Price sells. In a down market you have to slim your profit margins to increase interest and sales.
I disagree, sales sells. Don't listen to people who want stuff for free. You are just competing in a market where a LOT of competitors offer a lot of value. You're being a good guy in a good guy market. You need to complete some exercises based on the question you asked and the way you asked it.
Identify competitors your size and one size up and ask yourself how you can separate your business from them. AoA is not the cheapest place to buy things. I paid $90 for and AoA bean bag. I barely even like this shooting bag but my budget for bags is exhausted and I am not buying a MUCH better one even if it only costs me $1.
AoA got ALL my money for the subject of shooting bags for a LONG time. You aren't AoA, I get it. They do a lot of things right but even that isn't enough. Most importantly, they are a tough act to follow. If AoA is about to do something and you are at or are almost to their level, you'd better pay attention and make sure you are equally on point to make a change. That change can be in the same or a competing direction. Both moving with and against your same level of competitor is fine but if you don't at least slide when they pivot you are going to get dunked on.
Stay in the fight. Thinking too much is like putting the world on pause and watching your after action videos. Basically that is what lotion and tissue are for. But your bills don't pause do they? Make sure you know when you are working IN your business and when you are working ON your business. Working IN your business something like fixing and selling air rifles, etc.
Working ON your business is like making a new logo or creating a new flier.
Exercise two.
Write down your daily activities in real time for a week. Carry around a note pad and a watch that beeps every 15 min. When it goes off, what were you doing? Write it down. What you will find is that almost ALL your time was spent, I am walking over to the bench to.... I am driving to.... I am emailing.... and all kinds of transitional activities. Be aware of them and work the rest of your life to eliminate them.
Then organize all non-transitional activities on Red, Yellow, and Green sticky notes. Green are activities that lead to money now, like showing an airgun to a customer at the counter. Yellow is banging out a quick fix on a customer's gun or talking to me on the phone and helping me be happy with my next purchase. Red is paying bills, returning BS emails, and even reading this message. Following the instructions in this message, however, is Yellow.
Good luck my friend, we don't don't know each other, but if I were brave enough to take apart my air rifle you'd be talking to a competitor. That is how much I believe that you are selling the best product possible at the best time to sell it and you are in a better position to do so than most. Imagine being an FFL SOT/class 3 dealer right now. You sell guns with no government oversight or additional taxes for your specific business because they don't burn powder.
One more thing just to kick a good horse. AoA's location, were it across the street in any direction, would get arrested for shooting their pellet guns. They are in the middle of the city. Are you in urban or suburbia? AoA has Karen's calling for shooting "guns" about twice a week. They have disadvantages existential to their success and yet thrive. They have at least one pro-shooter working there and about 4 or 5 other people that could absolutely be pro shooters if they wanted to be. It is not cheap to be AoA.
Think about this: AoA, whether they want to admit it or not, need my $50 tin of pellets sale more than you do!
Please read the book S.P.I.N. Selling and Managing Major Sales by Neil Rackham and the Undoing Project by Michael Lewis. This will help you broaden your base of questions you are asking about your business, your market and your customers and the trends they follow. This will help you identify, satisfy and retain the customers that are ready to be somebody's best client. If you really can't read them, two of them are on Audible but listen to them like you are in class, print out the included PDF and do the exercises. "Lead for God's Sake" is extra credit. Decent book, ties a lot of loose ends together. IDK, for me it was a feel good book. However, a lot of really, really rich people that agree with me on the rest of this list, disagree with how I prioritize the "Lead" book. Even still, everyone I know would tell you to read it last. It is the ribbon on top.
Good luck. Message me directly when you have something cool you are excited about selling. I love air gunning, I am already excited about buying and I would feel like a bad a88 if you messaged ME first with something cool for everyone a day before you put an ad out to all. Find more of me that fit better with you.
