Update on Brunos -- Here are the Facts

[Forum Boss]

I spoke at length with Lester Bruno today. I want to share some facts that can put the situation in perspective. Lester wants people to know that he and his staff are working as hard as possible. He has hired extra help and rented additional stockroom space, but he asks people to be patient and understand that "our business is facing an impossible situation... with an order increase of unprecedented magnitude."

- Bruno's has been inundated with orders. Overall they are filling 400% more orders than ever before. That's right -- they are trying to deal with FOUR TIMES as many orders as ever before in history.

- The demand for powder and products is an Order of Magnitude greater than ever before. So far in 2013, Bruno's has shipped TEN TIMES as much hazmat product as during the entire year of 2012.

- Lester HAS hired new staffers and added a phone line. Nonetheless, he and his daughter Amy are now working 14 hours a day. Lester lost 15 pounds off his body last month because he was working so hard he wasn't eating.

- One reason for delay is that the UPS truck, by UPS policies, is limited to 100 lbs. of hazmat material per truck. Sometimes UPS sends only one truck a day. This causes a back-log which is beyond Bruno's control.

- The big demand is for powder and primers. However, the powder-makers are only delivering a small fraction of the product Bruno's has on order. To give you an idea of the demand, Lester has 200,000,000 (two hundred million) Federal primers on order.

- Bruno's operation is filling orders as fast as it can, but product is not flowing in as needed. Bruno's has over $10,000,000 (ten million dollars) in product back-ordered. This includes everything. He's ordered $3.5 million in primers alone.

- Inventory that would normally arrive on a regular basis has been choked off. For example, Sierra is 2.5 months behind in bullet deliveries.

- One reason for an increase in primer prices is that the manufacturers are only delivering in small lot quantities (100 lbs vs. 2000 lbs). This means significantly higher hazmat and shipping fees per unit -- fees paid by Brunos on receipt of product.

- There is a current backlog of 2500+ emails. If you consider it may easily take 10 minutes to review an order and answer an email, that backlog represents at least 416 man-hours of response time. That's 10.4 forty-hour weeks -- just to answer emails already in the queue.

- A "crisis-response" decision was made to halt phone orders. The reason is simple... answering the phone made it impossible, even with the additional staff, to pull and fill existing orders. Remember that the overall volume of orders has increased 400% since last year.

Lester offered three suggestions that can help Forum members:

1. If you wish to cancel an order, send an email with the word "Cancel" or "Cancellation" in the subject line. All such emails will be given priority.

2. Do not order small quantities of primers. Lester has been deluged with orders for 1000 or 2000 primers, but many customers don't realize that they will have to pay a full $27.50 hazmat charge (plus shipping) for this small quantity (1K or 2K). Bruno's staff communicates this to customers, who then often cancel the order. This wastes a lot of time, interfering with the processing of larger orders.

3. If you have an old powder back-order, that is aged many weeks, consider replacing that order with a newer order with substitute powders that may be more readily available.

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I would add that if you comprehend that Bruno's is dealing with a 400% increase in total orders and a 1000% increase in hazmat orders, you can see that there is no easy solution here. It's not a simple matter of "hiring a temp to answer the phones". Experienced, knowledgeable personal still have to review orders, pull product, adjust inventory numbers, pack, and arrange for shipping. I suggested to Lester that he bring in additional help for the phones, and he is considering that. But the scale of the order backlog is so massive that there is no "easy fix".

 

[thefitter]

Thanks for taking the time.

 

[joejo]

thank you for helping to clear things up. i can imagine that even though the orders are extensive it still may be hard to profit if there is nothing to ship out.
hopefully this maddness settles down soon. i know alot of competition shooters that are having difficulty getting supplies for this season. not all of us have stockpiled our supplies. sure it may be our own fault, but when you have other monitary obligations and are young, you don't have the luxury of spending extra on high end shooting components. i usually go thru 8lbs of powder and 1k-2k primers each season so i buy a keg per year and 2 bricks of primers. you can imagine how much trouble i have had finding an 8lb keg since january.

 

[bozo699]

"BRUNO'S SHOOTING SUPPLY"

First of all I want to apologize to Paul....(FORUM BOSS) For causing you a lot of extra work on your already huge load that you have! BUT!!! I want to thank you for getting the ball rolling, in the past few months there has been a lot of threads concerning Bruno's Shooting Supply and the ignoring emails , phone calls, back order's, and inflated prices! I have stuck up for Bruno's through the whole thing on different post's but after 3 month's and no word from Bruno's I too jumped on the Bruno's bashing band wagon, even started my own thread on bashing Bruno's, Paul contacted me and asked me to give him some time to look into it, I gave him a few hours and then commented on someone else's Bruno's thread! ( I also apologize for that as well Paul) Well due to Paul pulling strings, pulling in favors, or something, he was able to get word to Lester Bruno of which I just got off the phone with, he talked a good solid half hour explaining to me what I already knew because I too am in the Ammunition's business, so why I started spouting off on here is Beside me now that I think about it! Anyway I am not going to give exact number but Lester told me what he has been going through since a little before the Election and ESPECIALLY what has happened after the 12/14 School shooting's Since the 15Th of December Lester and his staff has not been able to even come close to being able to keep up, he asked me to come on here and explain this a little, he is not making excuses and I am not sucking up, I am just trying to pass the word so you all know! Now I work at ATK in Lewiston Idaho and I can't give out any inside info but I know were so far behind if we didn't take another order for 3 or 4 years we would still be in business just filling back orders, that came from the top at our monthly meetings, so I know what Lester told me today was the truth! He is over 3000 emails behind right now and they just keep coming in, he has had to hire additional help. He personally wanted to see how many orders he could fill in a hour, by the time he read the email, replied to it, made the phone calls and got the orders on the dock for shipping was 7 orders in one hour! he has thousands of them to fill, he hasn't made many of his BR match this season as he has no personal time! He is getting orders in but when he orders lets just say 6000 lbs of powder and 600 lbs. come in he can't fill all the orders, on top of that UPS will only haul so much hazmat in one day and they can only get so many trucks in one day! He had to turn the phones off as he couldn't keep up, he hated doing that but it was the only thing he felt he could do. I felt after talking with him for over a half hour on the phone that everything he told me was sincere. He also said he see's no end to this madness anytime in the near future anyway, we talked about many other things but mostly just about all the madness and the fact that he really was sorry and he was trying to fill all the orders as he can get to them, my order could only be half filled, he said he could send me the brass but the other would have to be back ordered or cancelled, he suggested I cancel and try from another vendor if I really needed it or reorder with Bruno's at a later date. Lester/Paul I apologize for my comments and I appreciate getting help and some answers. Paul, I would like you to lock this thread if you will as it doesn't really need comment I just wanted to give a brief description on what Lester and I talked about and to thank you Paul for all you have done for all us forum members. I wished I had better and or more positive news for you guy's but I do not and Lester said he has no idea when things will slow either! Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope things smooth out for this great nation soon.
Sincerely Wayne A Bezona.

 

[bozo699]

Paul,
Sorry I started another thread as I talked to Lester also today and I did not notice your new thread or I wouldn't have taken the time to write what I did but thank you very much for everything, I sent you a p.m thanking you and a brief explanation but you talked with Lester so you know, I didn't put all the info you did because I didn't know if I should but what you wrote is exactly what we talked about also, thanks again Paul.
Wayne.

 

[DennisH]

I only like to post facts.

We talked with Sierra and they have already passed their 2012 sales. This was at the end of March!

Anybody in this business is very busy. Be patient.

 

[dwt]

Thanks for the updates,

Dale

 

[MNFinn]

I just wanted to put in my own experience in on this. I Emailed Bruno's earlier today, I've never backordered from Bruno's before, so I had a simple question about when my CC would be charged. I received an Email back a couple hours later, and, satisfied, I placed my back order...as a way to plan ahead...They are answering Emails, so for the folks who haven't heard back, I just want to say, that they are getting back to people.

 

[Shynloco]

I too would like to add my thx for this posting. I was physically at Bruno's two weeks ago and had this discussion with Amy Bruno myself and witnessed what all was going on. And many people may not realize that Bruno's doesn't have a large facility and they also have "walk-in" customers as well. They are, and always have been, a well organized business as well as one of the largest (if not the largest) Internet supplier of reloading, scopes and many other facets involving firearms. Lester (I believe) never envisioned taking the number of orders they do these days and they simply cannot keep up. In spite of all their efforts to do so, the demand for service and goods is simply incredible. So I'm very pleased that the FORUM BOSS took the time to speak to Lester to get some of the monkey off his back as well as explain what is going on to answer some of the "not so deserved" negative comments made on this blog and others. BTW, some of the very complaints that have been written about Brunos, also apply to some of the other reloading supply websites some say they'll go to get their needed supplies. People sometimes forget, they aren't the only ones in the world looking for needed reloading supplies.

Thx again for the explanation.
Alex

 

[broncman]

If UPS will only send one truck because of a 100 lb hazmat limit, how does Powder Valley pull it off? I know I get split orders sometimes from PV, one FedX and one UPS.

I understand it is a logistics problem but curious as to how others handle the same problem.

 

[dtucker]

Thats goods news for all. Now when times slow down he can pack some weight back on and take a nice vacation. ;D

 

[KT]

So why didn't they put something on their website telling people these things? He tells you to order from his website but Bruno's is notorious for their stock not being up to date on there website. That is why everyone calls and emails.

In form boss post he said he's filling 400% more orders. But below that it says he can't get any products from the distributor to fill orders. Those two kind of contradict each other.

So the post kind of makes it seem that we should feel sorry for them. However Bruno's has raised his prices on everything. Looking on his website today: 4831SC is 34.99 a pound. Really? Prices have gone up that much?

I usually don't say much but I'm fed up with it all at this point. I'm sure that I'm going to get flamed by all of his supporters out there. Or the people that say: You don't have to buy it then.



KT

 

[SShooterZ]

Do they keep their website pretty current with what they have on hand? I noticed a lot of the items had dates on them of 2 months ago but IN STOCK. Anyone have any experience ordering those items?

 

[ar10ar15man]

there 'SYSTEM' is a dead system..in that it has no idea of inventory...none...if someone puts a note on an item it is manual intervention,,,not the results of ONLINE INVENTORY tracking itself.....
very antiquated software...

Do they keep their website pretty current with what they have on hand? I noticed a lot of the items had dates on them of 2 months ago but IN STOCK. Anyone have any experience ordering those items?

 

[Forum Boss]

KT wrote:

In form boss post he said he's filling 400% more orders. But below that it says he can't get any products from the distributor to fill orders. Those two kind of contradict each other.

KT, It's really not contradictory. Think this way, Total orders are up 400%, but there are still some types of products (such as Varget powder and primers) which are in very short supply. Likewise, Brunos has been unable to fill the demand for bullets. Just imagine a gas station. It may be selling 4 times as much gasoline, but motor oil might be sold out and unavailable. It's all about the product mix.

Regarding pricing, one reason powder prices have gone up is that Brunos pays much higher shipping and hazmat charges (per container) to receive powder when the product arrives in small quantities rather than very large quantities (e.g. 100 lbs vs. a ton). Lester loses his volume discount when small amounts are obtained.

 

[JimT]

After reading the information above I can state the following:

1) The decision I made 5 years ago regarding Brunos is even more valid today;

2) My policy of only placing orders with vendors that charge my CC at shipment time is the only way to operate;

3) My decision to buy stock in ATK several months ago continues to look like a wise investment.

In closing, if the numbers above are accurate Lester could be a very rich man if he can retain customers. For example: it is stated that Lester has 200,000,000 primers on order with a cost to him of $3,500,000. He sells them at an average price of $60 or so per 1000 (this equates to 200,000 boxes of 1000). Yes folks, that is a cool gross profit of $8,500,000. You can pay a lot of hazmat fees and 1 phone line with that kind of money!!!

 

[Old Navy]

You got the best answer that the boss and Bruno could provide and you still aren't satisfied. It seems the ones that have already said they will never do business with Bruno's again are the ones still running off at the mouth. Give it rest and go somewhere else to play. Later! Frank

 

[Forum Boss]

In closing, if the numbers above are accurate Lester could be a very rich man if he can retain customers. For example: it is stated that Lester has 200,000,000 primers on order with a cost to him of $3,500,000. He sells them at an average price of $60 or so per 1000 (this equates to 200,000 boxes of 1000). Yes folks, that is a cool gross profit of $8,500,000. You can pay a lot of hazmat fees and 1 phone line with that kind of money!!!

The first flaw in the above argument is that you are assuming he is actually able to obtain primers at the "old wholesale" price... but if that were really the case, there wouldn't be that massive back-order. The second flaw is the assumption that he actually has those 200,000,000 federal primers to sell... he does NOT -- that's why they are in back-order status...

Lester said he has $3.5 million in placed orders with mfgs. on primers -- that is for ALL primers. The 200,000,000 primer number refers to FEDERAL brand primers ONLY. We don't know what his actual cost per thousand is for those primers he has managed to obtain (from all sources) in this time of shortage. We also don't know what percentage of the primer orders Brunos will actually receive. Right now he's in the same boat as most other vendors -- many customers wanting primers and very few on hand to sell.

Bottom line, as others have said multiple times... if you don't like Bruno's pricing, there are other vendors. If those vendors don't have a product and Bruno's does... then each individual can decide for himself whether to order from Bruno's or not order. On that score, read this PM from Forum member SnakePit (sent today, post-lock):

I just wanted you to know that I appreciate the information you put out on Bruno. I hear a lot of frustration out there and a lot of it is unjustified. I am new to reloading and had no supplies but was able to get the Lupa brass and Varget powder I needed from Powder Valley in March after a 7 week wait and the primers from Bruno also after a 7 week wait. Bullets I got locally so I was set. As far as Bruno I was happy to get the CCI BR4 primers while they still had them, no one else and I mean no one had primers. I did have to order 3000 primers but that was ok with me as several of my friends needed some. One guy I know who said he would not order that many for that price from Brunos has recently called me about getting some from me. Also Amy answered my emails, it took a while but she did answer both of them.

Again, thanks for your time and effort. -- Snakepit