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Industry
Firearms & Accessories
About the Company
From firearms and accessories to gunsmithing and Cerakote, shop at Rifle Supply handles it all confidently.
Challenge
Rifle Supply was stuck managing thousands of SKUs manually, with no scalable way to grow. An outdated FTP setup failed, and they lacked the tools to expand their catalog or automate supplier feeds.
Results
Flxpoint helped Rifle Supply grow to 40,000 SKUs, save weeks of manual work, and generate up to $90K in monthly passive income.
“I went line by line… whatever the inventory number was and cost value was, I calculated it and was blown away by how much that was worth— $300 million worth of product that I added to our web store.”
When Chris Mekdara joined Rifle Supply as Director of ecommerce, he walked into a brand ready for its next chapter. Known for its top-notch custom gunsmithing and a refreshingly approachable retail experience, Rifle Supply had built strong roots in California. But Chris had a different vision for the future: national scale through smart ecommerce growth.
When Chris Mekdara joined Rifle Supply as Director of ecommerce, he walked into a brand ready for its next chapter. Known for its top-notch custom gunsmithing and a refreshingly approachable retail experience, Rifle Supply had built strong roots in California. But Chris had a different vision for the future: national scale through smart ecommerce growth.
Expanding Firearms Ecommerce Beyond Local Retail
Chris's role at Rifle Supply touches nearly every part of the customer journey. From ecommerce strategy to tech stack management to customer experience, he is hands-on in steering the brand’s digital expansion.
“My role here is kind of like a growth role, but mainly what I'm responsible for is our ecommerce team, stack, also customer experience,” he says.
Rifle Supply had already differentiated itself locally with services like laser engraving, cerakote coating, and a no-ego gun shop environment—a rarity in the industry. But Chris knew that to grow, they needed to bring that same standout experience to an online audience across the U.S.
“The biggest priority within ecommerce is expanding our product feed. Dropshipping capabilities are just pretty much offering a one-stop shop,” he explains.
Expanding their digital product catalog would allow Rifle Supply to serve a nationwide customer base without being limited by physical inventory.
How Rifle Supply Replaced Manual Workflows with Ecommerce Automation
At the beginning of this journey, Rifle Supply’s backend operations were extremely manual—and incredibly risky at scale.
“We attempted to use, you know, an old-fashioned FTP feed into BigCommerce. And we did try it and ended up messing up everything,” Chris recalls.
With just 8,000 SKUs, the manual approach was already straining resources. Growing past that would have been unsustainable without help. Now, things are different. “We're about to onboard another 25,000 products. So we’ll essentially [have] like 35-40,000 SKUs on our website,” Chris shares.
Even something as simple as manually updating product titles used to be a time sink. “Updating the titles for 5,000 products took us about a month to do,” Chris admits.
“Flxpoint honestly owns that for us [now] and an exercise that would normally take like a week to do, Flxpoint allows us to do that in like a matter of mere minutes.”
With Flxpoint, that month-long project now happens in just minutes, freeing up his team to focus on strategic initiatives instead of getting stuck in the weeds.
Driving Passive Revenue with Automated Dropshipping Solutions
The move to automation wasn’t just about working smarter it fundamentally changed the financial model of the business. “During our like validation phase, it was obviously like a scaled approach… it went to 50 and then it every month — it's doubled, you know, and we're kind of plateaued right now at roughly around three to 400 orders that are being processed. And these are just, by the way, our drop ship or distributor feed orders,” Chris explains.
He continued: “Yeah, no, I think we plateaued at around 400 orders currently, but honestly just generating an average of like anywhere from $50 to like $90,000 passive income monthly. I think that's the perspective that, you know, we need to look at it [from].”
But even more impressive was what Chris discovered after running the numbers on the newly expanded catalog.
“I went line by line… whatever the inventory number was and cost value was, I calculated it and I was blown away by how much, you know, that was worth,” he shares. “It was $300 million worth of product that I added to our web store.”
For Chris, the takeaway was clear: “That’s $300 million we didn’t have to buy in inventory.”
By leveraging distributor feeds with Flxpoint, Rifle Supply is able to offer an enormous assortment without the capital burden of buying inventory upfront, positioning the brand for national reach without national warehouse costs.
Why Scalable and Flexible Ecommerce Tools Matter in Firearms Retail
Chris is a big believer that technology decisions made today must align with where you want to go tomorrow. That mindset shaped his search for the right automation partner.
“I was tasked with finding a very viable drop shipping partner… and then we landed on Flxpoint,” he explains.
He evaluated over a dozen different vendors but kept returning to the same realization: all-in-one platforms might seem easy upfront, but they often create bottlenecks later.
“You're literally handcuffed to [all-in-one] platforms,” Chris warns. “When you do decide to segue out… it’s gonna cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars — depending on what your business size and volume is.”
Thanks to Flxpoint, Rifle Supply found a better way.
“We were able to seamlessly integrate dropshipping into our existing tech stack without being locked into a single ecosystem.”
This flexibility gives his team total control over how and when they scale—without the costly rip-and-replace headaches.
Scaling Product Listings and Pricing with Inventory Automation
When you're managing 40,000 SKUs, small inefficiencies can snowball into massive problems. Flxpoint’s automation tools allow Chris’s team to manage product listings, inventory, and pricing dynamically as conditions change.
“Our vendors and our distributors… their costs are raising. So we can’t operate at a loss,” he says.
Manually adjusting thousands of product prices would have been an impossible task. But with Flxpoint, “we can [adjust pricing] in a matter of mere minutes,” Chris shares.
Automation has also helped Chris build a stronger internal culture around technology. “I think for anybody out there who manages anyone in tech, it's just like, think of it as whoever's in charge of your tech stack is managing over 30 different tools — if one of those, one of those tools tends to break or there's something wrong, guess what? That's your business, right,” he notes. “Another way to look at it is, anyone that's using those tools to operate or to perform their day to day is, you know, they're my customers internally, right? So that's how I kind of like to paint the landscape here.”
It's a powerful shift: technology isn’t just about efficiency—it’s about empowering the team to deliver better experiences.
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What Seamless Software Onboarding Looks Like with Flxpoint
Onboarding a new software platform can be daunting—but Chris’s experience with Flxpoint was anything but.
He doesn’t hesitate to explain his experience. “Huge shout out to Adam and Justin. They walked me through the entire process [and] made sure I was confident on what was being implemented.”
Rather than rushing deployment, the Flxpoint team took the time to align with Rifle Supply’s phased rollout plan. “They were very, very considerate about, you know, each milestone that I had for this rollout because I didn't want to just go all in. I'm not the type of person that just wants to throw the ball from fricking one end zone to the other end zone,” he notes. “[The Flxpoint team was] very, very considerate of that. And I really, really appreciate that.”
“Their support and their patience, throughout everything was seamless. It allowed me to obviously learn the platform and navigate it inside and out.”
What’s Next: Warehouse Management and Future Ecommerce Growth Plans
With the dropshipping foundation firmly in place, Chris has his sights set on the next frontier: warehouse automation.
“What I'm really excited for is just the whole warehousing automation,” he tells Ben, after talking through the steps that led to getting to that stage of automation. “[It] was really mind blowing that Flxpoint can manage that for us.”
The ability to manage both distributed and owned inventory through a single platform is a major advantage—especially in an industry where customer expectations around delivery speed keep climbing.
Chris is particularly impressed by Flxpoint’s long-term thinking. “Usually when you hear automation, it’s like, crap, what's going to break downstream?” he shares with a laugh. “I love that Flxpoint has also really thought out not just like that immediate, you know, that immediate work or process or step that you need automated — but all the way downstream. You're not going to have to worry about anything breaking. ”
Ecommerce Tips from Rifle Supply’s Director of Ecommerce
For retailers thinking about scaling their ecommerce operations, Chris offers clear advice: plan ahead.
“Know where you want to go. That’s the biggest tip,” he shares.
He also shares a few tactical tips for getting the most out of Flxpoint: “I would say, understand, you know, your source, your catalog, and then the three different major buckets understand that really well. Navigate through them very frequently. Use filters like crazy. It helps you manage everything a lot easier. Save customizable views. I like looking at different properties or whatever data is available. That helps out a lot.”
Perhaps most importantly, Chris encourages new users to invest time in learning automation early: “I think the biggest thing is [to] hop on a call with Adam or Justin, or the team. Take a deep dive and have someone walk you through the automation and workflows so you can really tweak your efficiencies because that can drastically improve your process once you get it dialed in.”
Choosing the Right Ecommerce Platform to Grow Your Firearms Business
Chris knows that choosing the right technology partner is about more than software features—it's about setting your business up for real, sustainable growth.
“Hire someone who's experienced or partner with an agency or consultant that's experienced and just make sure your goals are aligned,” he says. “There’s a lot out there… it can be very, very confusing.”
Thanks to the right automation tools—and the right team—Rifle Supply is now positioned for national growth without compromising on what made it great in the first place.
“Yeah. Let Flxpoint, you know, let Flxpoint manage that [manual work] for you and automate that for you,” Chris summarizes at the end.
Ready to grow your product catalog, simplify fulfillment, and turn inventory automation into passive revenue? Let's talk!
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