I used to be firearms manager at their (2008) shortlived Allen Park, MI store. All ordering was done centrally. They hardly sent us any S&W 642s even though they were flying off the shelves. They told me that our inventory was modeled after their Wisconsin stores. The only problem was that at that time, Wisconsin didn't allow concealed carry so the gun wasn't popular there.
Sounds like they need a real Data Scientist to help them with their inventory control.
Or someone with local knowledge. We were also real heavy with musky lures, which isn't a big thing around here. Slug guns were in short supply, too.
A real DS dosn't need local knowledge. He can correlate complementary item that sell well locally to know what to, and not to stock. I've always contended that's a good part of the reason Gandermountain went out of business. They stocked all they stores as if the whole country was Minnesota.
But listening to your end users also helps....
