CMP Update

Via email, here's the whole thing:

LATEST CMP SALES NEWS:

ORDER BACKLOG. Normally, we average receiving 2,000 - 3,000 sales orders per month and ship an order in 2-3 weeks. However, these are not normal times. Since October, 2008 we have been receiving 5,000 - 10,000 orders per month, which is several times normal. As a result, we are very backlogged and running several weeks behind on processing orders. Our staff is working up to 12 hours per day 7 days a week, and only today finished the 4,000 orders we received on 1 December alone (except for those 1 Dec orders with credit card or other problems). Customers with outstanding orders should expect orders to ship approximately 100 days from the date the order was received by CMP. We expect to recover from this surge in another 3-4 months (assuming the number of orders being received drops somewhat).

COMMUNICATION RESPONSE DELAYS. CMP is receiving hundreds of calls a day, as well as hundreds of emails. Each morning there are dozens of voicemails from the night before. Because of the large volume of constant calls in the daytime, it may take a few days for response. We have a state of the art phone system for a company our size, but the volume of calls is causing the system to do unexpected things. We apologize for any delay in responding to emails or telephone calls.

CMP STORES CLOSED 15-31 MARCH, 2009. In addition to the heavy volume of mail and estore orders, the shopping activity at both stores has been significantly higher than last year. As a result, we have had to divert more sales staff than planned from processing mail orders on the days the store is open. Both CMP stores will be closed 15-31 March. The Sales staff at both locations will work on processing mail orders in an effort to quickly reduce the backlog and shorten delivery time.

ORDERS OUT OF SEQUENCE. In normal times, CMP processes sales orders in date sequence as received, regardless of item being ordered. To help reduce the mountain of orders, we are separating the rifle orders from non-rifle orders. We have dedicated two of our staff to process the non-rifle orders without regard to dates of rifle orders still in the queue. This will result in an out of sequence delivery time for many orders, but will reduce the amount of pending orders quickly.

BUY NOW FEATURE ON CMP AUCTION. We have started using the "buy now" feature for selected items on the CMP Auction site. We are listing the M1A1 carbine, one at a time with this feature. Buy now price is $3,000. We will also list some M1A1 carbines for the regular bidding process.

LAKE CITY. .30-06 SOLD OUT. On 20 February, we posted the Lake City .30-06 ammunition as sold out. We fully expect to be able to fill all orders already in house and those in the mail on 20 February. It may take another 100 days to ship some of the orders just received.

NEW CMP DISCUSSION FORUM COMING SOON. CMP has purchased new forum software.
We plan to transition to it in April, 2009. Current member registrations and discussion topics will not be transferred to the new forum. Everyone wishing to post on the new forum will have to register again. Anyone wishing to save any information from the current forum should do so now.

ATTENTION HIGHPOWER AND AIR RIFLE SHOOTERS IN THE SOUTHEAST! The CMP will conduct its second test match for its new National Match Air Rifle discipline at the CMP Competition Center in Anniston, Alabama on 14 March.
If you live in the Southeast U. S. and are interested in an off-season event for highpower rifle shooters or are interested in finding a new recreation-oriented shooting game that is easy to start and promises to be a lot of fun, you are invited to come to Anniston on 14 March.

National Match Air Rifle features two courses of fire similar to the highpower rifle standing and John C. Garand courses of fire. It is shot on reduced high­power 200 and 600-yard targets on 10-meter ranges with air rifles. Provisional rules provide for three rifle classes, sporter, match/precision and AR-type air rifles. The CMP invites both experienced highpower shooters and recreational air gun shooters to try the 14 March test match to learn more about this new rifle discipline and provide feedback to help finalize the rules. The CMP has produced 10-bull paper AR-SR and AR-MR targets that will be used in this match and will be available to shooting clubs. Industry prototype AR style air rifles from Pilkington Competition Equipment and Creedmoor-Anschütz will be available for examination and testing at the match.

o For program and registration information, visit
http://www.odcmp.com/Programs/AirRifle/NMARTestProgram_AN.pdf.

o Register on line for this match
http://clubs.odcmp.com/cgi-bin/matchInfo.cgi?matchID=4281.

· A First Shot On-Line article on the first National Match Air Rifle Test
Match is posted at http://www.odcmp.org/1208/default.asp?page-NMAIR.

Thank you for your support of the CMP in these historic times.

.