For a business built on precision, the shooting industry has been surprisingly imprecise when it comes to understanding what customers actually want.

That’s changing.

Slowly, maybe painfully, we’re seeing companies shift away from “because we think it’s cool” design decisions and toward product development rooted in real-world data—like point-of-sale trends and how gear holds up under live fire at the range.

And here’s the hard truth: the companies that don’t make this shift? They’re going to get left behind, buried under SKUs nobody asked for and inventory that retailers can’t move.

In the current slow summer sales cycle, we’re already seeing deeply discounted pricing on products—the kind of pricing that screams, this ain’t moving and we need to clear out stagnant inventory.

POS Data: It’s More Than Just Sales Numbers

Everybody loves a good sell-through chart. “Look, we moved 4,000 units last quarter!”

Okay, great. But what specifically moved? Which pistol lights are getting bundled with subcompacts? What calibers are drying up faster than the distributor can restock them? And what accessory lines are dealers quietly dumping because they’re dead weight?

Smart suppliers aren’t just counting numbers—they’re dissecting them. The ones plugged into their distributor portals, their e-comm dashboards, and their retailers’ POS systems are spotting patterns—patterns that influence what stays in the catalog and what goes away.

Seeing these patterns and helping manufacturers respond faster to take advantage of them over the next six months is where suppliers can provide valuable input.

What the Range Tells You That Retail Won’t

POS data shows what sells. Range data shows what actually gets used.

We’re talking about wear patterns from holsters. Hardware that loosens up after 1,000 reps. Performance degradation over time or high round counts. Stuff you don’t see in the boardroom—or missed in development—becomes obvious the minute a product hits the line at a training facility.

Suppliers partnering with instructors, academies, or LE agencies are getting feedback in ways lab tests can’t replicate. You learn real fast whether that “ergonomic redesign” works when a shooter’s running it for several hours in 100+ degree heat—or if it’s just marketing fluff.

More than a few product changes have been made thanks to feedback that came not from the engineering and development team, but from end users. This is because despite all the time and testing that goes into a product, the R&D team cannot catch everything, or account for every possible variable.

That’s one of the reasons that smart companies take pre-production samples and put them into the hands of trusted experts outside the company with the request to simply, “break it if you can.”

The Companies Winning Are the Ones Asking Better Questions

Here’s what this boils down to: the brands pulling ahead in this slower, more cautious market aren’t the ones with the flashiest booths at SHOT or the slickest influencer videos. They’re the ones paying attention.

They’re asking questions like:

• Which gear comes back broken—or never comes back at all?
• What SKUs surge after a new firearm release?
• What do new shooters buy in the first six months? What do they ignore?

Answer those and you’re no longer guessing. You’re designing to match behavior—not assumptions.

Gut Feeling Isn’t Dead—But It’s Not Enough

Look, this is still an industry driven by experience, by gut instinct, by people who live the lifestyle and know what works. That’s not going away anytime soon.

But if your product roadmap still relies only on what “feels right,” you’re playing with a blindfold on. The market is tighter. Inventory is more expensive to carry. Margins are thinner. And shelf space—especially at the big box level—is earned, not given.

So here’s the challenge: Get closer to your data. Talk to your dealers. Partner with ranges. Find out what your customers are really doing with your gear. Then build the stuff that meets them there.

There’s more and more data available as more companies enter the analytics arena. While no one source is the be-all, end-all, collectively they offer a more detailed picture of the market and consumer trends.

In this business, it’s not just about making something good. It’s about making something they actually use.

And the data? It’s trying to tell you exactly what that is.

— Paul Erhardt, Managing Editor, the Outdoor Wire Digital Network