You may have heard that Best Buy is going bye bye. Maybe not tomorrow, or next week, but its long, slow decline seems inevitable. There are plenty of theories about why they’re tanking, but the most popular seems to be “showrooming” otherwise known as, er, customers strolling the aisles to check out the goods in person, then buying online at a lower price (usually avoiding tax and shipping, too). And while few tears will be shed over the loss of a big box retailer where the same guy tries to sell you a washing machine and a USB hub, the showrooming phenomenon isn’t exactly unknown in the gun world . . .
Online retailers like Bud’s, Cheaper Than Dirt, CDNN and plenty more have made their bones largely on gun buyers testing out things that go bang at their local fun store, then buying via the Innertubes through a willing FFL. And as with Best Buy, if enough people do that for long enough, your favorite local gun store may just dry up and blow away.
Plenty of gun buyers get to know and appreciate their local retailer and choose to support them by getting their gats there even if it costs them a little extra. After all, they sell more than guns and being able to get that stuff locally when you need it can be plenty convenient.
Others are strict economic Darwinists who figure that whichever retailer that can get them what they want at the lowest price has earned their business. They reckon there’s nothing wrong with using a local store to give a gun the once-over before buying one from someone else who’s efficient enough to offer it a lower price. Have you showroomed before? Would ya? [h/t Instapundit]