Online firearms-seller Ammo Inc. plans to offer digital payment processing services to its customers starting in January, the company said in an Oct. 17 press release.

The Scottsdale, Arizona company’s proprietary online payments system will be used on Ammo’s GunBroker.com website, which the company acquired in a $240 million merger last year.

Bringing payment processing in-house will allow the company to cut out “unnecessary and costly” third-party processing relationships, Ammo said in the release. It will create better user experiences for both buyers and sellers, according to Ammo.

“The new service will include secure identification and fraud security tools, voicing, and valuable loyalty programs that support sellers to help them grow their business with data analytics and marketing support we don’t see available within the market,” the company said in the release. 

The fees “will be competitive” with rival pricing in the market, the release also noted.

The company suggested in the release that it may also accept cryptocurrencies, saying there will be support for crypto transactions. Ammo will also give manufacturers the option to highlight products at “brand stores” on the website to market their merchandise, the release said.

Ammo CEO Fred Wagenhals described the website overhaul as the “first in a series of marketplace enhancements” slated for next year, per the release.

In September, Ammo suspended GunBroker Chief Financial Officer Susan Lokey along with Ammo Chief Strategy Officer Steven Urvan for allegedly misappropriating the company’s digital assets and data.

That followed Urvan indicating in August that he planned to nominate a slate of directors, including himself, to replace the current board. He is the founder of GunBroker.com, and he says he’s also Ammo’s largest shareholder, with a 17.1% ownership stake.

In an August letter Urvan sent to Ammo shareholders, he advocated more investment in payments tech for the company, among other proposals.

“We suspect that deploying more capital to customer acquisition, organic category expansion, payment technologies and sustaining a frictionless user interface across screens would yield better returns for shareholders,” Urvan wrote in that letter.

A spokesperson for Urvan could not immediately be reached for comment.

In recent months, firearms payments have garnered more attention. In September, an international standards body approved a new merchant code that will label gun sellers as a category in transactions.

Visa, Mastercard and American Express announced earlier this year that they would place such a merchant code on all firearms sales.

Advocates seeking tighter government restrictions on guns say the new code will make it easier for law enforcement officials to spot suspicious sales. 

The move was denounced by the firearms industry which accused the card companies of harassing law-abiding gun owners in light of the code tracking the merchant, and not the merchandise that was sold.

By Jonathan Berr on Oct 21, 2022
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