Ammo Directory Website for Gun Owners & Dealers???

[tleevs]

I'm a newbie to the gun world but am quickly becoming addicted as I've already purchased two guns in about two weeks and I still want to buy more

At any rate, I am an Internet Marketer by trade. I promote products and services online for companies across the U.S. As a new gun owner, I am finding that buying ammo is a pain in the arse! It's hard to find and as a newbie, you don't know if what you find is a good deal or not. So I found myself brainstorming today...

What if a guy were to build an "ammo directory?" Here's how it would work...

The directory would have all the gun and ammo dealers in a given location (i.e. the entire state of MN for example). What would make this directory unique is that you would be able to search for ammo and see who has it in stock and what they are charging. So if you did a search for "9mm within a 30 mile radius of 55423" you would be able to see all the dealers 30 miles within 55423 that have 9mm in stock and what they are charging. You'd even be able to see how many boxes they have. Then from the list, you could click on the gun shop's link and be taken to a page dedicated to their shop - which would have all their business contact information, a Google map to their store, announcements of any specials they are offering, etc.

To make this work, it would require the gun shop owners to enter their ammo info into a computer via the Internet. The process would be very simple for them as all they would have to do is login to a webpage and simply enter the number of boxes they have of each type of ammo and the prices. However, for the directory to be effective it would require the gun dealers to keep their "listing current" at all times. There would also be the opportunity for dealers to send "mass announcements" to all the members of the directory when they get new ammo stock in.

As a gun owner, you would register to be a member of the directory site and it would be totally free to do so. The system would pay for itself by charging the gun dealers a monthly fee of some kind.

Here are the questions I have...

Would gun owners find this useful?

Would gun shop owners be interested?

What would a gun shop dealer be willing to pay per month for something like this?

I'm looking for any feedback on this from gun owners to gun dealers alike. For all I know, something like this already exists and I just don't know about it. If that's the case, sorry for wasting your time;)

Travis

P.S. This directory could easily expand to more than just ammo. If gun dealers were interested, it could also be expanded to include gun inventory. So as a member you could search for all Sig P226's for sale within 30 miles of 55423.

[Stradawhovious]

I can see this being a really good idea on paper, but getting all of the dealers to keep an updated account of their stock would be impossible. It would also open the door to more bait-and-switch opportunities for the box stores. "No sir, we don't have any more .380, I know the site says we do, we just sold the last box 5 minutes before you walked through the door. We do have a screaming deal on widgets, since you're here......."

[monschman]

hmmmm, john walton and a computer.........does not compute
anyone (cept marv) at frontiersman and a computer.........still does not compute
the old guy in farmington that still gives me handwritten carbon receipts and a computer......really does not compute
like straddie said, theoretically good but it will never work, its kinda like universal healthcare, its sounds nice but it will never work

[tleevs]

lol...thanks for the feedback.This is good to know.

Travis

hmmmm, john walton and a computer.........does not compute
anyone (cept marv) at frontiersman and a computer.........still does not compute
the old guy in farmington that still gives me handwritten carbon receipts and a computer......really does not compute
like straddie said, theoretically good but it will never work, its kinda like universal healthcare, its sounds nice but it will never work

[David]

Yeah, and I'm not sure what their incentive would be. Right now they sell out as soon as they put it on the shelves, so any extra work or expense wouldn't be worth it. They are going to sell it anyway.

Later, when ammo becomes easy to find again, consumers wouldn't really need it, either. I suppose you could comparison shop with it, but I just don't see people bothering.

[shadeslanding]

The downside to your suggestion (which is not all that bad) is that a dealer would have to not only update his or her web site, but also the directory (unless you use some sort of backend to share data directly - which takes a lot of programming to get diverse inventory systems to share anything).

However... a slight variation might make it work... have a directory of ammo vendors (that you maintain), allowing the vendors to submit their companies to you, and you in turn link to their web site where I would assume they keep their inventory levels current. We do in our web store. And when our inventory is out - customers don't even see that product anymore.

Perhaps that could work.

GS

[dismal]

I would think that a lot a vendors wouldn't like this. Ammo is basically a commodity, and having your competitor's price easily available could cut into your profit...

[MisterOblivious]

I keep mulling over the idea of setting up a twitter account for folks to "phone in" deals as they see them rather than waiting until they're home and posting on the forums. Just have to figure out how to get automatic re-tweets working properly.

https://twitter.com/TCAmmo

[LarryFlew]

http://gun-deals.com/

Like that site?