looking for best handgun transfer fee in bay area

[97guns]

the best i have locally is $75, i can drive 70 miles to los banos and get it for $35. is there anywhere in the bay area thats $35 or less?

[kermitz]

Triple A in Vallejo only charged me $35.00 for a FTF transfer.

[weinerd]

FTF is set by the state as $35. Anything more and you're getting ripped off and you should complain to the DOJ.
Accepting and DROSing out-of-state handguns are a different matter... Most places charge some sort of service fee, usually $50-75-ish, in addition to the DROS fee.

[Santa Cruz Armory]

Our shop is $60 total . $25 DROS + $35 Dealer Fee = $60

PPT is standard $35 total. $25 DROS = $10 Dealer Fee = $35

[keenkeen]

the best i have locally is $75, i can drive 70 miles to los banos and get it for $35. is there anywhere in the bay area thats $35 or less?

Are these the totals with the $25 DROS fee? Where are you looking at going in Los Banos?

[Tripper]

I know most shops charge a 'service fee' for getting a firearm shipped in
my question is why do most charge upwards of 70 bucks
I understand 'because we can' and I'll respond to that with ,
cops do 12031(e) checks, 'because they can'

i'm curious if there is any real reasoning behind it

the best i can see is if you dont buy it here (from me) i charge 75 to receive it.
basically to jack up your price to be over my own jacked up price, making my jacked up price better.

i get that concept, but many times, ppl get firearms shipped in because they got a deal they could afford, or a firearm that your shop doesnt sell. charging a 75 'service fee' just to receive it, seems wrong to me. i mean, i'm already using you for the DROS apparently, why charge me 75 to write it into your log book?
If ppl are regularly having firearms shipped in that you carry, it should tell you something when I'm willing to pay a 75 service fee, rather than your price for the same firearm, seems you should be doing something to get my business not give me reasons to shop elsewhere.
but really, i usually wont have a firearm shipped that my FFL has in stock, unless their price is just too much, but, on that same note, i cant justify to myself to spend a markup that is not reasonable to me, when i can get the same thing elsewhere for 100 bucks less, I know those dealers arent losing money by selling at a lower price.
and yes, i also understand it takes a bit of time to receive/log, but are you taking long enough to deserve 75 bucks, c'mon, somethings wrong.

anyways, i'll stop for now, please help me understand though, it seems i must be missing something.

I'll even make a new topic, but this seems to be on-topic, as it is difficult to find a FFL that doesnt try to rape you on a 'service fee', I applaud those that charge a reasonable fee. I'm thinking 10/15 bucks, maybe, no additional charge on multiples.

for those that have other FFL's in your area, i think you can rest assured, if your charging 75 bucks for ship-ins, your clients (at least some) are going elsewhere.

[Tripper]

@keen
in my experience, its 'service fee'
then they do the 35 DROS on top of it

[kemasa]

i get that concept, but many times, ppl get firearms shipped in because they got a deal they could afford, or a firearm that your shop doesnt sell. charging a 75 'service fee' just to receive it, seems wrong to me. i mean, i'm already using you for the DROS apparently, why charge me 75 to write it into your log book?

Ok, so tell me what you do and how much you charge for your time. Then tell me how much it costs you to be able to do that. To be a FFL, there are a lot of licenses and permits and time to deal with all the paperwork. I personally don't know of any places that charge just to receive the firearm, but to do the transfer. The DROS fee all goes to the state, but the FFL get the bill and has to deal with that, for no money other than the transfer fee.

If ppl are regularly having firearms shipped in that you carry, it should tell you something when I'm willing to pay a 75 service fee, rather than your price for the same firearm, seems you should be doing something to get my business not give me reasons to shop elsewhere.
but really, i usually wont have a firearm shipped that my FFL has in stock, unless their price is just too much, but, on that same note, i cant justify to myself to spend a markup that is not reasonable to me, when i can get the same thing elsewhere for 100 bucks less, I know those dealers arent losing money by selling at a lower price.
and yes, i also understand it takes a bit of time to receive/log, but are you taking long enough to deserve 75 bucks, c'mon, somethings wrong.

So tell me how a place can sell a firearm for less than I can buy it directly from the manufacturer? They advertise the price, so a FFL can't buy it from them and then sell it.

Do you know the overhead for a FFL? Do you know how long it takes for ALL the paperwork, including income tax return, sales tax return, inspections, renewing licenses, sending out FFLs, talking to customers to do their transaction, etc.? It is not just what you see.

anyways, i'll stop for now, please help me understand though, it seems i must be missing something.

Yep.

I'll even make a new topic, but this seems to be on-topic, as it is difficult to find a FFL that doesnt try to rape you on a 'service fee', I applaud those that charge a reasonable fee. I'm thinking 10/15 bucks, maybe, no additional charge on multiples.

Rape you? Reasonable is $10-$15? No additional charge for multiple firearms which take additional time to deal with? Do you know how long that would take to cover the costs to be a FFL, especially with insurance? You don't want to pay when you talk to the FFL and ask questions and I am sure you don't want to pay more when the place that you are getting the firearm from causes problems and take more time. You just don't value the time and effort of the FFL when it comes down to it.

This "issue" has been talked about many times before and the bottom line answer is for you to become a FFL and see if you can do it for the price that you claim that others should do it for.

[ugimports]

...This "issue" has been talked about many times before and the bottom line answer is for you to become a FFL and see if you can do it for the price that you claim that others should do it for.

agreed.. I think the only FFLs that can afford to do it for cheap are those that are still kitchen table FFLs. They probably are not paying rent, insurance and do not have much more overhead costs to their operation than just being at home. Anyone that has to run this in a shop of some sort has thousands of dollars of overhead and if they aren't getting transfer volume of 100s of people a month probably can't make up the margins.

[Tripper]

thats what I'm saying, if its so much overhead to do this, how can so manyh afford to NOT charge the 75$ fee

[Tripper]

wait, your saying, that having a, i dunno, a glock 27, come in to your shop as a ship-in, it is costing you what?
and how long does it take you to process that? not including the DROS. just the receive and log.
what is the 'real' cost.
as i said, i'm amiable to paying a service fee, 75 bucks aint it. there is NO way you can justify that it costs you 75 bucks to receive/log/store a firearm.
those costs that your trying to include, you would have without the ship-in, and are a cost of doing business.

[Tripper]

and, yes, I'm saying there ARE FFL's that provide that service to their customers, without charging 75 bucks, as a matter of fact, they still only charge 35 DROS, and no service fee at all.

[97F1504RAD]

Be aware that you will also being paying sales tax on that firearm you purchased out of state as FFL are required to collect it.

Also i would suggest you find yourself a good local FFL and develop a relationship with him and he may in the long run lower that fee for you if you continue to use him. Also give him a chance to see if he can get you that firearm for close to what you find it for online.

[Tripper]

@kemasa, you said
So tell me how a place can sell a firearm for less than I can buy it directly from the manufacturer? They advertise the price, so a FFL can't buy it from them and then sell it.

huh

i think thats my point, many FFL's pay the same price for the same gun from the manufacturer, whereas some FFL's charge only a small markup, some more markup, some even more markup, I've seen normal Glocks for prices ranging a couple hundred bucks in diff between a couple FFL's.

I understand, You need to make money to have the business run, but do you really have to make it all on ship-ins, can you really justify 75 bucks, or do you charge 75 because thats what the market will bare and thats what the FFL's around you charge. Did you really do a serious look into what it actually costs you to provide the service, or did you simply find out that the FFL down the street and the other FFL in town charge 75 so I will too.
or are you really suggesting that it takes an hour or more for you to process a ship in, and you should make 75 bucks an hour.

i dunno, maybe make that a marketing thing with your store
spend more than 500 bucks in my store this year, and get a free ship-in or something like that for your customers. something to make it right with your customers

You must realize its a very serious turn off for customers that might have otherwise spent more money in your store

I'm simply giving a customer perspective, I'm not sure why you would want to do the
become an FFL thing to find out
thats just like the anti-gunners suggesting if i want to have guns i should become a cop.

[Tripper]

Be aware that you will also being paying sales tax on that firearm you purchased out of state as FFL are required to collect it.

Also i would suggest you find yourself a good local FFL and develop a relationship with him and he may in the long run lower that fee for you if you continue to use him. Also give him a chance to see if he can get you that firearm for close to what you find it for online.

oh, absolutely, sometimes its just not doable, or, its someone here selling what i want, that is either used or the store does not carry, or CANT get it as quick as I can, the excellent price here isnt so good when i have to add 75+35 to the price. Now I'm paying more than new price for a used gun in some cases.

for example
say I want to get a couple of the Palmetto lowers for 49 bucks
they each end up costing me 125 EACH, which means its not a deal no more...