Bill Hicks Co vs Zanders
Both catalogs are synced into one shared vocabulary, so the same UPC can be counted on either side and matched across them. Everything below is what we measured in the two feeds — how much each one lists, how much of it is the same product, and what only one of them carries.
| Bill Hicks Co | Zanders | |
|---|---|---|
| Active SKUs | 31,353 | 34,449 |
| Distinct UPCs | 31,350 | 34,449 |
| Shared UPCs (both carry) | 15,982 | |
| Only at this distributor | 15,368 | 18,467 |
| Uptime | 100% | 99.7% |
| Integration | API | FTP |
| Freshness | ||
What each one lists most of
Bill Hicks Co and Zanders 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.
Bill Hicks Co
- Firearm
- 14,352
- Hunting & Outdoors
- 4,926
- Ammunition
- 3,433
- Optic
- 2,606
- Magazine
- 2,019
- Reloading
- 1,545
- Parts & Components
- 1,100
- Suppressor
- 535
Zanders
- Firearm
- 10,275
- Parts & Components
- 5,038
- Ammunition
- 3,252
- Optic
- 2,901
- Magazine
- 2,106
- Hunting & Outdoors
- 1,997
- Reloading
- 1,974
- Tools & Maintenance
- 1,267
Firearm, Parts & Components, Hunting & Outdoors, Ammunition, Optic, Magazine and Reloading 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.
| Bill Hicks Co | Zanders | |
|---|---|---|
| Ships to your store | Yes | Yes |
| Offers drop-shipping | Not stated | Yes source |
| Ships to your customer's FFL | Not stated | Not stated |
| Ships to your customer's address | Not stated | Not stated |
| Ships NFA items to a receiving SOT | Not stated | Not stated |
Zanders 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?
Zanders lists 34,449 distinct UPCs to Bill Hicks Co's 31,350 — within ten percent of each other. 15,982 UPCs are carried by both — 51% of what Bill Hicks Co lists and 46% of what Zanders lists. Beyond that overlap, 15,368 UPCs appear on Bill Hicks Co alone and 18,467 on Zanders alone. If you open one account, Zanders is the wider of the two on its own — it leaves 15,368 UPCs unreachable, against 18,467 if you open Bill Hicks Co instead. Carrying both reaches 49,817 distinct UPCs, 15,368 more than Zanders covers alone. The largest category in both lists is Firearm — Bill Hicks Co lists 14,352 there to Zanders's 10,275. Over the window we monitor, the Bill Hicks Co feed answered us 100% of the time and the Zanders feed 99.7%.
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.
Bill Hicks Co
Bill Hicks & Co. runs a broad catalog that Project Parabellum polls over a dealer API on an automated schedule. Breadth here is a matter of assortment width rather than depth in any one line, so on this hub it shows up as a distributor that has something to say about a lot of different searches. Whether that is worth an account depends on how many narrower distributors you would otherwise be reconciling by hand.
Zanders
G. Zanders runs one of the larger catalogs Project Parabellum syncs, yet unlike the hub's other deep catalogs it reaches Project Parabellum through scheduled FTP file drops rather than a live API. For a dealer weighing distributor options, that pairing is the notable thing about this account: a substantial assortment delivered on a file-drop cadence instead of the on-demand polling that the other large distributors here use.
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 Zanders dealer account — As an FTP file drop, catalog and stock updates arrive on Zanders' schedule rather than on demand. The catalog's size means the first full sync after connecting an account takes noticeably longer than for a smaller distributor, even though updates still arrive as scheduled FTP files rather than on demand.
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.