Why it matters: Classic Firearms sells guns online to buyers across the country and runs a YouTube channel with more than 1.6 million subscribers. Its rebrand arrives with an account of how a mail-order surplus dealer became an e-commerce operation.
Classic Firearms, the North Carolina online gun retailer that started in 1989 as Classic Arms, has announced a new logo, a redesigned website and a new line of merchandise. The announcement comes in a video on the company's YouTube channel titled "Welcome To The Next Chapter Of Classic Firearms." It is delivered by Ben, who started the business, sold it in 2011 and has stayed on as an employee. He describes the rebrand as a return to the company's original customer-service values rather than a change of direction.
The video opens with a montage of earlier clips of him introducing himself on camera, then moves to a desk where he walks through the company's printed history before reaching the announcement.
From mail-order SKS catalogs to an online gun store
The earliest item is a catalog he dates to 1988 or 1989. He says its photos of SKS rifles were shot on 35mm film with the guns laid on the gravel of his driveway, and that the eight or 10 guns pictured were close to the company's entire inventory. Selling those paid for the next, slightly larger batch.
A 1993 catalog runs five or six pages and ends in an order form customers filled out by hand and mailed in. Firearms ordered that way went to the buyer's chosen dealer, he notes, while accessories and ammunition shipped directly, as they still do. He says he long doubted customers who remembered buying SKS rifles from him for $79, until he found this catalog listing an unissued SKS at $74.99. The same pages list a Norinco Uzi-pattern gun, and he points out that guns can no longer be imported from China.
He also shows Brutus, a Roman centurion holding an AK-pattern rifle. A gun-show attendee sketched the figure and offered it to him, and it served as the mascot in the company's print catalogs for years.
To show how long the business stayed offline, he reads from a 2006 thread on The High Road forum in which one user asks for an email address for Classic Arms and another replies that, as far as they know, the company works by phone and fax only. He says the first website came around 2008, built for $50 by a college student he knew. It had no shopping cart, so customers still phoned in orders. Because he typed every listing himself in capital letters to avoid the shift key, he says, customers called to ask why the site was shouting at them.
The 2011 sale to Rick Jones and the move into video
In 2011, he says, he sold the company to Rick Jones, planning to leave after the one-year transition his sale contract required. He stayed, and by his account still works there 15 years later, helping with buying and some decision making. Better Business Bureau records list Rick Jones as the owner and show the business incorporated in January 2011.
“For most of its first two decades, the company sold guns through paper catalogs, mail-in order forms and the telephone.”
J.D. Whitfield, The ReticleUnder the new ownership, he says, the company hired marketing staff who built a website with a shopping cart, and it formed social media and video teams; he was the first person on camera. He describes the early videos as unedited handycam footage shot in the warehouse in about 15 minutes, and contrasts them with the current production crew, which he says now travels internationally for content.
The product line changed too. He says the early business sold almost entirely military surplus because he could buy directly from importers and compete on price, while it could not compete on commercial brands such as Ruger, Sig and Taurus. Today, he says, it carries nearly every category of firearm, accessory and ammunition.
What the Classic Firearms rebrand includes
The announcement takes up the closing minutes. He says the management team met a few months ago and agreed it was "not good enough to rest on our laurels"; the conclusion, he says, was to reinforce the values that built the company, chiefly customer service.
Customers will see a new website with what he calls "a new flow," which the company hopes is more user friendly, and a new logo on hats, shirts, koozies, gun bags and other merchandise. The logo on his shirt and cap in the video reads "Classic Firearms" in script above "Est 1989."
He says the company has met with its warehouse, customer service and social media staff about a renewed focus on putting the customer first, and that the new branding is meant to stand for that commitment. The video does not give a launch date for the website or describe specific features, pricing or policy changes.
For context
- Classic Firearms, formerly Classic Arms, is an online gun retailer in Monroe, North Carolina, that operates as eCommerce Arms, LLC and dates its founding to 1989.
- Firearms bought online in the U.S. ship to a federally licensed dealer, who runs the background check and completes the transfer to the buyer.
- The U.S. has restricted imports of Chinese firearms and ammunition since 1994, when the Clinton administration imposed the limits alongside the renewal of China's trade status; sporting shotguns were among the exceptions.
- The SKS is a Soviet-designed semiautomatic carbine in 7.62x39mm, and large numbers of Chinese and other surplus SKS rifles entered the U.S. market in the 1980s and early 1990s.
