It's no secret that Reddit is one of the best place to engage with and build a community within the firearms industry. Sell tactical gear? There's a community for that. Sell AR-15 parts? One for that, too. Specialize in Yugoslavian AK-47s? Yep. Regardless of your niche, there is probably a thriving community full of people who are just as interested in it as you are; and if there isn't, you can easily start one.
However, if you're a gun store and you're selling online or are interested in doing so, there is a particular subreddit that you should pay attention to: /r/Gundeals.
Gun Deals is a subreddit where users and companies post deals for firearms, parts, and accessories. Other users will upvote and comment on the post, and some will even buy the product –– people get the product they're looking for and companies quickly move their inventory. It's a win-win situation in most cases.
Gun Deals is important because it gives you a launchpad to interact with a friendly community as a new company. As long as you're genuine, provide good support, and sell interesting/relevant products at good prices, you'll quickly be accepted as a preferred vendor in a community of eager customers. And, that's an incredible resource to have.
Gun Deals is a huge community, as of today it has ~370,000 subscribers with ~1,500 - 2,000 people online at any given time. The subreddit is also seeing steady growth with new people joining every day, so it's a good idea to get involved as soon as you open your doors.
"So, what you're saying is that I just post a link to my website and people buy my stuff?" Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. With a few caveats that we'll explore.
First off, make an account if you haven't already. I recommend that you use Reddit as a user for a few weeks and get a feel for the community.
Marketing trends have recently (past 5 years) pivoted towards a community-first approach. This is especially true when you're marketing on Reddit. Most consumers want genuine, personal interactions, whether that be in advertising, support, or casual banter. They want to interact with a human, not a brand. That said, browse around, post on subreddits that you find interesting, and interact with the community as a regular person.
Once you've gotten the hang of the interface and culture, then start advertising on Gun Deals.
There are a few places to look. First, take a look at the weekly "buy-curious" thread that's pinned at the top of the feed. Here's this week's thread. See what people are interested in and take note of posts that are highly upvoted or have a thread of comments saying "me too".
Second, look at the top posts for the week, month, and year. You'll start to see patterns. Well-priced ammo, high-end AR-15s (upper receiver groups, complete lower receivers, complete firearms), and niche items (e.g., a deactivated RPG) always tend to do well. But trends change so it's best to keep a constant pulse on the community. Look at other gun subreddits, Instagram e-celebs, and Twitter –– you'll start to notice patterns in posts and photos.
And lastly, use analysis tools to dig deeper. Tools like Later for Reddit and Subreddit Stats show popular keywords. You can adjust the vote threshold to see keyword frequency among highly upvoted posts.
Now, let's say you have an idea of a product with a good price in mind. What's next? First, it's important to understand the rules of the subreddit.
In addition to the regular community rules (no spam, etc. read more here), there are a few rules that you must adhere to as a dealer. They help to combat spam and maintain a feed of high-quality deals. These rules are directly related to advertising your products on the subreddit, so I recommend following them to a T. You can read the full set of dealer rules here. but I'll highlight a few of the most important ones below:
We'll get into how these apply to our strategy a little later into the post. In general, avoid breaking any rules as the mods operate on a three-strike per three-month basis. If you mess up enough, you'll end up on the blacklist.
Rules out of the way, what does a successful post look like? There are a few components that we'll look at: Post title, comments, and your website.
Beyond product and price, the post title is the most important part of your deal. The post title is similar to a YouTube thumbnail, where a video's view count is largely attributed to how good of a thumbnail it has. It's important to spend a few minutes creating a good one –– Luckily we can expedite this using a formula.
I took a look at the top posts from the past year, coupled it with Gun Deal's posting guidelines and some UX principles, and came up with a quick formula for you to use.
[Category] Product Name – $Price using code COUPON - Additional Info
First, include the most applicable category (per the subreddit guidelines). For example, if you're selling a Magpul stock, use [Parts]. If you're selling a Surefeed Magazine, use [Magazines].
Next, add the product name and include the most pertinent features. This could include caliber, barrel size, round count, brand, product name, and more. Use your intuition here.
Then include the price with any applicable coupons. If you have one, capitalize your coupon code so it's easy to pick out.
And finally, include any other additional information that you feel is important to the sale. For example, free shipping, no taxes, rebates, in-stock notification, etc. This is also the place where you can include the "and more in the comments" verbiage (More on this in the following section).
Use thoughtful spacing and other UX principles as you compose your post to make it as scannable as possible. Your goal is to catch the eye of someone as they're scrolling through the feed.
The comments are a place for you to answer any objections about the product or sale, as well as a place for you to interact with other users. Both are very important. However, there's another key component of the comments that people often overlook: Shilling other things.
As we saw above, the subreddit allows you to post one product once every 5 days, however, it DOES NOT say anything about your post's comments.
Use your post's comments to advertise your newsletter, Instagram, coupons, and other deals. You can also advertise your subreddit here (again, more on this later). This is your own space to share whatever you'd like, use it to your advantage.
Now that you have some traffic coming to your website, it's important to provide an e-commerce experience that's fast, feels trustworthy, and is well designed. Investing in this will boost your conversion rate, which can be a multiplier to your bottom line. There are a few tools to do this, but keep in mind that most have some sort of ToS guidelines against firearm and firearm part sales (looking at you Shopify), which leaves you options that are either lackluster or require technical know-how to spin up a site. If you're interested in building a new website or would like to refresh your current one, we're here as your resource. We only work with gun companies and know how to build a high-preforming e-commerce site. Feel free to book a time directly on my calendar, we can chat through your goals and how we can level up your business.
So, you have your post assembled and everything is set, when should you post your deal to maximize engagement? After doing an analysis of the top posts over the past year, it looks like Monday at ~11 AM, Tuesday at 7:40 PM, and Thursday at 3:20 PM are the best times to post. We used a 100-upvote threshold as a heuristic of the success of a post, that's typically where you'll see traction. With that said, I think as long as your product and price are interesting, you'll see some sort of engagement regardless of when you post.
In conjunction with Gun Deals, creating a your own subreddit can also be an asset for your business. Having a subreddit is important for two reasons. First, building and interacting with your own community is a great way to build brand-equity and to gather feedback directly from your customers. Second, and more relevant to this post, it gives you a space to share updates about your business, product inventory, and other deals as often as you'd like.
So, what does this have to do with Gun Deals? As you browse Gun Deals, you'll notice that most deals aren't posted by companies, but rather by users. These hyper-active users source their deals from a variety of places, it could be from Instagram, your newsletter, your website, or your company subreddit. Aggregating your sales onto your subreddit gives them a place to source deals directly from your company, thus increasing the likelihood that you'll be featured on Gun Deals, without you having to post. As the rules state, YOU can only post once every 5 days, and you CAN NOT create alt accounts to circumvent this. However, other users' posts DO NOT apply to this rule.
For example, see Bevan Ballistic and Militia Armory, both are good examples of how to run a community. You'll often see their deals posted by other users on Gun Deals. This is a huge force multiplier.
If done correctly, Reddit can be a huge revenue driver for your business. Follow the guidelines outlined above and you'll see some level of success, even from your first post. If you have any questions about Reddit and how it can benefit your business, please feel free to reach out directly. I'm always happy to chat about e-commerce, design, and marketing.
Thanks for reading our brief guide on how to use Reddit to grow your gun store.
Get insights and resources to grow your gun store every other week
