There are however some very good small gun stores in some areas that simply cannot compete with them and go by the wayside because of them and the way they purchase their products in bulk..
I know thats true oldelkhunter and I didn't mean to paint with too broad a brush. Where I live however there are only 3 sporting goods stores within a 50 mile radius of my home. The one in Selma has knowledgeable people but their prices are outrageous even by Retail hunting store standards. And their salesmen are the most arrogant bunch of snobs you have ever encountered. If you aren't one of the local Selma rich upper class or about to drop 2 grand in their store they act like they couldn't be bothered to piss in your face if your eyebrows were on fire. If they do bother to speak to you it will be to try and talk you out of what you want and into something they want to sell. The second store is in Thomasville and is the one where 90 percent of the time the guy has left either his mother or his brother running the place while he is out fishing or hunting. Nice people but neither of them hunt or fish and when it comes to the outdoors they don't know their a$$ from a hole in the ground. Also the prices are murderously high but not quite as bad as the Selma store. The third store is a decent place in Butler. High prices but decent people who are fairly knowledgable. Only problem is its 50 miles away from where I live which makes it a tad inconvenient to visit routinely.
.. I have yet to find a Walmart person at the firearm counter that knows anything about guns period.
True, but then I always know what I want before I even go to the store. I don't need a Wal-Mart employee to tell me anything about a gun. All I need them to know is how to work the cash register. And one other thing I like about Wal-mart is that since I am dealing with an hourly wage employee and not the owner or a salesman working on commission they don't try to steer me in any direction or sell me a bill of goods. It makes no difference to them if I spent 10 bucks or 10,000 dollars. They just say "yes sir" and hand me what I want to look at. Maybe I'm strange but I like that.
I think if it were really a good gun store they could compete with Walmart on price and especially on customer service. Reputation and price will win customers every time!
I agree. A good hunting store can survive close to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart doesn't carry a lot of specialty items or have nearly the selection of items that a good sporting goods store carries. This is especially true of high dollar bows, guns and scopes. Heck Wal-Mart hasn't closed any of the three in my area over the past 10 years and as I said before two out of the three of them suck.
Isnt the American way of life worth an extra buck or 2?
I thought free market capitalism was the American way. You know Wal-Mart didn't start out with thousands of stores all over America. They started with one and a way of doing business that obviously appealed to people because it has certainly thrived. I haven't gotten so old yet that I've forgotten the Mom and Pop days here in good old Pine Hill Alabama. And while we all like to look back on our childhood with a certain quaint nostalgia I must be honest and say that most of those stores sucked! High prices, unfriendly store hours for a working man and a poor selection of goods. Why on earth would I want that back? Also the hired help at Walmart have insurance and a 401k plan. The hired help at those Mom and Pop stores had minimum wage and nothing else. In fact I'd be willing to bet the local Wal-mart superstore here employs way more people than all the stores that may have closed because of it. Which hasn't been many as far as I can tell. Not to mention all the other business that has moved here just because of the Wal-Mart store. Thomasville has boomed since it got that Wal-Mart. In fact its nearly doubled in size.