Bill Hicks Co vs Zanders

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.

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.

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 34,893 distinct UPCs to Bill Hicks Co's 30,680 — about 1.1× the breadth. 15,910 UPCs are carried by both — 52% of what Bill Hicks Co lists and 46% of what Zanders lists. Beyond that overlap, 14,770 UPCs appear on Bill Hicks Co alone and 18,983 on Zanders alone. If you open one account, Zanders is the wider of the two on its own — it leaves 14,770 UPCs unreachable, against 18,983 if you open Bill Hicks Co instead. Carrying both reaches 49,663 distinct UPCs, 14,770 more than Zanders covers alone. The largest category in both lists is Firearm — Bill Hicks Co lists 13,941 there to Zanders's 10,298. Both feeds answered us 100% of the time over the window we monitor.

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 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.