Belt Auction - Should we raise the rates we charge at our shooting range?

Should we raise the rates we charge at our shooting range?

I work for the family's business. We are a sporting goods store. About 30% of our business is from the sale of guns and ammunition (would be 50% if we had it to sell it). The next largest part is our shooting range, about 25% of our business with rentals and ammo used at the range. Presently we charge $10 per hour for indoor lanes available from 6am until 10pm every day. We have 8 lanes that are 25 yards each. If you rent a lane for 2+ hours between 6am and 4pm weekdays, additional hours are discounted to $8 per hour. We allow a 2nd shooter to use the lane for no additional charge. Friday nights and Saturday nights we find ourselves open past our 10pm close time by 1-2 hours, if there customers spending money. We don't allow jacketed bullets, right now we allow .22 rifles and hand guns up to 38 special or 380 ACP, but we will be upgrading the trap this summer. Outdoors we allow all rimfire hand guns and rifles. We allow pistols up to 44 magnum. Because our longest lanes are only 200 yards long, we limit centerfire rifles to .243 AI. We are looking for a bigger parcel of land where we can accommodate even .50 BMG. Presently we charge $10 for a 4 hour block. No charge for 2nd shooter, no further discounts. The outdoor range is open from 7:30 am until sunset. We make quite a bit off rentals. A Ruger 10/22 with 2 mags gets $10 per hour. So does a Hi-Point .380 auto or Armscor 38 Special revolver. We have a 9mm Hi-Point carbine only for outdoor use. With 2 magazines, we get $15 per hour and it is RARE that it isn't out. If we could get a 2nd one, we'd put it for rental. We rent a Marlin 39a for $15 per hour. We rent some SA Heritage .22 revolvers for $10-12 per hour. We rent 20 or 12 gauge Mossberg 500's for outdoor skeet/trap for $15 per hour. We are going to add a S&W 22a or Beretta U22 Neos as soon as we can. We are going to consider other items too. Outdoors we got one of these http://www.kitterytradingpost.com/product.php/pid/103/sid/651/tid/2568/prodid/7254 and people just love it! We are adding a 2nd this spring. We charge $10 per hour to use it and include a few extra pasters. Since business is surprisingly good, we are going to up our rates by 25% and see what happens. We also will charge $2 for a 2nd shooter sharing a lane per hour or 4 hour block. We still will give a discount for weekdays. Have you seen the cost of shooting go up? How much do you object to this? Does it impact how often you shoot at a range? We are in an suburban area. Not many "free places" to shoot within 2-3 hours of here. Some ranges have steep memberships. We just charge for what you use. Thanks for your input. One big reason for the increased fees would be the $30,000+ we need to spend on a new bullet trap and air filtration system indoors. We hope to do that this summer if we can get financing. The other expense is liability insurance. Right now it is just under $10,000 per year. If we upgrade and things go crazy, we could be looking at $15,000 easy. I'm sorry it looks like an ad. That's why I wouldn't give our name or even state. I will say we are in a blue state.

Public Comments

Not to nitpick, but your question looks more like an advertisement for your range then a question about rates. To be honest $10/hr seems steep to me. If it were the only range around I might pay that much... but I wouldn't pay more then that... I'd rather drive a bit further to a more economical range. I may be a bit biased because around here we shoot outdoors for free ;)
This looks more like an advertisement than anything and you'll probably get reported...I think ranges are way over priced any way and the guy who owns the range where I go said to me with a big smile..".This is just a cash factory with almost no overhead"" we even sell thell the brass that they leave behind" So the answer to your question , MR. CARPET BAGGER..is NO!!!
When I see the price of anything jump up 25% I always go somewhere else for a while. If it's too crowded why not try a 2 or 3% increase and see if fewer people come in? I also try to avoid hourly rate places if there is a choice. The best places I use charge a flat fee without running a clock on you.
Come on, you're benefiting on high mark-ups on guns/ammo already. You're booming while your customers are hurting due to the economy. Charging for a second shooter means I'd never use your range if I had alternatives available. And when ammo prices come back down, and people realize that they don't have to stock up as much as they thought, your sales will dry up considerably. Do you really want to hurt customer loyalty like that? I mean, you've already got a fairly short range with more restrictions than I've seen elsewhere. Unless your ranges are completely packed, I think you'd end up losing more money if you changed your rates that drastically. If you need the money, I know some places that have a kind of cover charge - like a couple bucks up front or something (or just a more expensive first hour - same effect). Or just increase by $1/hr across the board, and see what happens.
Your prices are too high..... I live in a large city and my range charges $50 for the whole year --- That's a bargain! --- They have mentioned a price increase to $60 and I wont mind paying it at all --- But $10 every time to go to your place and use a lane would cost me about $500 a year - No thanks!...... I am in business and always subscribed to this philosophy.... You cant just take take take..... You must always give back something in return.... Of course a nice safe place to shoot which I am sure you are providing but what else?..... Do you have a full time range master, instructors maybe, do you host any competitions? -- How about no lane fees on Mondays, Tuesdays or Wednesdays till 9 am?.... Offer something that will draw in people on a limited income (elderly etc) I'm all down for making a buck but realize the economy is hitting some folks in the wallet right now..... if you start sticking it to your customers then someone at sometime will come along and offer a better service and don't you for one second think that wont happen.... By all means make money -- but be fair to folks also....
I'd say that I'd object to it a fair bit. One thing I find unusual about your range is the pistol caliber restrictions for the indoor portion. I would consider that a significant limitation. Certainly other ranges are increasing their rates, which has lead me to limit how often I go to those vs. ones where I have memberships and don't have to pay into the increase. An options I find less objectionable, would be charging more than $2 for a 2nd shooter on the lane, many of the ranges where I am at would probably charge $4 for the second shooter. After all they were getting in free before and still aren't paying full price. Memberships are an interesting option, because one of the things that I and many others like about shooting is that it can be somewhat casual. I don't want to have to worry about whether I am spending a longer range session to do some precision work or just dropping in for a 1/2 hour to run a quick tune up before a match. Other options which are less objectionable is to start fee based shooting leagues. One of the ranges here used to run a steel plates league that brought in an incremental $20k - $30k per year during off hour shooting when the range was otherwise dead, (Wednesday nights) and it still runs a "Black Rifle" League which pulls in at least as many incremental dollars if not more because of the additional accessory pull through business over the fees of shooting in the league. .22 plate league, .22 action pistol league could be a good option because people generally don't reload .22 encouraging them to buy from you, and the leagues are fun. The plate league I talked about earlier would often pull in as many as 35 shooters running over 50 guns in an 8 lane bay for the worst couple of hours (7:30/8 - 10) midweek which is pretty high density. Inevitably there were something like 15 - 20% that would be buying ammo on site vs. reloading or other purchase and it was typically 100 - 200 rounds a night per person depending on warm up how many guns they were shooting and such. It's a free market, so you can do as you will, but I know that the rate increases seen at some of the ranges around here have really irritated the long time shooters that frequented them often causing a change in people's shooting venues and habits. I don't think that will be forgotten with the market settles down and it is again the regular shooters driving the business rather than the current inswell of new shooters. Thinkingblade
cost me 25 per year
I don't think there should be an increase in rates. I go to Ben Avery and they raised it a couple dollars last year.
Ten bucks for four hours doesn't sound bad. Where are you located? But going up 25% does seem like a bit too much at one shot, unless it's absolutely necessary for the range expansion.
Your call. I pay 10.00 for all day pistol or rifle. I can leave get lunch and come back the same day and not cost me any more.