New Colt Sales

[wasfuzz]

Maybe I missed this but was having lunch with my local gunsmith today discussing our order of guns for our annual Pheasants Forever Banquet and he told me Colt is no longer allowing Distributors to sell Colt items to non-stocking retailers. This means no more having your local dealer ordering up a new Colt for you unless they are a stocking dealer. Another DI** move by a manufacturer, if this is true. Maybe Thunderjohn or another dealer can confirm?

[Ron Burgundy]

I believe this is called "loading" but may go by other names. It's good for the manufacturer as it broadens its dealer network and converts inventory to sale (dealer has to carry stock). Consumers still get the same access. The only group it impacts are dealers who need to determine if they can move enough product to offset carrying the inventory. Little to no impact on the consumer.

[UnaStamus]

This is a lot more common than you might think. BCM does the same thing with their rifles. They limit who is allowed to sell their rifles and will only sell rifles to authorized dealers. BCM rejects new dealer applications on a regular basis. This is not done to control the market or drive up costs or screw anyone. The purpose is to prevent BCM from over-extending themselves and creating undue wait times for back orders. This is also common with other rifle companies ranging from LMT to Accuracy International.

[KArnzen]

Maybe I missed this but was having lunch with my local gunsmith today discussing our order of guns for our annual Pheasants Forever Banquet and he told me Colt is no longer allowing Distributors to sell Colt items to non-stocking retailers. This means no more having your local dealer ordering up a new Colt for you unless they are a stocking dealer. Another DI** move by a manufacturer, if this is true. Maybe Thunderjohn or another dealer can confirm?

Yes, Colt initiated a "stocking dealer program" this summer. It was unusual in that Colt sells through distribution (not directly to dealers), and it was a MANDATORY stocking dealer program - as in, you must buy this many Colts from X Y and Z categories or you aren't allowed them to buy Colts at all anymore.
Usually, stocking dealer programs for brands that sell through distribution are just special incentive packages for dealers to buy a bunch of items at a reduced price or to get free items when the package is purchased.
Having a mandatory buy-in or stocking dealer requirement makes sense for brands that sell DIRECTLY to dealers, because it's easy to imagine that it's only worthwhile for a manufacturer to sell directly to dealers that are going to buy above a certain threshold each year. It really doesn't make that much sense for a brand that sells entirely through distribution - the entire point of selling through distribution (which is what many major brands like Glock and S&W do) is that the manufacturer hands off the mess of allocating products and bookkeeping to a small set of distributors, rather than having to work with thousands of dealers directly.

So, in short, this mandatory stocking dealer program is something we had never seen before with a brand that sells entirely through distribution. To be frank, what it felt like was Colt threatening to block dealers unless they purchased enough of their guns RIGHT NOW (to meet the stocking dealer requirement), so that they could get a fast sales boost that they needed badly. It was particularly irritating to me, because the set of guns required in the package included many guns that I rarely sold and didn't want to stock at all.

Anyway, I could be wrong about their motives, but that was our general feel for what was happening.

[IDPA Shooter]

I think the above is spot on. My buddy used to sell like 10 or 15 Colts a year. Now it will be zero going forward.

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[Squib Joe]

What they're trying to do is keep the very small dealers (kitchen table dealers in particular), who may only buy a few Colts a year, from buying Colts. Mainly this is because these dealers don't have high overhead and are more likely to sell the firearms under MAP, thus driving down the price.

In reality most of the distributors I've talked to are ignoring the restrictions and doing business as usual. There is no good way to track who is and isn't a "Colt Dealer" at any particular time.

[shooter115]

From the outside looking in, it would appear that the management at Colt is doing everything they can to destroy themselves.
News Flash for Colt! It's not 1980 anymore and nobody cares about your prancing pony logo. You aren't doing anything that several other manufacturers aren't already doing better. Get over yourselves.

[2in2out]

Not long ago, Chrysler and GM pulled a lot of dealer franchises. I'm a pretty good study when it comes to how businesses can be successful, but am still not sure why that was a good business decision.

This seems like it's possibly a similar strategy to Colt's.

[LePetomane]

From the outside looking in, it would appear that the management at Colt is doing everything they can to destroy themselves.
News Flash for Colt! It's not 1980 anymore and nobody cares about your prancing pony logo. You aren't doing anything that several other manufacturers aren't already doing better. Get over yourselves.

Ditto!!!!! They have rested on their laurels for a long time.

[UnaStamus]

I would call this a potentially good move for Colt to drive up sales by mandating that more stores have a stocking inventory. This would be a good way to get people to buy more. The problem is that Colt's distributors suck horribly. I spent a year trying to get a replacement M4 upper receiver, carbine receiver extension, castle nut, receiver end plate, barrel nut and delta ring assembly, and went through everyone and their cousin that Colt sent me to. NOPE.
One year later I got the OK from the brass to finally ditch Colt and replace the damaged components with BCM. That took 2 days. We had a broken NFA LE6921 patrol rifle sitting in our armory for over a year because of Colt.

[shooter115]

I spent a year trying to get a replacement M4 upper receiver, carbine receiver extension, castle nut, receiver end plate, barrel nut and delta ring assembly, and went through everyone and their cousin that Colt sent me to. NOPE.
One year later I got the OK from the brass to finally ditch Colt and replace the damaged components with BCM. That took 2 days. We had a broken NFA LE6921 patrol rifle sitting in our armory for over a year because of Colt.

There's got to be a story here. Who ran over their rifle with a D8?

[UnaStamus]

It was in the rack when my partner wrapped his squad car around a tree at 70mph. Oak tree went right into the B-pillar.