An industry that is in decline

[Belushi]

Unless you have an LDS where, as a newbie, are you going to learn what is and what is not "stuff to buy"
I disagree that once you have found out that you can get the same stuff $900 cheaper by mail order, you will go there all the time.

As long as the LDS does not demean the mail-order as a cheap and nasty alternative, and instead promotes his own virtues, (good service, freindly people, quality equipment) then I would say that Joe-Punter will stay with LDS anyway.

I did, and still drive 180 miles in a day to visit my friends in the LDS once a month to go diving and buy little bits here and there. Last month I bought a twin-set, this month another cylinder.

I could even get a better price 20 miles away, but I choose to visit freinds, and get what I want (social interaction) than to just receive my goods in a bag.

As a LDS owner, I used to fix my competition's compressor on a regular basis. Why? Because my service, demeanour and equipment were top quality and I would have rather had a mediocre operator making me look good than to have a sharper operator taking my business. There was enough to go around, and never once did I demean his operation. The customers did, and I just nodded sagely and moved on to ringing up their purchases

 

[PhotoTJ]

Genesis once bubbled...
blah, blah, blah...snip!
The local store cut off his own nose and bled to death right in front of me.

There ARE solutions that keep the LDS in business.

But they all involve having the LDS attitude changing from one of believing that divers need THEM to understanding that they need DIVERS.

...But we are all painfully aware of your dislike for LDS'. In your world, they cannot survive. Great thanks for playing. (You say there are solutions, why don't you open an LDS, and show the world how it's done. Be the next big thing in Scuba)

But the horse is dead, and you're now rattling its skeletal remains. Find a new soapbox, you've posted essentially the same three posts 30 or 40 times. *yawn*

 

[Otter]

PhotoTJ once bubbled...


...But we are all painfully aware of your dislike for LDS'. In your world, they cannot survive. Great thanks for playing. (You say there are solutions, why don't you open an LDS, and show the world how it's done. Be the next big thing in Scuba)

But the horse is dead, and you're now rattling its skeletal remains. Find a new soapbox, you've posted essentially the same three posts 30 or 40 times. *yawn*

Oh sorry, that should have been bumper stickers....some folks just see the BAD in everything. Its a shame, he is obviously articulate, if not a bit verbose.

 

[Ender]

PhotoTJ once bubbled...

You say there are solutions, why don't you open an LDS, and show the world how it's done. Be the next big thing in Scuba)

I think you've summed it up. It's nice to criticize, even to "talk solutions", but unless Karl starts an LDS, or proves in other practical way that whatever LDS solution is works, he won't persuade many.
Vlad

 

[zeN||]

I'm thrilled that people like LP causes LDS to tremble! Surely this has provided a check and balance to their inflated prices zeN

 

[Genesis]

But at least the consumer will be getting discount prices and that's all that really matters, isn't it?

No, its not.

JohnF, perhaps you can look at just one aspect of this without being a sop for the LDS (do you own or work at one perhaps?)

There are about 10 "major" manufacturers.

All of them have some form of price restraint policy for their dealers.

Essentially all of them have policies that are nearly word-for-word identical. In fact, you could cut and paste any of the "big 10" names in this business from one's policy into the others and you would find that you just about created the other guy's policy - word for word.

Now, in a competitive industry, with 10 supposedly-independant manufacturers, setting 10 supposedly-independant policies, how does this happen? How is it that all 10 have essentially identical policies - not just in effect, but in word as well?

Those who say "well just set up your own LDS and show us all how its done" have to solve one problem - the price restraint issue - before I'm willing to do that. I'm not foolish enough to play cards with a stacked and marked deck!

What happens to "subsidized" things at the LDS if the artificial price restraints go away? The subsidizing goes away, of course. Exactly how is this bad? Different sellers will independantly decide on different business models; some will sell training with hardware as a package (you know exactly what the deal is going in), others will become hardware-only sellers, and still others will sell service, training and gas only.

Why is this a bad thing for either the dive shop OR the customer?

I argue its a GOOD thing!

I've debated opening a "fills R us" shop around here, or even better, on a barge floating at Crab Island here in Destin. Why don't I? Because with the cross-subsidization the local shops could GIVE AWAY their airfills and put me out of business, leaving me with no way to compete. Would they? Why not? They can use the captive profits from retail price maintenance to distort the market.

Without those captive profits, however, that option would not be available to them. At least not for very long!

 

[roakey]

Perhaps it's just time to follow Genesis around and post the same response to the same rant he posts over and over....

******************

Man, we have just GOT to hide the soapboxes around here.

Yhea, Genesis' whining has gotten quite strident as of late. He himself has implemented about every boycott possible, but fails to realize that in order for a boycott to really work, you need enough people behind it to make it work.

I think the temper tantrums are because such a small number of people agree with him he's starting to realize that his "Diver's Union" is totally ineffective. Yhea he found a couple companies that are "open source" but that's about it...

There are a number of valid points that Genesis has made in the past, it's just the repetitive posts and the endless spittle-spraying rants have caused many, including me, to simply stop listening.

I'm the first to agree that the industry is really screwed up, but you don't go after the LDS's to solve the problem -- they're trapped between customers and the manufacturers, and it's with some manufacturers that the problem lies.

So trying to put the the squeeze on the LDS in order to "get at" the manufacturers is like shooting prisoners to make the Warden change his habits.

Sorry, give me a solution where I don't have to hurt the innocent to get at the guilty and I'll climb on board.

Roak

 

[Genesis]

no "innocents" involved in this.

A dealer who knowingly takes on a line with these restraints is not an "innocent."

They are a willing co-conspirator.

They do not HAVE to stock, sell and service lines that have these constraints.

 

[drbill]

Now boys, quit the pissing match. I must admit that as a diver through 5 decades now, I find it difficult to see why the industry is in decline (any more than some other segments of our economy... not to mention the society as a whole!).

When I started diving there were nowhere near as many divers (even here in California). Now I see as many as 400 in a weekend at Casino Point. Lots of new divers buying new gear (whether at their LDS or LP). Far more dive travel than we ever imagined in the early 60's (even with 9-11).

Of course ther are good points made. How many of these divers really continue with diving after their certification class? I don't know since most of my dive buddies have been going a long time.

There were fewer dive equipment manufacturers in the early 60's so there is more competition today. Maybe consolidation will reduce that (since prices are already artificially inflated through price controls it may not lead to higher prices).

I never gave thought to diving PNG, the Red Sea or other international destinations when I started diving. Now it's all I think about (well, after sex and food in that order). As bad as all travel may be right now, it was virtually non-existent back then (although I did dive Greece in the late 60's).

Perhaps the real problem is too many manufacturers, too many LDS's, too many dive resorts for the real market (divers who continue with it). Time for a shake-out perhaps? Once (if) that occurs, the remaining ones may be more profitable.

Of course I'm a marine biologist, not really an economist so take this post for what it is worth.

Dr. Bill

 

[jbichsel]

In my "local" area, I have checked three dive shops for prices on items I have purchased elsewhere. No, not online, but an LDS in another state.

Examples:

Aqualung Legend LX
Retail locally - $549-$595
Professional discount - $425-$449.50
My cost - $350.00

Octopus LX
Retail locally - $175- $192
Professional discount - $125-$142.50
My cost - $79.00

SeaQuest Pro QD + Surelock
Retail locally - $510-$540
Professional discount - $382.50-$410
My cost - $317.50

Item I am looking at but not purchased yet:

Suunto Cobra
Retail locally - $720-$750
Professional discount - $550-$562.50
My cost - $495.00

All items are brand new, factory warranty, tags still on, in original boxes that I have in the attic.

Now, explain to me why my LDS's feel the need to make this kind of mark-up when a dive shop in another state can sell for the prices I paid? Plus, he does NOT have his own pool for instruction. He has 6-8 instructors on staff.

I could list more examples, but I think this gets the point across.

I am all for capitalism, making a profit, owning a business (which I do now, not dive related). But in that, you have to provide customers with a product/service that makes them KNOW they have received value for their money.

To have someone pay $130 for a mask and then find out they could buy the same thing for $60 somewhere else, is NOT going to bring much if any repeat business.

I think the manufacturers bear a major part of the responsibility for any "decline" their is in diving, due to price fixing that limits how a LDS can attract clients.