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Optics sales are icing on a cake. Firearms form the foundation of your business, but the sweet profits are spread on top. And, manufacturers offer a vast number of riflescopes, spotting scopes and binoculars for hunters — and anglers and birdwatchers.

“You don’t make money on guns,” said Ron Wright, owner of Wright’s Sport Shop in Newport, Vt. “But you can make money on optics.”

You can’t sell optics if your customers don’t know you have them. And they won’t know you have them if you don’t display them in a way that makes them say, “Come pick me up and see what I can do for you!”

“There are some dealers who do a very good job of presenting and selling optics,” said Arnd Abraham, director of sales and marketing for Minox USA. “But at most stores, there’s room to improve. If optics aren’t displayed in the right place and the right way, they won’t get customers’ attention, and they won’t be sold in the quantity they could be sold.”

At his shop in Vermont, Wright said the most important part of selling optics is to have them where customers can’t miss seeing them.

“That’s 99 percent of selling them,” he said. “I display my optics where customers walk in the door. I have nice glass and mahogany showcases with curved glass. All the optics sit on glass shelves and are laid out so you can see them well.”

And Wright keeps them absolutely spotless.

“Everything is cleaned and dusted every day,” he said.

Abraham suggests placing some optics at eye level.

“Display optics in a place where the customer can comfortably have a look at them,” Abraham said. “A very common, but not perfect place, for example, is under the counter. Then the customer has to kneel down to have a look at them, or the items are only put on the counter on request. This doesn’t create additional sales.”

Abraham says dealers should have at least one well-placed showcase where they really present the merchandise to their customers.

“Even better is having an open display so the customer can touch and test the optics. Place that display in a good location near a window, and people will start trying the items. This will create additional sales,” Abraham said.

Reduce Customer Confusion

One thing customers can find very confusing, said Pat Mundy, marketing communications supervisor at Leupold, is the number of products in a given display.

“Many bigger stores have a lot of products,” Mundy said. “It’s easy to get those products mixed together so the customer gets overwhelmed at the counter. Because smaller stores often have less to display, they sometimes do a better job of both displaying optics and of explaining one-on-one to the customer what a particular product does.”

One role of a good display, Mundy said, is to separate products into categories and brands so customers can see very clearly what you have available for them.

“If you don’t have a good display, or a display that stands out, you run the risk of your store losing ground to retailers who do good displays,” Mundy said. “A good display really separates your products out, and is particularly helpful when a customer comes in with a preconceived idea of what he wants to buy — it’s much easier for him to find what he’s looking for.”

To improve optics displays, Mundy said, one of the best things you can do is utilize manufacturers’ point-of-sale displays.

“All optics manufacturers try to supply good displays to help retailers do their jobs,” Mundy said. “But sometimes that’s hard to do because some of the displays are large and take up too much room.”

If you don’t have room for some of those larger displays, Mundy said, finding a way to keep the brands separated in a smaller display area can reduce the customer’s confusion and make it easier for him to find what he wants.

Don’t Forget Add-Ons

If you’re selling optics, you also need to stock all the bases, mounts and rings that go with them.

“Dealers should take every opportunity to sell add-on products, such as mounts for riflescopes and products such as cleaning accessories for optics,” Abraham said.

Wright makes sure he has whatever the customer needs when he purchases a gun/scope combination.

“I have every mount for every rifle,” Wright said. “I have probably $7,000 to $8,000 just in mounts on display.”

Mundy agrees that a good selection of these smaller items is important.

“There are myriad firearms out there and often one firearm can take a number of rings and bases,” Mundy said. “Knowing the best application of mounts and rings for the caliber and the type of firearm, and for the type of shooting the person is doing, is just as important as picking the right type of scope.”

You can take this concept a little further, Mundy said, and include other scope accessories, such as flip-up covers to protect lenses, retractable ballistics charts that can be attached to the tube of the scope and lens-cleaning equipment.

“And mounting tools are really great for the guy who wants to mount his own scope,” Mundy said.

This Feature Article is sponsored by:

Millett
www.millettsights.com

Savage Arms
www.savage-rimfire.com