Jeremy Dugger

Xpert Archery

Farmington, New Mexico

It’s a tough category, for sure. Left-handed bows make up such a small percentage of our bow sales. Of 100 bow sales, I’d say 10 are left-handed bows.

We usually stock the bare minimum because we’re authorized to sell most of the high-end brands — Hoyt, Mathews, PSE, Prime, Elite and Bowtech. To guess which make and model a left-handed customer will buy in that price range is a bit risky. So is guessing which color he or she will pick. We feel like we never have the right one, which is why we order lightly in the left-handed category. The few we have on hand are almost always very adjustable for draw length, which reduces the risk to some level.

In our area, left-handed youth bows move faster than left-handed adult bows. It might be because we generally stock only highly adjustable youth bows such as Diamond’s Infinite Edge or PSE’s Stinger Max. Many shops don’t offer left-handed bows at all, so customers struggle to find a place where they can go and test one. Here, they can test one of our adjustable models, and then if they want to order a high-end bow in their specs and a specific color, we can do that.

It seems that manufacturers ship left-handed bows slightly slower than right-handed bows. Of course, some right-handed bows take a long time to ship, too, when they’re initially brought to market. Maybe a brand-new right-handed bow takes 6 weeks to come in, where a left-handed one takes 7 weeks. Both take a long time, but in general, lefties usually take a bit longer.

Some years, I get suckered into bringing in a few high-end left-handed bows. We usually order them in black since it’s a versatile neutral color that’s fairly popular. Whenever we do bring in a few, we usually have at least one leftover. With these, we discount the prices and blow them out.       

Brittany Dill

Fort Grard Guns & Archery

Weatherford, Texas

 We keep numerous left-handed bows in stock, plus we have a special rack dedicated to nothing but them. Many of our competitors only special-order left-handed bows, and that can irritate left-handed folks. Like right-handed archers, they want a place to test-shoot bows and sometimes will even purchase a bow that same day. We make that possible.

We tend to carry more left-handed bows in the adult category. The few that we carry in the youth category are grow-with-you-models. These accommodate young children all the way up to young adults. 

Unlike many bow shops, we make it a point to offer a mix of everything for our left-handed customers. For example, the Elite Kure and Prime Black Series bows are very adjustable and will fit various archers. However, also have some draw-length specific bows ranging from 27 inches up to 29 inches. We offer various finishes, including black and a few different camo patterns. Our goal is to give our left-handed customers as many options as our right-handed customers.

When we encounter a left-handed customer who wants to special-order a bow, ship times can vary. When new bows are initially released, lead times are usually longer because manufacturers seem to put emphasis on the demand for right-handed models first. However, once a model has been on the market for 3-4 months, ship speeds increase and aren’t too much different than right-handed bows.

At the end of the year, we normally have a few left-handed bows on the rack. We mark them down to a price that’s typically below online prices. We move them out and replace them with newer models.

Lastly, I’ll add that I believe more archery shops should carry left-handed bows. Yes, it’s a little risky, but it gives left-handed customers the ability to try out bows. If you don’t have a left-handed bow for them to try, they’ll probably take their business to a shop that does. If you cover all archers and not merely the right-handed ones, people see and value that.      

Monica Friedmann

Summit Archery Center

Labadie, Missouri

We stock them. We don’t have many, but we like to keep some on hand. We want to give our left-handed customers the ability to try them out.

If I were to guess, I’d say that left-handed bows account for only 4 percent of our bows sales. We typically sell more left-handed adult bows than youth bows. For price ranges, we have some high-end and mid-priced models. Most of our stock left-handed bows are camo. That seems to be the safest and best choice here.

When we special-order left-handed bows, they usually ship within the same timeframe as a right-handed bow. Since we have a few in stock at all times, our customers can test them, but if they need different specs or desire a different finish, we can get them one fairly fast.

Because we order lightly, we don’t usually have more than a couple of left-handed bows still on the shelf when the manufacturers begin releasing their new bows. With the leftovers, moving them out depends on if the model is still being manufactured or not. If it’s been discontinued, we’ll lower the price and try to move it out. If it hasn’t been discontinued, we’ll hang on to it and leave the price tag alone.