Bill Hicks Co vs RSR

What each one lists most of

Bill Hicks Co and RSR describe their catalogs in their own words, and we resolve both against one shared product vocabulary before counting. A category below therefore means the same thing on either side. Each list is that distributor’s own largest categories, counted in active listings.

Firearm, Parts & Components, Optic, Ammunition and Magazine appear in both lists, so those counts can be read against each other directly.

Each list stops at that distributor’s eight largest categories. A category on one list and not the other is one we have not counted here, not one that distributor does not carry.

Where each one will ship it

Taken from each company’s own site on the dates shown on their individual pages. Running a drop-ship programme and naming where the parcel goes are separate questions, and most distributors answer only the first — so “Not stated” below means they have not published it, not that they refuse.

RSR says they drop-ship but does not publish where the parcel goes. Ask them before you promise a customer a delivery address.

Every distributor here ships to your own licensed premises — that is what a wholesale account is, not a policy any one of them publishes. Confirm anything you will act on directly with the distributor.

Which should you open?

Bill Hicks Co lists 30,680 distinct UPCs to RSR's 29,796 — within ten percent of each other. 12,463 UPCs are carried by both — 41% of what Bill Hicks Co lists and 42% of what RSR lists. Beyond that overlap, 18,217 UPCs appear on Bill Hicks Co alone and 17,333 on RSR alone. If you open one account, Bill Hicks Co is the wider of the two on its own — it leaves 17,333 UPCs unreachable, against 18,217 if you open RSR instead. Carrying both reaches 48,013 distinct UPCs, 17,333 more than Bill Hicks Co covers alone. The largest category in both lists is Firearm — Bill Hicks Co lists 13,941 there to RSR's 8,311. Over the window we monitor, the Bill Hicks Co feed answered us 100% of the time and the RSR feed 99.9%.

This is arithmetic on the counts above, not a recommendation of one company over the other. Which account is worth opening also depends on terms and on what your customers ask for, neither of which is in the catalog data we measure. What each company publishes about shipping destinations is in the table above it.

Applying for a dealer account

• Apply for a Bill Hicks Co dealer account — Breadth is the reason to open this account; if your other distributors are narrow specialists, this is the one that fills the spaces between them.
• Apply for a RSR dealer account — API access for your own store is a separate request after the account is active.

Both links leave this site. Applications are submitted to, reviewed by, and approved by the distributor themselves — Project Parabellum is not part of that process and cannot speed it up or vouch for you.