Locked & safe: selling safety and security; it doesn't have to be tough!

Step inside Citadel Gun & Safe in Las Vegas and enter a shop that says, "We understand safety."

"You're right," said Mike Couch, longtime Citadel employee. "We're all about safety and security. Nobody comes through that door without the subject being addressed, and usually we don't even have to bring it up. Our display plan makes the point for us."

The first room customers enter at the Citadel is dedicated to safes and vaults. Then throughout the store's other four rooms, safety products, from eye and ear protection to gun locks, single handgun lockable cases to head-high custom firearm vaults, are mixed in all the right places to keep safety and security in the line of sight and at the forefront of customers' attention.

While many gun dealers balk at the idea of stocking gun safes, Jon Call, co-owner of Citadel Gun & Safe, along with his wife, Amber, have made safes an important part of their business plan.

"A safe can be an attractive piece of furniture," Call said. "That assures it will be monitored more closely, and used more. Having a visible reminder of safety and security prompts a security mind-set. That's good for the customer, and good for your business, too."

Overcome Obstacles For Successful Sales

Selling safety and security shouldn't be tough, but it can be if dealers don't carry the right inventory or overcome objections.

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First, many customers think, "It can't happen to me." No shooter wants to think they could be blinded, lose their hearing, have their guns stolen or have them fall into the wrong hands. Second, given the cost of guns and ammunition, buyers often tend to avoid additional purchases of shooting glasses, hearing muffs, earplugs, gunlocks and safes.

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Then there is the dealer problem: simple failure to aggressively market safety and security products. The customer may not want to think about those negative factors, but most responsible shooters, when reminded of the need, will respond to the right sales approach.

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The First Step

Make it a policy that no gun-related product will leave your store without the sales staff mentioning safety products. Begin with protecting the shooter. Ask if the customer has sight and hearing protection. If they do, show them the latest models, anyway. An assortment of shooting glasses and hearing protection products should be displayed close to the point of sale. Have samples for customers to try on.

A display could include Hoppe's inexpensive wrap-around shooting glasses, flanked by a higher-end set like Zeiss' Scopz. The Hoppe's shooting glasses are great for the range and recreational shooting, while the Scopz, particularly with the Polarized neutral gray lenses, can be worn anywhere. To pick up brand loyalty sales, remind customers that many gun makers like Beretta, Browning and Remington offer logo-marked shooting glasses.

The same point-of-sale "try this" technique works with hearing protection. Standard passive gunshot-suppressing range muffs should be displayed with the now-common electronic muffs.

Full lines of hearing protection are available from AOSafety Peltor, Silencio, North Safety Products, Howard Leight and Walker's Game Ear. A number of companies like Silencio offer combo packs of eye and hearing protection, and, again, many gun manufacturers offer hearing protection branded with their logos.

Of course, it's always smart to keep a big bowl of inexpensive compressible foam earplugs close to your point-of-sale. This not only keeps safety in the customer's mind, but also makes it convenient for them to reach in and grab a handful to complete their purchase.

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Safety Everywhere

In addition to placing eye and hearing protection at your point-of-sale and in a dedicated shooting safety section, mix a variety of safety items with other shooting products throughout your store. Hang shooting glasses with gun grips, hearing muffs with gun cases and with your firearm displays--especially logo-marked items matched to the guns' makers.

Offer Protection From Theft And Misuse

Safeguarding a firearm has always been paramount, and has become a vital part of a dealer's business. The time to remind customers of such protection is when they're purchasing a firearm.

"This cardboard box just won't cut it for protecting your gun. Let me show you a good carrying case that'll be a nice match for it," is a good way to introduce safety products. From that point, it's easy to move to trigger and action locks and onto more serious protection like lockable gun storage and safes.

Small gun storage products, many of them portable, have come a long way in recent years. The latest trend is in fingerprint-activated portable gun safes like those from Isteki Electronics, Personakey, Safety First Devices and BioVault. Traditional small storage is offered by Smith & Wesson, DoskoSport and GunVault.

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Then there is the heavy-duty protection offered by safes. At Citadel Gun & Safe, Couch says most safe buyers come in already having made the decision to shop for a gun safe.

"They're people who recognize the value of their gun collections, and the painful cost of loss," Couch said.

Sometimes, he said, they've already suffered heavy losses and are determined not to let that happen again. Couch understands why some gun dealers are hesitant to consider selling safes, but he explained that today's quality gun safes are easier to sell.

"Get a good brochure into the customer's hands, right in front of a display safe, and go over its features, like locking hardware and door-seals, point-by-point," said Couch. "Let them feel the weight and solidity and smoothness of operation."

Comparison is important, Couch said, and all other features being roughly equal, customers will often select a safe based on finish, color and sizing to fit in a pre-selected location.

According to Call, "the right safe" includes an appearance and finish that customers won't mind having in their family rooms or even bedrooms.

"A safe doesn't have to be hidden away," Call said. "If a safe is ugly and plain, it'll be stashed in a closet or the garage, making it inconvenient, unused, misused and worse, neglected."

Citadel has dealt in a variety of safes, and Call considers National, Fort Knox, and Citadel Safe Co. (not affiliated with the gun shop) to have the highest quality and are the shop's best sellers. He cites the companies' superior workmanship and excellent guarantees on fire, theft and flood protection characteristics.

Call also names Cannon, Patriot Safe and Liberty Safes' Colonial series as good offerings for dealers. Major gun makers also offer branded safes that are very attractive to customers devoted to a certain firearm manufacturer. In addition, quality safes are offered by Frontier Safe, Fort Knox and Sun Welding.

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While Call says the margin on safes is relatively thin, upgrades like interior cabinetry and custom finishes add to your profits. Other upgrades that add to a dealer's profitability include electronic locking offered by a number of companies including La Gard and Sargent & Greenleaf.

Call also recommends customers purchase safes larger than what they think they'll need. Safes often fill with non-gun items such as jewelry, cameras and important documents, and customers then find themselves needing a larger safe.

Six-Point Safety And Security Check List

1. Eye protection.

Make sure you carry and visibly display shooting glasses covering the cost range from low-end clear lenses to higher-end Polarized models. Fit and feel are important, so keep a few samples unpackaged and encourage customers to try them on. Mix them in with other shooting products.

Citadel Gun & Safe reports great sales in Blackhawk's changeable-lens shooting glasses, and military buyers snap up Blackhawk's tactical goggles. AOSafety Peltor glasses are also good sellers.

2. Hearing protection.

Hearing muffs have come light-years in technology and your inventory should show it. You may only sell one pair of high-end electronic muffs to 10 sets of passive models, but the profit on higher-end models is significant.

For hunters, offer gunshot suppressing and ambient-sound amplifying aids like SportEARS from HarrisQuest and Power Muff Quads from Walker's Game Ear. Mix hearing protection in with firearms, ammo and other shooting products. Keep lots of standard foam earplugs handy and visible. Citadel's owners like the Silencio lineup, and report brisk sales.

3. Trigger and action locks.

Vinyl-clad cable locks and trigger locks are often provided with firearms, however, your customers really can't have enough of these safety devices. Many makers like Franzen, DAC, Shot Lock, Master Lock and Armadillo offer models from low- to high-end, and Citadel Gun & Safe carries a broad assortment.

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An ideal place to display gunlocks is on firearms. This gives you the opportunity to demonstrate how each lock works while showing off the gun. For greater security, Mogul's Life Jacket line of clamshell-type gun security offers increased resistance to tampering and fast access for virtually all handguns, rifles and shotguns.

4. Portable security devices.

Beyond soft-sided cases for finish protection--many of which are also lockable--there are hard-sided cases from outfits like Pelican Products, Chicago Case, SKB Sports Cases, Case Club, Americase and others.

Citadel reports the Pelican cases and Blackhawk's padded locking gun cases are their most popular products in their area. Brand loyalty can be addressed here, as well, with gun makers like Browning and Beretta producing their own high-quality gun cases. Beretta also offers the soft-sided Exomesh Security Packs that are slash proof.

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Scaling up in security and cost, one and two-handgun mini-vaults are available from V-Line, GunVault, Isteki Electronics, Personakey, DoskoSport and others, offering keyed, push-button or fingerprint-recognition access. Several models are portable and capable of being hard-mounted in the home or vehicle.

Often a firearm add-on sale can be as simple as showing the purchaser a quality case suitable for their new gun. Be sure to ask your customers if they will transport their guns on airlines, and have FAA-approved gun cases on hand.

5. Safes and vaults.

Be prepared to do some serious study on theft and fire-resistance ratings, locking hardware and transport and delivery methods. Your efforts can pay big dividends. Mention to customers that in many cases having a highly rated safe can cut their insurance premiums. Many customers at Citadel Gun & Safe cancel gun-only insurance policies once they own a quality safe, which helps buyers recoup their investment costs.

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6. Information, training and education.

Know your state and local laws concerning the safe storage of firearms and ammunition. Always provide a printed copy to every shooting customer. This may not be a legal requirement, but it's cheap protection from "he didn't tell me" lawsuits. Considering your extended liability as a gun dealer, it's also wise to provide information on available firearms safety and training resources in your area. An educated customer is a better citizen--and a better customer, too.

SAFETY & STORAGE

American Security Products   234
Americase                    235
AOSafety Peltor              236
Armadillo Firearm Security   237
Beretta USA Corp.            238
BioVault                     239
Blackhawk                    240
Browning Safes               241
Cannon Safe Inc.             242
Case Club                    243
CCL Security Products        244
Champion Safe                245
Chicago Case                 246
Citadel Safe Co.             247
Crews Inc.                   248
DAC Technologies             249
Degil Safety Products        250
Dillon Precision Products    251
DoskoSport                   252
DPMS/Panther Arms            253
Dual-Safe Inc.               254
E.A.R. Inc.                  255
Fort Knox Security Products  256
Franzen Security Products    257
Frontier Safe Co.            258
Granite Security Products    259
GSM Products                 260
GunVault                     261
HarrisQuest                  262
Heritage Safe Co.            263
Homak Mfg. Co.               264
Hoppe's                      265
Howard Leight                266
Isteki Electronics           267
La Gard                      268
Liberty Safe                 269
Master Lock                  270
Mogul Co                     271
Mossberg Safe Systems        272
National Security Safe Co.   273
North Safety Products        274
Outers                       275
Patriot Safe                 276
Pelican Products             277
Personakey Corp.             278
Pro-Lok                      280
QwikCase                     281
Radians Inc.                 282
Remington Arms Co.           283
Safari Safe Co.              284
Safety First Devices         285
Sargent & Greenleaf          286
Security Locker Systems      279
Sentry Group                 287
Shot Lock                    288
Silencio                     289
SKB Sports Cases             290
Smith & Wesson               291
Sturm, Ruger & Co.           292
Sun Welding Safe Co.         293
Treadlok Security Safes      294
Truckvault                   295
Vanguard                     296
V-Line Industries            297
Walker's Game Ear            298
Walther Shooting Glasses     299
Weatherby                    300
Wiley X Eyewear              301
Winchester Safes             302
Zeiss Sports Optics          303
Ziegel Engineering           304

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COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group