Aqualung and gray markets...FYI

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Oh no, grey market goods!!! Whatever will we do?! :11: The exact same thing as the stuff sold across the street, but much cheaper, allowing us to save some money or buy something else. Heaven forbid...

There is still LeisurePro's own warranty and return policy, which I believe is quite competitive. I'll go over a few points posted in the original post:

  • 60-day satisfaction guarantee where they will refund your purchase for any reason, plus another 60 days after that for in-store credit.

  • With the money you saved buying from LeisurePro you can probably put that $100 (or more) away in a bank somewhere. :wink:

  • LeisurePro's own in-store warranty is equal to that of the original manufacturer's.

  • I already know what kind of gear I want, so the last thing I need is some dive shop employee trying to get me to buy something I don't need. :rolleyes:

  • I know how to set up my own gear.



I'd agree with that. This whole thing us a bunch of FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.


Crap.
Buy from LP if you like. My MK25/G250V is costing me $563 from a local authorized SP dealer. $500.00 is what LP charges. Why would I deal with sending something back for warranty to mail order house in NYC as opposed to a world wide network of authorized dealers to save $63.00.
I can set up my own gear too. I don't cut off my nose to spite my face though. I don't know if LP provides the service kits free, but Scubapro dealers do. Even then, $63.00. No brainer for me. Oh, and the nitrox fills the LDS kicks in more than off sets that by itself.
 
Crap.
Buy from LP if you like. My MK25/G250V is costing me $563 from a local authorized SP dealer. $500.00 is what LP charges. Why would I deal with sending something back for warranty to mail order house in NYC as opposed to a world wide network of authorized dealers to save $63.00.
I can set up my own gear too. I don't cut off my nose to spite my face though. I don't know if LP provides the service kits free, but Scubapro dealers do. Even then, $63.00. No brainer for me. Oh, and the nitrox fills the LDS kicks in more than off sets that by itself.

We do. My LP BC cost <$250 delivered; the LDS-purchased one cost ~$400. One hundred fifty dollars pays for two (2) morning dive boat trips. My Aeris Atmos 2 computer came from an authorized LDS. The price was right.

No one says that LP or any other on-line retailer is a constant panacea for everything. A judicious shopper gets to pick and choose
 
One of the great things about dealing with a local shop is you can handle and use the merchandise before buying. When bought my kid's BC, the shop let me take one home for her to dive the weekend. She (and I) liked it, so I bought it.
I suppose I could have been a dick and ordered it from LP after that, but I would not have gotten the 10 nitrox fills. The shop would have given me a couple boat trips, but I opted for the fills instead as my card had run out. It all evened out for me and the shop will warrent the product as I am sure LP would. Just easier to deal face to face for me.
 
One of the great things about dealing with a local shop is you can handle and use the merchandise before buying. When bought my kid's BC, the shop let me take one home for her to dive the weekend. She (and I) liked it, so I bought it.
I suppose I could have been a dick and ordered it from LP after that, but I would not have gotten the 10 nitrox fills. The shop would have given me a couple boat trips, but I opted for the fills instead as my card had run out. It all evened out for me and the shop will warrent the product as I am sure LP would. Just easier to deal face to face for me.

Absolutely true. From my reading of various posts on this subject I believe that most of us who purchase from LP and the other main on-line retailers know what we want. We have done our research; how we do it is our own business.

Now, I wonder just how much it costs a LDS to fill a tank with EAN... One dollar per fill? I do not know and would appreciate some informed information.
 
bfw:
And you are acting as what's called a "schill." Hope you got a nice cut.

And you are acting as what is called a "schlepp."


SparticleBrane:
the last thing I need is some dive shop employee trying to get me to buy something I don't need.

Then what are you doing in the dive shop in the first place? The answer for you would be to stay out of dive shops altogether. There is nothing in there you need. So just stay away from them.
 
If Aqualung was price competitive, it would be difficult for "non approved" companies to compete so competitively with authorized dealers in the so called "grey market". I support Leisure Pro and I support my three local dive shops.

Aqualung needs to grow up. The age of the uneducated consumer is over. That being said, I passed on Aqualung today and purchased a new Henderson Wetsuit. The price at two online stores (including Leisure Pro) and at my LDS today was within $15. I purchased from my LDS.

I have purchased Aqualung in the past but I will not be purchasing Aqualung again anytime soon.
 
They have to make a token chest pounding to keep authorized dealers kissing their backside and holding the line on the big markups, but in the end, the place LP got the stuff from paid Aqualung as much for it as the next guy, and bought a whole lot more to make a profit on volume rather than high markup. Gray market probably accounts for 30% or more of their volume. It's a delicate balancing act wholly dependent on a pretext.

I'm not so sure if the statement that "the place LP got the stuff from paid Aqualung as much for it as the next guy" is accurate.

I've worked for a couple of scuba retailers over the years. The first one was in a huge partnership squabble where the partners were suing each other. I didn't hear everything, but one of them told me the other partner had made huge orders with several manufacturers through a second company he ran elsewhere for a tremendous discount and then dumped it off to other people (he hinted it was catalog stores, this was the late 90's and LeisurePro was about it) and it ended up with them losing many of their suppliers who didn't care for the process.

The next guy I worked for was legit, charged recommended retail with maybe a bit of a discount if someone bought enough, and was doing reasonably well and was big on gettting his margin as large as he could. There were occasions where he pestered the Aqualung rep (or visa versa) enough that if he would purchase say 80K worth of BCs and regs at one pop, he could get a substantial discount off the best pricing program available in the regular dealer price list. He'd pick up a year's worth on occasion because the savings were that significant. Most dealers can't afford to have 4-6 turns of inventory sitting on the back shelf.

Putting two and two together, it's fairly easy to see where some dealers might cut a deal with a "silent partner" who ends up with most of the product to get a bit of a deal on their own gear for a better deal than normally available. Aqualung tracks their lifesaving equipment's serial numbers, and you do hear of them dropping dealers on occasion due to violations.

I really think Aqualung comes across as wanting to support their dealers who toe the line as far as policy as I've heard of and known dealers who've tried violating their policies get warned or dropped. They seem committed to their marketing strategy and their dealer support system from what I've seen, of course I haven't seen it from the other end to know differently yet.
 
It would be interesting to hear Aqualung's position on it's marketing strategy. Some here have suggested Aqualung should sell direct or lower their price, etc....

I'll take a guess at one possible reason for the way things are the way they are...

Can the average Joe buy their car direct from Ford, Nissan, Chevrolet, etc on thier websites??? Don't think so. The same is true with many many products, so Aqualung's and ScubaPro's stances are not all that unusual when looking at the overall merchandising and marketing picture. Part of what's happening is that our product system has evolved over time to where the manufacturer is generally not directly involved with the end user in most cases. This may change over time, but at this point it's not that common.

Aqualung, ScubaPro and others who follow similar policies choose to continue following the traditional marketing methods... produce a product, establish a wholesale/rep group who in turn services individual dealers who in turn service the end user of the product. Over the years/decades/centuries this system has been proven to be fairly efficient and "can" (not necessirly "will") manage sales and followup service of a given product more efficiently that trying to go from manufacturer and end user without the middleman.

Now some other stuff... let's look at grey market and "service". With a grey market product, if the manufacturer has no official relationship with the marketer then they have little to no control of what happens to their product. Going through their normal dealership channels, Aqualung and the others who follow thier system have control in the sense that they know their dealers are supposedly knowledgeable in the field of diving, can service the equipment, and more importantly are selling the product to an end user who is supposed to be trained in diving...

One of the biggest concerns for the manufacturer of scuba equipment is liability. Rick mentioned earlier that this is not like buying a copy of a DVD, it's a product that was originally made by the manufacturer.. however, if someone hands me a DVD, or a copy of an original DVD, and says stick it in that machine and you'll get a movie to view... it very probably won't kill me when I try it. If someone hands a BC, tank and reg to a neophyte and says "there's the ocean, put it on and get in there and you'll be diving" it could lead to lethal problems in quick order. People tend to forget that scuba gear is a product that is basically life support in an foreign non-"human friendly" environment that requires a different level of care/management/training/whatever than most consumer products. Just in the last couple of years there was a case in Oahu where a person died on a dive, I think it was bolting to the surface, it went to court and cost the dive operator a bunch of money, it cost the original manufacturer of the equipment that diver was wearing (even though they didn't prove there was anything wrong with the equipment as manufactured) even more... they're on the hook no matter how stupid, careless or just plain unlucky the end user is. The system they use at least spreads the liability around a bit, as well as helps relieve the liability because if their dealers are following thier dealership agreements the odds are that the end user will be using appropriately serviced product as well as appropriately trained in it's use - now that's not always the case, but at least on paper it should be.

Basically, there's a lot more to what meets the eye than just price.
 
The more I read these posts the more anti-aqua lung I get. Same with scubapro. This elitist BS makes me want to not buy their products even from the grey market.

Unfortunately if you boycott all of the elitist scuba companies, you aren't left with many choices.
 
Those evil click-n-mortar, LDS-killer stores must be Really good at covering all the loose ends from all the Dangerous Gray Market Gear that gets sold every year...

Where ARE they hiding all the bodies? with all this dangerous, cheap, knock-off gear being sold DAILY you'd think we have stories every week on the divers who die trying to save a few bucks on their gear...

But I havent heard one... Not a SINGLE, solitary one...

So how "dangerous" is this gray market stuff Really ?

Show me the Bodies/data , or keep it to yourself... don' try to scare me with your BS "gray market" fearmongering, you only impugne your own credibility .
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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