New Dealer Coming to the Charleston Area!

[ACESummerville]

Ace Hardware of Summerville is becoming an Airsoft dealer, and we need your help! We will be opening the department in late October, and need you to let us know what items you would like to see; favorite guns, awesome accesories, best uni and camo brands, we would like your opinions on everything.
We are very excited to be opening up this new division of our store, and bringing the excitement of Airsoft to the Lowcountry. This is your chance to be heard, be sure not to miss out. If there is enough interest, then we will be holding a meet and greet at the store later on this month. Food and beverages will be included. So tell your friends, and let's get this party started!

Ace Hardware of Summerville
713 Old Trolley Rd
Summerville, SC 29485
(843) 875-7234

[Vesper]

Will you have an online store as well?

[SteevoLS]

The most important question is this:

What grade of stuff are you wanting to stock? No experienced airsoft is going to buy a Crossman or Aftermath gun, but on the flip side I don't think very many entry-level players are going to want to spend $300 on a high end gun.

[ACESummerville]

Will you have an online store as well?

No, at least not at first. With enough requests anything is possible though. With that being said, if you need something and we have it available, I'm sure we can work something out.

[ACESummerville]

The most important question is this:

What grade of stuff are you wanting to stock?

Ideally, we want to carry something for every one. We have a little less than a quarter of our 15,000 sq. ft. store sectioned off for Airsoft, so space is not a huge concern. Our rep is guiding us through the initial order with a pretty good mix of high and low end products (I can give more details when I get in to work a little later on today).
What I am looking for from this board is what you guys would consider "must-have" products. What items would you expect to see? What items would you hope to see? What would you never buy in a million years?

[Felix]

Well if your going to stock guns, your going to have to go get it from the maufacturer, because we would buy KWA, Vega Force Company, Classic Army, Echo 1, and a few other high end companies. Gear wise, most people buy the best looking, normally Condor or some other lower brand. However others will shell out the cash for the Flyye or Pantac gear, but there wont be too many

Hope that helps.

[Bishop]

I would reccomend carrying the G&G Combat Machine line for the newer players, they are cheap and run fantastic. Gear wise, same as people said, Condor is a pretty good brand.

If you are going to stock internals, the china clone brands like SHS and Element(if they are still around) are some good ones to stock. Skip out on Systema for sure.

[SteevoLS]

An assortment of MOLLE pouches, decent BBs (read: NOT Crossman), mesh and non-mesh eye protection, etc. would be a good start.

[Echo1 Operator]

Well if your going to stock guns, your going to have to go get it from the maufacturer.

He is going to have to buy from Spartan Imports for those guns. I believe JAG Precision does Echo 1 and the like. Ace Hardware in Nowhereville, SC isn't going to be able to buy directly from the manufacturer.

[Avenger]

Carry some some chiclones(chinese made clones of high end guns) for beginners, such as CYMA and Jing Gong. You should also carry G&G, KWA, VFC, and the other high end guns listed above.
Don't let anything by Crosman through you door, noone with any real interest in the sport will buy it, and the backyard battle crowd it atracts will probably chase away the real customers(like the people on the forum). Good luck, next time I'm in the area I'll come check it out!

EDIT: Carry plenty of accesories and gear. Like slings, magazines, batteries, chargers, MOLLE gear, training knives, tactical lights and gun lasers. You will probably make almost as much money off of things like this as you will guns.

[SteevoLS]

Like I said above, an entry level player will be turned off by the higher priced guns. There is an easy attraction to a $30 spring shotgun, but even a $150 M4 will look miles away to a young player with no real income. You need a bit of both from a business perspective.

[Avenger]

I can easily vouch for that, and should have considered it in my earlier post. When I was younger and didn't have a job, I dreamed of having an airsoft Tommy gun. I was absolutely STUNNED to see that an airsoft gun could cost $90 dollars(the Cybergun model). I didn't know who in their right mind would spend that, and thought that my $40 dollar Double Eagle was top of the line. Now, I'm getting ready to buy a $300 dollar RPK.

[TeamBadCompany]

I live pretty close to summerville and would really like if there waws a store nearby that stocked high grade ammo, and as Steevols said make sure you have both low quality (crossman) and high quality (Echo1, KWA, etc) guns

[Avenger]

But, as I said, you must stock middle grade guns as well. There are more people on a budget using chiclones as high level players and noobies put together.

[TeamBadCompany]

i would focus more on the higher grade stuff though, because there are no stores in the area that sell high grade guns, but walmart, dicks etc sell low grade guns, and if you are the only store with high grade guns people either have to order their guns online or buy them from you