When a potential customer recently challenged our $89 shipping and handling fee for a $320 rifle to a Sydney based Firearms dealer recently, I had to do some serious research to make sure we weren’t being unreasonable.

For context, $89 is the fee we charge to broker, wrap, pack and ship a Firearm (package overall length <105cm) via Australia Post to any Firearms Dealer Australia wide.

There are some circumstances where we are required to utilise a courier service to ship your firearm, which will increase our price (typically not exceeding $129). This is calculated case by case but is guided by package overall length and weight.

This is regardless of the cost or value of the firearm being shipped on your behalf.

Was I being unreasonable by taking the following into consideration?

Actual Postage Cost?

I’m talking about the physical cost incurred by us through Australia Post. No, typically we are not charged $89 by AusPost to ship a rifle, but this is a significant part of the overall cost that also includes;

Cost and Supply of Packing and Wrapping Materials?

We use good quality packaging when shipping firearms.

Too often we receive poorly packed and wrapped guns from other dealers around the country, this makes us strive to be the best at what we do.

If you choose to ship a firearm through us, you can be assured that the gun you are shipping will be received on the other end in good order.

Brokerage and Regulatory Bookwork?

Queensland Weapons Regulation 2016 sets a fee payable for the brokerage of firearms by a Licensed Firearms Dealer.

In the context of this example, the brokerage portion of the $89 Firearm Shipping Cost, would be $22 Incl. GST.

In the simplest terms, that is $10 + GST ON to the dealers books and $10 + GST OFF the dealers books.

Staff Costs and Labour Time?

It takes time to wrap, pack & ship a firearm carefully. Whether this takes one of the team 10mins or 30mins, your flat rate $89 for Firearms Postage and Handling remains the same.

How Do We Compare?

Another important aspect of undertaking this review was to know how we compared among other dealers across Australia.

The Process:

A phone call was placed to the advertised telephone number and a standard script was used to make this somewhat fair and comparable

“I have sold a rifle on OzGunSales and need to ship it to a dealer in Sydney. How much do you charge to broker and ship a rifle?”

The request for a quote in every example was for a rifle that when packaged would NOT exceed 105cm.

Six dealers in SE QLD were contacted and asked the same question.

Five dealers in New South Wales were contacted and asked a similar question with a variable for guns received and sent through their business. 

The Results

It was dis-heartening to hear the following when calling a South East Queensland Firearm Dealer:

“Tell them $79 and we will charge them $129 when they get here with it” is exactly what was heard by our caller when the person answering the phone queried another staff member without covering the phone or placing our call on hold.

This was after spending 10 minutes waiting for someone to actually answer.

Another separate dealer quoted “$35 Freight and $100 Brokerage”

As you can see from the chart below, there is a spread among the varying dealers surveyed. Yes, we are the cheapest, but this result is actually surprising. 

We don’t mean to be the cheapest, it just happens that we looked closely at “fair and reasonable” and took into consideration that we aren’t here to make a profit from offering this service. 

By encouraging shooters to choose to ship their firearms through the team at the On Target Sporting Arms store in Keperra, we have the chance to wow you with our service and product offerings and to hopefully retain your business by being able to meet your needs in the future.

South East Queensland Firearm Dealers

NSW ResearchThis is an interesting one. For Queenslanders selling or disposing firearms to New South Wales, their fees and charges for the postage and handling of firearms differ again. If you have a brand new gun shipped to your nominated New South Wales dealer, you might pay more than if they were receiving a Used Gun. Shipping a gun from a New South Wales dealer to a Queensland dealer is quite comparable. 

In Summary

On reflection and understanding of the costs associated, $89 becomes a very reasonable price to charge for the service that we’re offering.

This cost to you the consumer is often not taken into consideration when selling a firearm privately. 

While it might look from the outside like you might make a few extra dollars by selling your gun to someone in New South Wales, when you take everything into consideration and look at it objectively you might find it’s not worth the hassle to begin with.