We apologize for yet another email in your inbox regarding Coronavirus
issues affecting business operations. We will just assume you are
already aware of the extreme impact this pandemic has had on firearm and
ammunition sales. Things like product shortages, price increases,
shipping delays, etc. At a time when many are focused on the negative,
and assuming the worst, we wanted to share some more positive and
hopefully calming facts with you about our business.
1) If you have placed an order and received a confirmation number we do have your order. Although shipping will likely be delayed substantially beyond our standard terms, the website is automatically securing your item(s) as they are ordered. It is completely impossible for our Customer Service staff to communicate with all +3.2 million customers, of which +225,000 are visiting the site each day now. Our staff is currently only reaching out to customers with existing orders, and only then when there is an actual issue with their order. So... not hearing from us is actually a good thing. Repeated attempts by hundreds of thousands of people to check the status of their order is not going to help expedite anyone's order. It only makes it more difficult for us to assist those relative handful of customers who actually require human assistance to resolve an issue with their existing order.
2) We still have thousands of guns and millions of rounds of ammo. Although it was never our plan to sell them all in a matter of weeks! We are one of the only remaining online retailers that actually has our own +100,000 square foot warehouse full of guns and ammo. Don't believe it...? Just check out this funny Hickok45 video on Youtube posted back in 2016 that actually shows the inside of our warehouse. You will see Hickok45 walk into our warehouse around the 2:30 mark of this video. Many of our competitors have no inventory and rely solely on their suppliers to inventory and ship their orders for them... so you will see their inventories being depleted much more rapidly as well as prices skyrocketing as their suppliers are raising their prices daily, if not hourly. We also use suppliers to supplement our own inventory so we are subject to some price increases ourselves, but not to the extent as those who rely solely on their suppliers.
3) Our only shortage is people and hours in a day... not guns and ammo. We admittedly were unprepared for how a pandemic would affect our business... just like millions of other businesses were. Our major issue is simply not having enough people, and not enough hours in a day, to process and ship all of the orders our website is capable of accepting. The Budsgunshop.com website runs wide open, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. However, our staff only runs wide open about 12-16 hours per day before they start complaining about things like needing to eat, sleep, or seeing their kids... who are all at home from school now. We were actually dealing with the exact same issue (on a much different scale) way back in 2013. Check out this Youtube video at the 8:10 mark and you will hear a very similar story.
4) We are not alone this time; we brought +3 million friends with us! After living through those difficult learning experiences in years past, we knew we had to do something very different in order to make our Customer Service resources scalable on very short notice. Out of those experiences the Buds Community was born back in 2015. Collaborating with our +3 million customers with a vast knowledge of firearms, ammunition, and accessories to create a Q&A forum that is capable of quickly answering customer questions at a rate of 2x, 3x, or even 10x the rate of the day before. This short 8 minute Youtube video posted back in 2017 explains why the solution was created (for times like these) and how it works.
5) We have a history of facing and winning these types of challenges. After 50 years in the business, we have been faced with similar difficulties in the past and always came out stronger than when we went in. More recently, back in 2009, we saw similar increases in volume as a result of both the political dynamics at the time and the H1N1 pandemic. It is navigating through those types of experiences, and the subsequent changes that we made, that allow us to continue to operate today under extreme conditions. We were admittedly not prepared well enough to handle this latest challenge without experiencing some delays and other inconveniences. However, you can rest assured that we have been around long enough, and been through enough, to come out the other side of this challenge, along with you, stronger than when we went in.
We are here for you and in this with you. "Budsgunshop" is not just another company name on internet. We are over 200 individuals with families of our own at home to support and care for. We are going to continue to do the very best we can for you at an extremely difficult time. Unfortunately, our best at this time is likely going to be woefully short of what it was just a few short weeks ago, and definitely not up to your expectations of "Buds." For those of you that have any patience left at all, we would greatly appreciate you sharing that with us... as patience may actually be the only thing in shorter supply than toilet paper at this time.
Rex McClanahan
President
Budsgunshop.com LLC
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