Biggest thing killing dive shops?

[KevinNM]

Ohh and it can be taught a person that has never been an instructor in their life. Just to complete the futility of having it city/county/state managed.

Well, yeah. I mean it works so well for women who want to braid hair or do fingernails, I don't see any reason we can't apply this model to scuba. But instead of the 350 hours of training that is needed to train you to paint nails in DC we'll go to 500 because 'Life Support!'.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Nah, each town should have a mandatory 200 hour training course (Only $50/hour), and at the end of that you can pay $500 to take the 4 hour in the water test that allows you to teach in that town. Of course, as the conditions in each town is different, you'll need a license from that town to teach there.

Ok, then how about we just put an instruction sheet in the box of every new regulator with instructions on how to use it, and have the line “NEVER HOLD YOUR BREATH” printed in bold red letters...just like in the good old days. We could go back to when you could just get all your diving gear at the local sporting goods store. But now we have Dick’s Sporting Goods, so it would probably be a good deal. Afterall, their motto is that they will not be undersold.
Then we could do away with dive shops AND instructors.
What do you think?

 

[runsongas]

That’s true, but the LDS has the option of charging more for classes if they are good classes and are worth it. Interestingly though, my LDS decided to dump all in house instruction and refer people to a network of independents that have no affiliation with the shop. They decided that there was no money in instruction and it was a loser. So instead they are trying to concentrate on making money by selling overpriced dive gear. I guess competing with the internet and getting undercut when you are held in retail contracts by certain manufacturers is a healthy business plan? Wow, who knew?

In the current market, open water classes are loss leaders.

The shop would only make more money on classes if they could charge more for the class while keeping their costs the same. I doubt the shop would be able to sustainably keep better instructors than the competition while not paying any better.

 

[runsongas]

That's what I'm thinking; if in OW training a LDS could educate students about & make the case for BP/W, while a BP/W setup can be cheaper than some jacket BCDs, wouldn't it raise the odds that LDS would sell more BCDs (BP/W in this case) to students, instead of the students getting online with LeisurePro, etc...?

Things that are mainly used 'off the rack' make for easy online ordering. Things you need to try on, or get help with fitting, are another story. I'm aware some places may send you a wetsuit, if it doesn't fit send it back for another, but not everyone wants to hassle with that.

The more a LDS can legitimately make its offerings 'not off the rack,' the greater the case to buy for them...if there's true added value.

Richard.

Or the students just end up buying a bpw from DGX, DSS, DRIS, deep 6 instead of buying a jacket or back inflate bc from Leisurepro

 

[WantSomeScuba?]

Hey, don't toss DSS in there--Tobin gives LDS's a chance to actually resell his gear for profit, for the same price they would get online. I've sold his BP&W's to students.

 

[runsongas]

never seen a shop carry a DSS bpw. everyone i have met with one either bought it directly from tobin or off another diver.

 

[BRT]

Which just tells you what sensor got tripped but your car is still broken ......

Actually it may just point to one or more sensors as possibilities.

 

[BRT]

I knew that was coming.
Same thing happened last time.
It’s just one idea.
How else would you avoid internal corruption without some sort of outside oversight?
Ratting out instructors to their own agency doesn’t seem to be working.

How many people are dying because there is no government agency doing scuba license exams?

 

[BRT]

Ok, then how about we just put an instruction sheet in the box of every new regulator with instructions on how to use it, and have the line “NEVER HOLD YOUR BREATH” printed in bold red letters...just like in the good old days. We could go back to when you could just get all your diving gear at the local sporting goods store. But now we have Dick’s Sporting Goods, so it would probably be a good deal. Afterall, their motto is that they will not be undersold.
Then we could do away with dive shops AND instructors.
What do you think?

Some of the icons of the industry learned like that. I'm no icon but I learned like that.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

A higher level of training isn't going to help the LDS if the newly minted OW diver still ends up buying their first set of gear online.

The LDS can be more competitive price wise if they don't use their classes as a loss leader.