Does scuba gear often seem severely overpriced ?

[scubafanatic]

Yeah, this is another hobby that seems to get price inflation if the gear has "scuba" in the description. Sucks, but as northernone pointed out, not unique. I do tend to buy new, but have found other sources for some things, like bolt snaps, that aren't catering to divers and can usually save a nickel or two. Also like to diy things when practical, although that can sometimes end up costing more than if I just ordered it, lol.

I also do a LOT of DIY on my scuba gear, cool tweaks/mods are my middle name! Not so much to save $, but because my innovations cannot be purchased at any price so I have to invent them myself.

 

[Fibonacci]

That's even more overpriced than I'd imagined! $10 vs $ 450 !

Contrast against auto components... for a small basic car, the entire hard moulded plastic door trim (including soft armrest, fasteners and NVH pads) tooling cost ~ $900K, unit cost is around $12-15 on a volume of ~200K per annum.

 

[Solotor]

still, if any of you tried to make a competing product, you couldn't beat these prices I'm sure.

 

[Fibonacci]

Unit cost is not the major consideration... as I mentioned above a door trim seems cheap till you look at tooling cost and volume

 

[AfterDark]

Overpriced and in many cases low quality. Also according to a good friend that owns a LDS uncooperative manufacturers when that lack of quality is discovered.
Ninety percent of the gear I buy is used bought from Ebay. I don't buy new except from my friend's LDS because LDS need support. As it has been said, you can't get air fills online! Fortunately, I'm an old diver who knows what to buy and how little gear one really needs to dive safely.

 

[mdb]

Many SCUBA retailers still mark up 100% from their cost.

Leisure Pro made its way into the SCUBA biss by marking up 50%.

Now that most distributors/manufacturers sell direct to LP their margins
have improved since they get high volume discounts that many smaller
retailers never see and advertise at the MAP price.

Always better to call for the real best price.

 

[KeithG]

As an example, over the last year, I've purchased (2) used Scubapro S 600 2nd-stages (a gen 1 and a gen 2 version) @ about $ 150 each. Both are in essentially new condition, so I was satisfied with both purchases, especially since I shopped brand new units and they are running 3 TIMES as much @ $ 450 each !!!

I feel that a brand new unit should be running $ 150 max, I paid $ 150 each for units 10 or so years old, but $ 450 each is WAY out of control!

A second stage is just a molded plastic case with a few mechanical bits inside, upon examination, remarkably simple inside, I'm just blown away @ $ 450 ! I wonder what the cost of production actually is?

Prices seem normal to me for such specialized and low volume products. Being more aware of several concepts will help
- retail markup What Is a Normal Markup Percentage?
- product engineering and manufacturing setup costs

Using 50% markup that $450 reg cost your LDS around $225. The 50% keeps the lights on at your LDS. How much did designing a new reg cost? $75k? How much was the manufacturing setup cost for a new style reg? 250k? What is the anticipated cost of warranty returns due to either a design mistake or manufacturing error?

In a prior life a long time ago I was involved in a project where we were faced with a $50k setup charge for injection moulding of a very low volume product. We redesigned the physical product to eliminate the need for a custom mould.

Maybe one of the active manufacturers can provide some real world cost numbers for design and manufacture setup?

 

[scubafanatic]

Prices seem normal to me for such specialized and low volume products. Being more aware of several concepts will help
- retail markup What Is a Normal Markup Percentage?
- product engineering and manufacturing setup costs

Using 50% markup that $450 reg cost your LDS around $225. The 50% keeps the lights on at your LDS. How much did designing a new reg cost? $75k? How much was the manufacturing setup cost for a new style reg? 250k? What is the anticipated cost of warranty returns due to either a design mistake or manufacturing error?

In a prior life a long time ago I was involved in a project where we were faced with a $50k setup charge for injection moulding of a very low volume product. We redesigned the physical product to eliminate the need for a custom mould.

Maybe one of the active manufacturers can provide some real world cost numbers for design and manufacture setup?

Well, in my example, the S600 originally came out in 2001, so it's a 17 year old design by now, moreover, regulator technology is a very mature technology with little improvement in many years now, so we can't chalk up the 'overpriced factor' to R&D costs, and the molds have now had 17 years to get their costs amortized over, so that shouldn't be a real consideration either.

 

[KeithG]

Well, in my example, the S600 originally came out in 2001, so it's a 17 year old design by now, moreover, regulator technology is a very mature technology with little improvement in many years now, so we can't chalk up the 'overpriced factor' to R&D costs, and the molds have now had 17 years to get their costs amortized over, so that shouldn't be a real consideration either.

It all depends on volume, not elapsed time. How many regs were sold?

And elapsed time also has a cost associated with it. I worked for many years for a radio manufacturer. Our plant built exactly 1 model of radio that was then sold worldwide. We had a full time person in purchasing whose only job was to ensure that our part suppliers provided proper quality parts and did not substitute inferior parts.

 

[DeepSeaPirate]

I also do a LOT of DIY on my scuba gear, cool tweaks/mods are my middle name! Not so much to save $, but because my innovations cannot be purchased at any price so I have to invent them myself.

Wanna share some of them?