In the six years since I decided to launch The Outdoor Wire, industry and our readers have helped us shape our services to fit the needs they identified. From those needs came the Shooting Wire and The Fishing Wire. They were created to give “more” – information, features, calendar events, and competition coverage to those particular affinity groups.

Over the past year, we’ve been asking readers and industry figures what they would like to see in the “more” category. And to that end, we were proud to announce The Dealer Wire earlier this week. It’s not a general-readership service. In fact, it’s a service that’s designed to bring confidential information to the supply chain of the industry: manufacturers, distributors and dealers.

It’s a departure from our general theory of information for everyone, but we were trying to be responsive. And we’ve been surprised at the response.

The Dealer Wire announcement on Monday unleashed a flood of emails and phone calls from industry leaders excited at the prospect of a new line of communication to the vast outdoor dealer community. Included in those emails were several from dealers eager to get the latest news specific to their business. 

"The Dealer Wire will be a big help in our efforts to keep up with the various manufacturer announcements on new programs and products. Every dealer should take advantage of this new service, and every manufacturer should utilize it," said Carl Ingrao of Four Seasons Firearms in Woburn, MA.

 The Dealer Wire also picked up its first major sponsor, Smith & Wesson, who saw the new service as the ideal way to reach dealers with vital business information.

 "Smith & Wesson is always looking for ways to strengthen communications with our extensive network of dealers and the new Dealer Wire will give us a greater ability to instantly update dealers on new products and consumer programs," said Paul Pluff, Director of Marketing/Customer Services for Smith & Wesson.

"The Outdoor and Shooting Wires are the one-stop source for the most up-to-date news and information for the outdoor industry. Both the Outdoors & Shooting Wire have become a daily must read for anyone who wants to keep up with what is happening at every segment of outdoors and shooting sports community. We see no reason that the Dealer Wire won’t quickly achieve that same must read status with dealers and for that reason we welcome the addition of the new Dealer Wire."

We’ll keep you posted as we progress toward our launch date. In the meantime, you can contact me at jim@theoutdoorwire.com if you would like more information.

What’s next? I won’t give it away – yet- but I will tell you to watch this space over the next few days. There’s plenty more to come.

As always, we’ll keep you posted.

Have a great weekend. Get outside, and take someone with you.