Hawaii has a long history of people collecting and playing with airsoft guns. During the early eighties brands like JAC, MGC, Maruzen and Kokusai could all be found here. According to the 2000 census, densely populated Oahu has close to 900,000 people on it, a few thousand of which are avid players and collectors. It is here that Peter Do gets his base of support.

In 1998, Power Edge first started as a knife and sword shop. Do started selling airsoft guns in 1999, shortly after one of his customers showed him an airsoft gun. “One of my customers, Alan Nii, brought his Tokyo Marui Desert Eagle in. He showed it to me and I didn’t know what it was at the time. I looked at it and it looked so real.” The next time Alan came by to buy a sword “he showed me a Berretta, and I thought ‘WOW this is nice!’” Peter was hooked, and went searching for information on airsoft guns. Soon after that he started selling “spring guns and mini electrics” at his store.

After a while, Do started getting into repair and, eventually, modification of the airsoft guns he was selling. “Every day people would just bring in their broken guns, and we would figure out what was wrong with them and fix it.”

Do has watched Airsoft grow rapidly in recent years, and he attributes this largely to the presence of groups like Airsoft Hawaii which provide places for people who want Airsoft guns to go and play. “As long as you have a place for people to play, then they don’t mind buying a gun. Most people don’t want to play someplace illegal. If they get caught, they get arrested. You need to have someplace for them to play.”

This is a large part of why Do moved Power Edge from its original tiny space to a much larger location nearby. “I wanted to move over here,” says Do, “because it has a space for an actual CQB (Close Quarters Battles) area.” “I was just taking a chance.” Continues Do, “It gives people a safe place to play. At that time a lot of people were getting in trouble playing where they shouldn’t. An indoor CQB area would be a safe place for them to try out their guns. That’s why I decided to try and get a space where it’s legal.”

One of the hard parts of getting the CQB area going was figuring out how much to charge. “I didn’t want to over-charge people, but I didn’t want to under-charge because I’d lose money.” Do eventually hit on fifteen dollars per day of play, but also has a membership program running now. “It’s really good. If you have a membership card weekdays are free and on weekends you pay just ten dollars to play all day. Membership costs just twenty-five dollars for the whole year.” Members also get ten dollars off when they buy a gun in the store.

Power Edge stocks a huge inventory of items, well over 2000 at last count. Everything a player wants can be found there. Eighty percent of his customers are players and about twenty percent are collectors. “The collectors want to find something rare,” which is why Power Edge stocks items like the Asahi 134 Vulcan Mini gun. A large range of custom pistols is also available - M4 pistols and steel frame pistols, for example.

Pistols sell very well at Power Edge because of the CQB games held there. However, according to Do there is no one particularly popular gun. “Choosing a popular gun is kind of hard for me, everyone is different. If you like M4 then I like M4, if you like M60 then I like M60.” The most important factor in any purchase is “not the gun, it’s the price. You have to look at the price range - how much can they afford. If they think it’s reasonable, it’s gonna be reliable, it’s gonna last long, they will buy that gun.”

In June of 2004, Do launched Power Edge USA, a separate internet based company that can ship a large variety of airsoft equipment to the continental United States. Power Edge USA has very affordable prices and has a growing reputation for fast and reliable service.

Service is at the heart of Do’s philosophy, “all business is the same, not just airsoft. It’s all about customer service. Any business is customer service. Service is very important, especially to repeat customers.”

Do aims to be very competitive on prices, but “lower prices is not everything. Some guys are real cheap, but their service is real terrible. The customer says where’s my gun, and they say ‘processing, processing,’ and they ship it out next week. But if you pay five dollars more, we ship it out next day. The other guy will be ten days later. We will get it to them sooner than the other guy. Yeah, you save ten dollars, but ten dollars to an airsoft player is nothing.”

“Sometimes you are a little bit more expensive, but they would rather buy from you. If you are ridiculously expensive then you won’t get business. But if you are just five or ten dollars more - if it’s that kind of difference then they don’t mind buying from someone who gives good service.”

Check out Power Edge USA’s website at www.poweredgeusa.com