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Fishkiller

Contributor
Messages
1,169
Reaction score
1
Location
Mesa Arizona, The all beach no ocean state.
# of dives
100 - 199
So I won the lottery :bounce:

I want to set up the ultimate dive shop, the kind with an indoor pool that is accessed from the second floor, by the classrooms. The first floor would have all the equipment. The windows to the pool would be aquariums so it would seem that you are swimming with the fish. The customers could watch divers in class or just testing or trying out new equipment before you by it.

What else should be included in the ultimate dive shop??
 
Location, location, location... Set up shop in Fiji or Truk Lagoon....
 
I would be included in the ideal dive shop...as an equipment consultant and you would pay me rediculous amounts of money also :)
 
The best dive shops have lots of gear to try: one of each of their regs is set up so it will actually deliver air. Of course this means you have to periodically sterilize the mouthpieces, but doing it once a day should be no big deal.

Some other notes: the shop has to be NEAT, BRIGHT & INVITING. No piles of gear or out-of-date books in the corners gathering dust.

Posters or pictures you or your students have taken on trips... big & bright to entice people to go diving on trips or take interesting courses.

And the most important thing: ATTITUDE. If you don't have a good attitude, all the rest of it is useless.

Just my $0.02's worth,

~SubMariner~
 
May I chime in and say - please sell stuff that are actually useful, like cannister lights and have more than one brand of masks so the customer has a chance of finding a skirt that fits.
What about an in-house travel agent, most shops do "shop trips" to here or there, but you couldhave a travel agent on the premises, qualified in dive travel who could send individuals off to trips on live aboards or cool destinations...
DON'T sell the latest greatest, new divers tend to listen to enyone who will talk to them - Composite materials may be the most expensive out there at the moment, but it does not have a 10 year track record to prove the design...

T
 
How about the ability to sell a wide range of equipment lines without requirements that you "push" a certain line/brand? This is one of the things that bothers me about local shops....they are focused on 2-3 brands and they usually have a big inventory of 1-2 -- of course, those are the brands they will push. I was in a shop the other day and despite my initial statement that I was in there to look at Apeks regs, the guy continued to push the Mares Abyss. The Abyss is a nice reg but it was painfully obvious to me that the shop would rather sell me the Abyss than the Apeks.
 
Sorry -- didn't mean to get too critical on this point. A shop's inventory can't be boundless due to financial and space concerns -- I was just summarizing wehat it would be like in the "dream" shop
 
... not being affiliated to any one manufacturer so you could actually tell the truth about the gear you stock, rather than quote corporate lies and meaningless statistics about why this particular reg / BC is the one you MUST buy.

(Am feeling rather cynical today after a free flow at 40m on a reg that was sold as 'virtually erradicating the possibility of freeflows' - guess which one!!)
 
From a retail POV, I really like non-commissioned sales staff. Get good staff and pay them what they are worth. That way they aren't pushing for sales #s so they can live. Instead they can concentrate on making satisfied customers.
 

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