Shortage of Supply?

[Old Guy]

Sorry if this is a noob question but, I have been looking at quite a few airsoft suppliers and there are so many which show 'Out of Stock' notices on the majority of their stock lines. It makes me ask: is demand outstripping supply or are these supposed 'stock lines' speculative leaders waiting for demand? Half the rifles I might want to buy can't be had, it seems.

 

[AK47frizzle]

Well, most people aren't buying atm, so it makes no sense for them to buy or hold stock that won't sell.

 

[EDcase]

I'd guess that since most of the stock comes from the East, supplies have been delayed or even stopped because of COVID

 

[Jedi_Master]

No, many websites are just whores and asshats, they show you pretty pictures of guns to lure you through the door and have no stock. Hoping you will buy something else, or order and wait. Would not be so bad if they had better webpages to make selecting in-stock guns easier.

 

[EDcase]

To be fair, all online shops work the same way. (I do appreciate the ones which have the option to hide out of stock)

The question is; Has COVID reduced the supply of items to the UK...?

I think it has, so there is less stock in the UK right now

 

[DrAlexanderTobacco]

No, many websites are just whores and asshats, they show you pretty pictures of guns to lure you through the door and have no stock. Hoping you will buy something else, or order and wait. Would not be so bad if they had better webpages to make selecting in-stock guns easier.

Shoutout to Fire Support for having a quick way to filter out all the OOS stuff.

 

[Enid_Puceflange]

No, many websites are just whores and asshats, they show you pretty pictures of guns to lure you through the door and have no stock. Hoping you will buy something else, or order and wait. Would not be so bad if they had better webpages to make selecting in-stock guns easier.

I also noticed that typically , the thing you are searching for is normally out of stock at the place showing it at the lowest price

Again, trying to fool you into the “everything is that cheap” it’s safe to buy from us trick ?

 

[Adolf Hamster]

No, many websites are just whores and asshats, they show you pretty pictures of guns to lure you through the door and have no stock. Hoping you will buy something else, or order and wait. Would not be so bad if they had better webpages to make selecting in-stock guns easier.

Qft

Really annoys me, but then i suppose these days if i'm buying i want something very specific so its fine.

 

[EDcase]

A trick I use which doesn't solve the problem but does help is to put '-out' in the google search

In case you don't know, anything after - will be removed from a search.

What really annoys me and lots of retailers do is to lower the price of out of stock items

 

[Heath]

There's a certain website which shows things as being in stock on google, only to have them available to pre-order when you go onto their website. It's a fairly scummy tactic to get clicks through to their website. 

 

[FreeFrag.UK]

One thing to consider is that this is a niche hobby with a limited following, as such I've noticed that restock of products seems to be done on a cycle. This is obviously based on normal conditions and something I picked up on since starting the hobby while hunting for specific guns/manufacturers. My personal experience of this was when I was looking for a specific LCT AK and while searching for a specific ICS model, both of which were listed as out of stock on Fire-Support's website. After a discussion with Fire-Support I was made aware that they were awaiting restock but it was down to waiting for the container ship to arrive and clear customs.

Given a lot of stuff comes out of Hong Kong and Taiwan, I'd expect for a lot of products to remain out of stock for quite some time under the current circumstances.

As far as website design and features go Fire-Support, as highlighted by @DrAlexanderTobacco, is definitely one of the better ones due to the ability to feature out of stock products.

It really depends what it is you're looking for. There are a number of accessories and attachments which I've been after for quite a while but I'm yet to see them come back in stock. I'm at the stage of wondering if some of what I'm after has in-fact been discontinued or if it's just a case of low levels of depend render it non-viable to restock.

 

[sonofsammo]

www.airsoftdb.com is handy for searching for stuff that's in stock (you just tick a box), across multiple retailers. You can search by country as well, or worldwide.
It's not as good as it was (mainly because of the aforementioned googlecheating), but it's still my go-to site for stuff to start with.