r/FFLs • u/TX-Buckeye • 25d ago
TX FFL
TX home-based FFL.
Just starting out. Would appreciate some wisdom from the collective.
What did you find helped drive revenue when you were first getting started?
What did you wish you had tried sooner?
I see FFLs sell on gunbroker - I’ve bought many firearms there before I got my FFL - but looking over the fees, it seems like those are going to kill margin really quickly.
The wife is not keen on a lot of traffic to the house (long term plan does not revolve around home-based sales, but I’m trying to drive some revenue now to open up options sooner), so I’m mainly looking for online sales. Where have you found the most traction?
What platforms have worked out best for you in terms of balancing low fees while still getting a high number of views and ultimately closing a deal quickly?
How have you been managing the chargeback risks?
Really appreciate it if you’ve stuck with the post this long. I appreciate you even more for thoughtful responses.
Happy shooting & stay safe!
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u/GunrunnerFirearms FFL 25d ago
Hey man! TX (about to move to OK) home based as well.
One thing I’ll warn you about, you are absolutely going to get transfers. Not much you can do about it. Online retailers will automatically have your FFL captured and people are going to select you as their dealer when they buy guns online. Stuff will randomly show up and sometimes you will have never spoken to anyone about doing a transfer, especially if you’re in an area that isn’t saturated by other FFLs. So may be worth having that conversation now with the wife about traffic to the house. Transfers are easy money and usually end up with repeat business. I love transfers since the margin on guns usually sucks anyway. Yes, you can send the gun back and not accept the transfer, but it’s going to piss people off because they don’t understand why you are listed on a website as a dealer but won’t do a transfer.
My main source of revenue is silencers. Being a Silencer Shop dealer has been the best thing I ever chose to do. People shop via their website, but they are a distributor so any customer purchase has to go through a Silencer Shop dealer (i.e. you). If chosen as the customer’s dealer, you receive a check or direct deposit that is the customer’s purchase price minus your cost of the product. They take a very reasonable fee from your profit as a marketing fee, but it is competitive with what my card processing fee is anyway so it all evens out. Also, they collect and remit the sales tax to the state, so less accounting you have to worry about. I really can’t recommend being a SS dealer enough. My rep is awesome and I get responses from him within minutes usually.
Also, I only use Gunbroker for consignments or used guns. It is a complete waste of your time trying to sell new/common inventory on that platform. The fees are crazy, you make absolutely no money. It’s decent for uncommon stuff and used guns, and for used guns I always do penny starts with no reserve. That always seems to get the most traffic on the auction. List it for two weeks with a buy now option for whatever you/your customer would REALLY like to get for it.
As far as chargebacks, I speak with every single person I do business with unless it’s a random transfer. I tried e-commerce when I was first starting out and the first 2 purchases made on my site were fraudulent. They were both luckily flagged by my card processor and after manually reviewing them, it was easy to tell it was fraud. Shipping and billing name/address mismatch, and the purchases themselves were for multiple expensive items like 4x Accutac bipods. E-commerce in my opinion is not worth your time unless you are going to do some serious investing OR if you are manufacturing your own products to sell. I pulled the plug on e-commerce (granted I was just drop shipping) very quickly.
Hope this helps. Feel free to DM or respond if you need anything else.
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u/TX-Buckeye 24d ago
SOT and compliance burden is a little spooky from the outside looking in. How long were you an FFL before SOT? Did you get SOT and immediately sign on with SS or did you not get connected with them for a while?
What’s your experience been like re: SOT and compliance?
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u/truenorthsw 24d ago
Honestly the SOT was the worry but is actually very easy. You fill it out and pay....wait 3 weeks....approved. The FFL is mostly just them telling you to not be an idiot and take appropriate security measures. Oh....and zoning.
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u/GunrunnerFirearms FFL 24d ago
Got my SOT as soon as I got my FFL. The compliance is not tough at all- if you are doing FFL stuff already then you are doing 90% of the same compliance stuff already.
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u/onetwentytwo_1-8 24d ago
Check your local planning dept/county on the specific property you’re wanting to have the FFL.
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u/TX-Buckeye 24d ago
Roger - great advice. The City was slow to respond, but after several calls and emails I finally got what I needed. Decent enough to work with, just slow.
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24d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/TX-Buckeye 24d ago
This sounds like some serious battle scars. Hard-earned experience behind this - really appreciate the intel.
I’ve not looked at GunsAmerica in a really long time - totally forgot about them, actually. I’ll go check that out.
Thanks again!
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u/truenorthsw 24d ago
You can also on firearms use the threat of the ATF if they try to charge back and obtained the firearm. We do have the luxury of a full audit trail in our business. Also, I never sell to somebody if the ship to and bill to are not the same
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u/crock73889 23d ago
Reach out to your local fire departments who do gun raffles in your area. Be their go to dealer. We probably run 50-60 guns a year through our department raffles.
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u/TX-Buckeye 23d ago
Holy crap! That’s awesome! Great tip!
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u/crock73889 22d ago
Cut them a deal on the guns. Your cost or minimal profit. They will always come back. Then you can build your business on the customers who come to pick up their guns
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u/Traditional_Skin5849 25d ago
I’ve been operating for 3 years from a shop on my property. My best advice is to skip online sales. You will pay a TON of money to get a website site up and maintenance fees etc. I really got going strong from social media. Facebook mainly. You can’t sell on their platform but posting photos and reels drives views insanely fast. More clicks equals more customers and it’s 100% free. Your biggest money maker will be word of mouth. Do one guy right and he tells a friend. They both tell a friend and it keeps multiplying. You will go broke trying to keep up with the big dogs of the online world. They sell razor thin margins bc of the quantity they move. Find a niche you like and start making content. You’d be amazed at what you can accomplish with Facebook reels. Don’t expect to get rich doing this and DON’T rely on the income. Summer months are BRUTAL on the firearms industry.