Buds Guns apologizes for the craziness

[DaveTN]

I bought a gun last week from Buds and had a problem with the price at checkout. I went ahead and got it, but I figured I would see how they handle it. I tried to call them all day last Thursday (20th) but could never get through; so I sent them an email.

I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and wait to see how it turns out.

I received this today, thought some of you might find it of intrest…

Dear Dave,

According to our records you have placed an order with us, www.budsgunshop.com within the last 30 days. Unfortunately, you may have experienced delayed responses, or no responses at all, to emails and telephone calls during this time.

We were admittedly very unprepared for the events following the presidential election. As you are probably now very aware, thanks to national news media like Nightline, MSNBC, or NPR Radio, the "panic buying" hit hard on Nov 3 and has not let off since.

Unfortunately, many people are very upset at what is going on in the firearms industry. They are assuming the worst of www.budsgunshop.com We are being accused of "price gouging", ignoring customers (calls/emails), as well as other hurtful and unfair accusations.

Our staff has worked overtime, nights, and weekends in an attempt to respond to the overwhelming increase of firearm sales and related inquires. Unfortunately, our efforts have fallen miserably short of the customer demands over the past few weeks.

We received a report from our IT staff last Thursday Nov 20th that indicated we have had over 1,044,000 attempts to contact us via email and voice mail since Nov 3rd. With previously only 4 sales staff and 4 phone lines, responding to voice mails and emails immediately became an impossible situation.

We have added new staff, updated voice mail and email systems, all since Nov 4. Those new resources are just now starting to have an affect on our ability to respond to this unprecedented demand in our firearms industry.

The new "Contact Us" email feature on our website now automatically directs customer email requests to nine different

staff members equipped to handle each individual request. To view that new email solution, please click here:

http://www.budsgunshop.com/catalog/contact_us.php

Although firearms prices have increased with the recent demand, our profit margins remain the same. The price increases you see are a direct reflection of distributor price increases (=our cost) which we use to update the price and availability on our website every 20 minutes, 24/7. If our profit margin was 5% on a $500 firearm (or $25 profit) last month, it is still 5% today. However, the distributor may have increased our cost up to $550 after Nov 4, in which case that same firearm will be listed on our website for $579 today (still same 5% profit margin) . We cannot control our cost, only our profit margin, so the price increases you may have seen were not initiated by us.

We will continue to try and get this situation under control. However, if the "panic buying" does not let up, or we find that we are still not able to keep up with the demand, we will be shutting down the website temporarily in order to take care of all

existing orders. Once we have all existing orders, emails and voice mails addressed....we will turn the website back on under much better circumstances and pledge to return to the level of customer service we were well known for prior to Nov 4, 2008.

I am very sorry if we have let you down during this exceptional time. I assure you everyone here at www.budsgunshop.com has, and will continue to, give 150% to all our customers.

You are sincerely appreciated,

Rex McClanahan

Vice President

BudsGunShop.com, llc

[Guest Verbal Kint]

II’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and wait to see how it turns out.

I'd have to believe them, until proven otherwise.

**** is insane right now. You'll see large vendors such as Midway or Brownells get an item in stock (such as PMAGs most recently)... can only guess how large of an order they placed... and the entire inventory be sold out in less than an hour. Sure, some of those are filling backorder lists... but it's still crazy. And everyone is experiencing this after-effect of the election... especially those shops who have an internet store front.

And as Joe recently posted, one of his suppliers tried passing off the jacked up pricing (which Joe told him to basically piss off).

Hopefully this will all straighten out soon... but the more people that rush out and stupidly buy items at these crazy costs, the more the companies are going to keep gouging the buyers. They're not going to stop unless the consumers wise the hell up and stop buying the items, just because they're available, at extravagant costs.

[BrasilNuts]

I bought a rifle from buds in mid Oct. and had an issue with the price. I called them the next morning, they looked at my account and fixed the problem. Entire call took less than one minute and I didn't have to try and explain anything, they saw the problem and took care of it. He told me that their computer had been doing some strange stuff with the pricing. Maybe you had the same problem. I hope you get it fixed, my experience with their service was excellent.

[Magiccarpetrides]

Well it sounds like they are honestly trying to do things right. Good for them!

[Almond27]

Seems like they are stand up about the problems and I have never purchased from them before but I wouldn't hesitate I've heard good things about them.

[Guest jam]

I have purchased from Bud's when I couldn't find the gun I wanted locally. They guys were super nice and easy to work with.

Very smooth transaction and would do business with them again.