It is easier for the shop, as an FFL, to deal with shipping issues.
No it isn't. People just have it in their head that it's easier. You ship the gun to the factory and they ship it right back to you. No middle man.
It has been my experience that the manufacturers take much better care of a customer with a problem with their products much quicker than they do the shops.
H&R can reimburse the shop much easier thru their established account.
Except that never do. I have never shipped a gun back for a customer and the store been reimbursed for shipping charges.
It is called customer service.
Nevermind. I don't want to have to explain a foriegn language class too.
I know exactly what customer service is.
It is telling the customer to come on in and let us take a look at the problem. If there is a problem with the gun we will handle H&R for you so you don't have to.
It's paying someone to log the gun in the books, to call H&R and sit on the phone for 20 minutes waiting on a person to answer the phone, explain what happened to the gun, get a RA#, then box up the gun in boxes the shop pays for, ship it to H&R. Then a couple of weeks later answer the phone several times from the customer wondering when the gun will be back and if we have heard anything, paying someone to call H&R again, pay them to sit on the phone for another 20 minutes, call back the customer and explain to them that they have received the gun and that they are working on it and we will call you just as soon as it hits the door. When the gun finally arrives back at the store paying someone again to unbox the gun, log it back in and call the customer. Once the customer comes in to pick up the gun pay someone to explain what was wrong with the gun or worse that H&R didn't find anything wrong and now listen to the now pissed off customer because it is somehow the shops fault that the gun didn't get fixed. and finally log the gun back out to the customer.
That is customer service, dealing with any and all of the headache so the customer doesn't have to. It isn't paying for shipping a warrantied product back to the factory. That is the customers burden.
Like I said, the shop did not manufacture the product. That is why there is a warranty with your firearm. Some companies will pay shipping both ways and some will not. Most will pay for return shipping but not both. It is usually written right in the warranty.
they can afford to stay in business by taking care of issues like this because it "comes out in the wash".
Yep, your right. The shop will just add it into the cost of the products that they sell so that everyone gets to pay a couple of dollars per firearm sold to cover any future shipping costs. It will come out in the wash of the pockets of every one that buys a gun.