RetailBI | Gearfire | independent comparison
RetailBI vs Betsy: what sold vs what people typed
Using RetailBI? Read this first
Three questions "what sold" cannot answer
- Unmet language - what shoppers asked for that returned nothing in stock
- Pre-sale heat - rising interest that has not sold through yet
- Multi-dealer hunt - how people search across aggregators and store sites, not one register
Searching for RetailBI, Retail BI, or the RetailBI Firearm Sales Index? This page explains how Gearfire RetailBI reports what sold - and contrasts that with Betsy Demand Intelligence from Coriolis. Not affiliated with Gearfire.
Two products talk about "demand." They do not measure the same thing. RetailBI reports guns that sold at the register or online on a firearms dealer software network. Its public Firearm Sales Index is same-store adjusted new-firearm unit sales - a register series, not a search series.
Betsy Demand Intelligence reports what people typed while searching on free search tools - GunSearchEngine, GunSearchAgent on the dealer site, and the sales floor where live. Brands buy the rollup; free search tools are how the search data shows up.
RetailBI reports what sold. This reports what people asked for. We are not affiliated with Gearfire or RetailBI. RetailBI and Gearfire are their marks.
What is RetailBI?
RetailBI is Gearfire's product for what sold. It pulls register and online sales from dealers on their network and publishes a monthly Index of new guns sold at the same stores as last year. Coriolis is not affiliated with Gearfire or RetailBI. RetailBI and Gearfire are their marks.
RetailBI (also written Retail BI) is Gearfire's product for what sold in the firearms and outdoor retail industry. Gearfire's public marketing describes a large network of FFL dealers (they have said roughly two thousand-plus reporting stores). Brands use it for what sold, category trends, geography, and share.
RetailBI sits next to Gearfire POS, ecommerce, and payments. Own-store reporting has been offered as a free benefit to those POS users. Brands and distributors buy network-level RetailBI and the monthly Index.
The headline public metric is the RetailBI Firearm Sales Index (Same-Store Adjusted): monthly percent change in new firearm unit sales from the same set of stores that report, built to avoid treating NICS background-check volume as if it were new-gun sell-through.
How RetailBI gets its numbers
Dealers -> sales -> brand reports
- Dealers run Gearfire POS, ecommerce, and payments (own-store reporting has been offered free to those POS users).
- Sales happen at the register and online.
- Those sales feed RetailBI.
- The network rollup powers brand reports plus the same-store Index.
- Brands subscribe for what sold, share, category, and inventory planning.
From Gearfire's public pages. Coriolis is not affiliated.
How Demand Intelligence gets its numbers
Search -> what they typed -> Demand Intelligence
- Free multi-dealer search on GunSearchEngine plus free GunSearchAgent embeds and My Betsy floor utility.
- Shoppers ask for calibers, brands, loads, and models in natural language on GunSearchEngine, on dealer sites via GunSearchAgent, and on the floor where My Betsy is live.
- Searches become clean daily totals - not a pile of chat logs.
- Dealers get free search notes on their own site. More shops install -> better coverage of what people type.
- Brands and distributors subscribe to Demand Intelligence for full-market anonymized demand, the API, and (on Platform) asking questions inside tools they already use.
Coriolis | see How Betsy trains Betsy
Side by side
| Dimension | RetailBI (Gearfire) | Betsy Demand Intelligence |
|---|---|---|
| Where the numbers come from | Guns that sold at the register or online | What people typed and clicked while searching |
| How those numbers show up | Dealers run Gearfire POS, ecommerce, and payments | Shoppers search free on GunSearchEngine; dealers put free GunSearchAgent on their site; floor tool where live |
| Who has to be in the mix | Dealers on their network who report sales | Shoppers plus web search, dealer-site search, and floor search where live |
| Which stores / which market | Same stores as last year for the Index, so openings and closings do not skew the trend | Full-market anonymized demand on Demand Intelligence plans (not limited to your brand); how sessions are counted is in the docs |
| What "demand" means here | Units sold - for the Index, new firearm unit sales only | What people tried to find - including empty searches that never become a sale |
| When you see it | After the sale - closed periods and the monthly Index | While they search - daily Eastern Time windows and live samples |
| NICS | Gearfire's public stance: NICS is a weak stand-in for new-gun sales; register sales are better for that. | We may show public FBI NICS counts as industry context only - never as sales, never as a live check. |
| How often it updates | Monthly Index plus dashboards and occasional executive reports | Ongoing in the portal and API; on Platform, ask inside Grok, Claude, or Cursor |
| Who pays for what | Brands pay for network sales reports; Gearfire's dealer software is how the sales data shows up | Brands pay for Demand Intelligence; free search tools are how the search data shows up |
| What it is not | Not a shopper search tool | Not a register; not a same-store sales Index |
RetailBI Index methodology
The RetailBI Firearm Sales Index (Same-Store Adjusted) is Gearfire's monthly percent-change in new firearm unit sales from selected stores that report. It is a sales series from the register, not a search series, and it is not NICS.
From Gearfire's public description of the Firearm Sales Index (Same-Store Adjusted) - educational summary only.
- Compile point-of-sale and ecommerce transactions from carefully selected stores that report
- Isolate new firearm sales (not used guns, transfers, or NICS noise)
- Same-store adjust using stores that started reporting in the same window so openings, closures, and dealers joining or leaving do not distort the series
- Report percentage change versus prior month, year-to-date, and/or prior year
- Publish a monthly Firearm Sales Index (subscribers historically first, then broader release)
Cited public print: March 2026 Index -11.9% year-over-year; -8.2% YTD (Outdoor Wire, 13 Apr 2026) - as publicly reported - not our number. Index literacy: RetailBI Firearm Sales Index.
Betsy demand methodology
How Demand Intelligence counts searches - full detail in the product docs and API docs.
- At most one count per search session per kind of term (caliber, brand, type, load, use)
- SKU heat from search, product-card clicks, and views against the live catalog
- Unmet demand = searches that ran and returned nothing in stock matched on feeds that are linked
- Daily Eastern Time rollups for multi-day windows; short windows use a labeled live sample
- Brand data exports strip emails, session ids, seller hosts, and product URLs
What each can see that the other structurally cannot
What sold (RetailBI-class)
- Confirmed unit movement at the register
- Same-store year-over-year unit performance
- Inventory pressure inferred from completed sales
- Share of sales inside their dealer network
What they typed (Betsy-class)
- Shopper language before a purchase exists
- Rising interest that has not sold through yet
- Unmet demand - asked for, not found in live stock
- Multi-dealer hunt patterns across aggregators and store sites
- Channel: search aggregator vs dealer website vs sales floor
Teams that already buy network sell-through still lack what people typed before a sale - including demand that never hits a receipt. Teams that buy search demand still need what sold at the register for production and sell-through planning. Different numbers. Different questions.
NICS is a third thing
Gearfire's public Index thesis argues NICS mixes permits, used guns, transfers, multi-gun checks, and denials into a weak stand-in for new firearm sales - and that same-store register and online new-gun units fix that for sell-through. That argument is about sales measurement.
Betsy's Demand Intelligence product is not an NICS replacement and not a sales index. We may show public FBI NICS check counts as industry context only. Demand for brands is what shoppers searched for - including what they could not find. Longer three-number split: NICS vs firearm sales.
Where to go next
Demand Intelligence
Plans, demo, and apply
Enterprise API
API: unmet, rising, sessions, export
Where searches are counted
Web | dealer site | floor
Firearm Sales Index
What the Index is (and is not) - not NICS, not search
NICS vs firearm sales
Checks | register units | the ask
Brand demand analytics
Jobs "what sold" cannot answer
How Demand Intelligence works
Searches to portal, API, and Platform ask
Investor framing: /investors. Live anonymized pulse: /betsy-live. Dealers who want the free agent on the dealer site: GunSearchAgent.com.
Different businesses, different numbers
RetailBI and Betsy Demand Intelligence both serve firearms brands that need better decisions. They do not measure the same thing. One adds up register sales from a dealer software network. The other adds up what people typed across search tools. Use the number that matches the question - or use both for what sold and what people typed.
Next steps for brands
FAQ
- What is RetailBI?
- RetailBI is Gearfire's product for what sold. It pulls register and online sales from dealers on their network and publishes a monthly Index of new guns sold at the same stores as last year. Coriolis is not affiliated with Gearfire or RetailBI. RetailBI and Gearfire are their marks.
- What is the RetailBI Firearm Sales Index?
- The RetailBI Firearm Sales Index (Same-Store Adjusted) is Gearfire's monthly percent-change in new firearm unit sales from selected stores that report. It is a sales series from the register, not a search series, and it is not NICS.
- Who makes RetailBI?
- RetailBI is a Gearfire product. Gearfire (gogearfire.com) provides firearms retail technology including Gearfire POS, ecommerce, and payments. Own-store reporting has been offered as a free benefit to those POS users. Coriolis does not operate RetailBI.
- How do they get the numbers?
- Public materials describe RetailBI as flowing from dealer register and online sales on the Gearfire network. Own-store reporting has been offered as a free benefit to those POS users; network rollups and the monthly Index support brand and distributor reports.
- How does Betsy Demand Intelligence get its numbers?
- Coriolis runs free multi-dealer product search (GunSearchEngine) and free dealer website agents (GunSearchAgent), plus the sales floor (My Betsy). Shopper questions become structured, anonymized demand. Dealers get store-scoped demand for free; brands and distributors subscribe to Demand Intelligence for full-market aggregates, privacy-safe sessions, the API, and (on Platform) asking questions inside tools they already use.
- RetailBI vs Betsy Demand Intelligence - what's the difference?
- RetailBI measures completed sell-through (what sold at the register). Betsy Demand Intelligence measures search intent (what shoppers asked for, including empty searches). Different sources, different products. Neither replaces the other for every planning question.
- Is Betsy a POS analytics competitor to RetailBI?
- No. Different source. RetailBI-class tools measure completed sell-through from retail systems. Betsy measures search intent from search on the web and dealer sites. We do not replace the register, and we do not publish a same-store new-firearm unit-sales index.
- Does Betsy replace NICS or the RetailBI Firearm Sales Index?
- No. Gearfire's public stance is that NICS is a weak stand-in for new-gun sales and that register sales are better for that. Betsy's demand product is search intent. We may show public FBI NICS check counts as industry context only - never as sales, never as a live check.
- Why does free dealer software matter to brand demand data?
- Free search on more dealer sites means more real shopper language and live stock in the mix. That same anonymized signal is what Demand Intelligence packages for brands. How the loop works is documented on How Betsy trains Betsy and where searches are counted.
- Is this page affiliated with Gearfire or RetailBI?
- No. Coriolis, LLC builds Betsy, GunSearchEngine, and GunSearchAgent. RetailBI and Gearfire are separate products and companies. Descriptions of RetailBI here are based on publicly described capabilities for an educational comparison of how each product gets its numbers only.
RetailBI and Gearfire are marks of their respective owners. This page is an independent educational comparison of how each product gets its numbers by Coriolis, LLC. Network size, Index figures, and product details for RetailBI are taken from public marketing and press materials and may change. Betsy is not ATF/4473 compliance software and does not replace POS systems. Compliance notes live in our product docs.