Primary Arms vs Zanders

What each one lists most of

Primary Arms 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.

Parts & Components, Ammunition, Optic 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.

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 Primary Arms's 811 — about 43× the breadth. 376 UPCs are carried by both — 46% of what Primary Arms lists and 1% of what Zanders lists. Beyond that overlap, 435 UPCs appear on Primary Arms alone and 34,517 on Zanders alone. If you open one account, Zanders is the wider of the two on its own — it leaves 435 UPCs unreachable, against 34,517 if you open Primary Arms instead. Carrying both reaches 35,328 distinct UPCs, 435 more than Zanders covers alone. The largest category in both lists is Parts & Components — Zanders lists 5,063 there to Primary Arms's 216. Over the window we monitor, the Primary Arms feed answered us 99.9% of the time and the Zanders feed 100%.

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 Primary Arms dealer account — The narrow catalog makes this a supplemental source rather than a primary distributor.
• 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.