Iron Valley vs Sports South

What each one lists most of

Iron Valley and Sports South 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, Ammunition, Optic and Other 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.

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?

Sports South lists 58,612 distinct UPCs to Iron Valley's 19,967 — about 2.9× the breadth. 13,518 UPCs are carried by both — 68% of what Iron Valley lists and 23% of what Sports South lists. Beyond that overlap, 6,449 UPCs appear on Iron Valley alone and 45,094 on Sports South alone. If you open one account, Sports South is the wider of the two on its own — it leaves 6,449 UPCs unreachable, against 45,094 if you open Iron Valley instead. Carrying both reaches 65,061 distinct UPCs, 6,449 more than Sports South covers alone. The largest category in both lists is Firearm — Sports South lists 14,458 there to Iron Valley's 8,039. Over the window we monitor, the Iron Valley feed answered us 100% of the time and the Sports South 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 Iron Valley dealer account — SFTP credentials are dealer-specific; the catalog will not appear on the hub until you've connected your own login. As a file-drop connection, catalog and stock updates land on Iron Valley's schedule rather than on demand.
• Apply for a Sports South dealer account — Web-service access is a separate step from the account and is granted per dealer; ask for it when the account is activated. The catalog is large enough that a first full sync takes noticeably longer than for any other distributor.

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.