How many of you bought airguns at a physical store vs online?

[JDR]

Cabelas or Bass Pro Shops use to have RWS 34s. Now I think just Gamos, Benjamins, Crossman and possibly Stoegers springers. I remember 50 years ago picking up a Diana 27 (I think) at Hoosiers Sporting Goods in Indiana. I think it may have been dry fired. It was 22 cal and I watched the pellets bounce off a rabbit at 15 yards. I remember a couple of 177 break barrel springers I believe now to be Gamos that looked like assualt rifles. There was an upscale gun club in Buckhead in Atlanta that had high end springers like the Beemans. My buddy bought a 25 cal Beeman Kodiak there a few years back. Haven't been there in a while. I am always afraid when a springer on the rack, it may have been dry fired. I bought a Gamo at Walmart but gave it away . With such great online airgun stores such as Pyramid, AOA and others, cannot see buying new at a store. I think cheap springers in stores will continue into the future. Cannot buy even a high end pumper in stores anymore. If I find a used buy in a pawn shop that is another story. I keep a watchful eye.

 

[marflow 777]

first off, this is a buy and try sort of world and online every one of them about 100
Ebay, Gun Broker, AA and few new but mostly used, searching for that deal, that ignored auction, that listing that is incorrect, but you know the truth
hunt and buy, learn and buy some more
it is only money

 

[Wildcatfun]

I’ve purchased 4 air rifles in store at AOA two air rifles on line and one air pistol on line on Black Friday. It’s a bit hard to touch and feel the fit on line.

 

[.20calguy]

I can answer that one.
The 72 Sheridan was over the counter. I actually had to put it on layaway, in 72.
I bought five Browning Buckmark crackbarrel pistols from Academy for gifts.
Everything else, new or used came in the mail.

 

[.20calguy]

I completely forgot about the Robert Beeman era.
They had a shop called 10 Ring, that opened in town, that introduced me to Beeman Airguns.
I was sent there by my local gun shop, when I asked for a Sheridan pistol to match my rifle.
I wound up with a Webly Tempest, in a Bianci holster..
A lot of my guns were still ordered, but through 10 Ring Airguns.
I got a
Webbly Tempest
Webbly Vulcan
HW 70
P1 Magnum
R1 Commemorative 20th Anniversary.
I also didn't think about the Daisy's etc.

 

[jetpopt]

I’ve purchased 4 air rifles in store at AOA two air rifles on line and one air pistol on line on Black Friday. It’s a bit hard to touch and feel the fit on line.

I figure on making a little road trip to AOA if they stock a gun I’m interested in. The fit and feel part is critical, because I am smaller than the average American and want a gun that’s OK for walking with.

 

[drjjpdc78]

I don't need any help in NJ because it's slim pickens. How about some of you from Eastern Pennsylvania? There's got to be some decent stores in PA.

 

[Chuck-in-Ohio]

I live 1 hour from Baker Airguns, and keep a coffee cup there, if that tells you anything.

 

[jkingrph]

My first two, in 1975 and 84, were bought pre internet, On the first a friend clued me onto the old Air RIfle Headquarters (Robert Law) and I got it by mail. Next one called an order into Beeman, all of the rest have been via the internet. I know of no physical shops nearby, nor have never seen one. Some of the big box stores have a few, like walmart, academy and gander outdoors, but not much variety and not much in the way of quality.

 

[swNCsw]

Over 20+ maybe (closer to 30) online only 4 in person over the years as there are no retailers anywhere close LOL !

 

[rcs9250]

21 airguns in 2 1/2 years. All online. Two of them I was able to pick up at PA.

 

[swNCsw]

The more I think about it my in person purchases are closer to 10 + I had for gotten a few haha.

 

[Rob_in_NC]

I went to a visit out to AZ once many years ago and visited AoA while there. I picked up a Predom Lucznik pistol there. That's been my only purchase at a retail airgun store. The rest have been online, through the classifieds, or in person.

 

[phillip]

These days most of my airgun purchases are done online. That said, I always check to see if I’m going to be charged sales tax. Paying an extra $200 on a $2000 rifle is a deal killer every time. I have no intention of supporting California‘s progressive policies if I can possibly avoid it.

 

[Airgun Al]

I wish I had the option to visit a brick and morter store, and buy in person!
Id probably spend 10x more per year, if such buisness existed near me!

 

[223coyote]

I bought rifles at Trenier Airguns. They are only 25 miles from my home. Otherwise, the rest have been bought online.

No better place to buy from , he mounted the scope , we went outside to sight it in and he tuned it , would definitely buy from there again.

 

[drjjpdc78]

That is one big difference from my powder burning pals. There are a lot of guns sold online but most of us powder guys like to hold them and look down the barrel because there are still a number of brick and mortar stores around, even in the socialist state of NJ.

I also noted on gun broker the amount of air gun listings are a lot smaller.

 

[MadCowCrazy2]

I went around to every single store on this island (Aland Islands in between the butt cheeks of Sweden and Finland) and asked if they had any plans to invest in airguns, none of them did because the market is so small. They could order a few brands of airguns but selection wasn't good and the airguns on display were 5-10 years old and simply hadn't sold.

This is why I expanded my company to start offering airguns. I believe I can offer the largest selection of brands compared to every store in Finland.
The only brands I can not offer (sure, there are probably obscure brands out there I've never heard of but I can offer airguns from most on this list) atm is Huben and Edgun as I can not afford their 50 rifle minimum and I don't know of any distributors who offers single rifle purchases of these brands.

What I want to do is not stock a ton of rifles but offer as wide a selection as possible, I also want to have 1x of most models as I intend to launch a airgun "review" channel this year. I'm not doing this to make money, I would make minecraft videos if I wanted to do that. I want to combine my hobbies into one and at the same time provide a "service" that I hope will pay for itself.

When it comes to stores you are almost always disappointed on this island, the selection is never good for niche items. I have gone to different stores hundreds of times and asked for certain things only to be told they don't stock them. You can generally find everything you need to survive here but special purpose built items are generally not stocked because it doesn't sell. You want a graphics card? Sure there are 3-4 to choose from in each store but if you want a specific one you've read a good review about you have to order online. If you ask the store to order it for you it will be 30-40% more expensive than if you buy it online. As this is an island everything is more expensive, think it was around 20% more expensive than mainland Finland for most items last time a survey was done.

Stores are good for impulse buying, you walk in and a sales person might try to convince you that this item is the best in the world. You buy it and then find out it's not a perfect fit for you. I really dislike this and no longer trust the people in the store as I have noticed that for the things I'm interested in I usually have more knowledge than the people in the store and thus know when they are lying to me.

Buying online has become annoying though, you can never trust any reviews anymore as they are all click bait garbage and reviews posted by so called buyers aren't reliable either. If an item has 50 5star reviews and zero of any other rating it's probably fake reviews. The best you can do is hope to find some tech channel that does "proper" reviews and hope they aren't paid and bought. A good indicator is if they have not been sent early copies and they are a big channel with say over 100k subscribers. This usually means companies with garbage products don't want people to find out at launch as it takes honest reviewers a few days/weeks to properly test a product.


TLDR:
Shopping in a store is annoying because if you didn't go there for a specific item a sales person will try to convince you to buy something you don't actually need or want.
Shopping online is annoying because you can't trust reviews on the sellers site but have to go trough random product reviews you hope will be honest with you.

I would hope for a future with several Ai reviewers who do proper reviews of products and are honest about it but the future is looking dark as every single Ai chatbot is programmed to lie. We are about to see a ai review war between ai programmed to praise products as gods gift to man vs ones programmed in the other direction. The serious ones in the middle will struggle as people won't know what to believe and all these bots will have access to everything about you so they will know exactly what to tell you to get you to buy the product...

But then again...

Spoiler

 

[Simplemann]

I've purchased 5 airguns in the last 20 years and they were all online

 

[KWK]

The good old days when Shelleys Sporting Goods was a few miles from here and you could try your Beeman before you bought it. And Davis from Air Rifle Specialist would come to local shows with Theobens and RWS. Back before Algore invented the internet!