951]

well i never heard of it but you learn somthing every day.
I live in cheshire and there is a car on ebay for sale i will just ring up the seller to see if he will bring it for me to see , after all i might not like the colour when i see it .ROFL

 

[deerstalker.308]

I can't see why the OP is unhappy.

RFD one has gun, it's there for anyone to go and see and purchase or not as it pleases them.

The OP wants to involve a second RFD, what's in it for him? ... Does RFD two get a cut if the sale goes ahead? Because he'd surely be entitled to something for his trouble, especially if the OP buys from RFD one and bypasses RFD two's own stock. And what if the OP doesn't buy? that would mean the gun has been in transit, needing to be logged out of RFD one's register, then into and then out again in RFD two's register and then eventually back into RFD one's register again, plus shipping costs and effort two ways, all the while possibly missing a potential buyer who does get off his backside and visit RFD one's premises.

Get real, that's not service you're asking for that's just nuisance, as far as I can see. And, frankly if you're willing to dump enough money to cover all the trouble you are asking people to go to, you'd be cheaper and quicker just driving, or getting someone to drive you, to RFD one's premises in the first place, whether you actually decide to buy the gun or not.

Outch, I can see someone got out the same side of the bed as I did this morning clearly return postage for a shotgun would be £30 quid, if it was a complicated as you make out for rfd's to send rfd's then why would others bother? Some in the trade bother, and clearly do well out of it, my point entirely, others don't and loose customers (or at least this one). I also value my time, aside from the cost of fuel etc, and don't like wasting it on wild goose chases, if the gun is as amazing as they claim then surely I will fall head over heels for it and part with my hard earned cash so there should be no need for it being sent back.
I give up, must be only me out here that wants to feel like a valued customer and not an incovenience, I'll shut up and not worry about it, just amazes me that in every other industry people put a lot of weight behind the online side of sales these days, and a part of that involves being able to have things sent to you before you commit to keeping them, which is where local RFD's come in.

 

[jcf1]

+1 for Steve Beatty over at ivythorne - excellent chap. However, I can see the viewpoint of the shop also. It is stock off site for as long as it takes to ship it, the customer to go and see it, the RFD to bother sending it back, and all the time risking damage, loss of interest etc. And if anything gets bent or scratched you've got to unpick the blame from a customer, another RFD and a courier and probably end up fairly out of pocket for a relatively small margin. I have seen times when Steve and others have had guns back from complete time-wasters and they have poorly packed it and it has ended up badly damaged.

I used to work in a high end hifi shop. We lent a customer some £8000 rear speakers for a surround sound setup. Didn't bring them back, week after week. We had another customer waiting so we had to get a bit shirty and demand them back. He brings them back in a big flounce and slams them down on the counter, when unpacked the vindictive little mincer had burnt the base with a lighter in an act of spite. Cost us a load, and we had no real way of getting our cash back.

Customers that asked to long-term trial stuff were far more likely to be complete timewasting gits IME, and the profit made was that minimal when you took into account our overheads that it made economical sense to stop lending out kit except in very rare circumstances. So we did. Not really bad customer service, just a business decision.