norcaldiver
Guest
Why won't this happen to PETA? :egrin:
And another sale gone, another one down... another one bites the dust!
- Thread starter Genesis
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Why won't this happen to PETA? :egrin:
to boycott someone, even to organize a boycott, or otherwise take collective action EXCEPT in certain limited cases.
Attempting to stifle competition is one of those cases.
What I want to know is why the FTC hasn't come back at the scuba manufacturers and retailers on this issue. Actually, its probably due to there being bigger fish to fry and their limited resources - they may eventually get around to it.
One can hope anyway.
Attempting to stifle competition is one of those cases.
What I want to know is why the FTC hasn't come back at the scuba manufacturers and retailers on this issue. Actually, its probably due to there being bigger fish to fry and their limited resources - they may eventually get around to it.
One can hope anyway.
yknot
Guest
If the manufacturers wink at the practices of companies like LeisurePro (the only thing worse than someone selling your gear online is no one selling it online) would this in fact be the type of action that would get them off the hook? At some point, LeisurePro could be the single largest reseller of some scuba items.
If they are not already.
think it though.
Let's say you're "StrokeReg Company".
You have a dealer agreement that says that nobody can sell at more than 10% off list price. You threaten to revoke the dealership of anyone who does.
But, you wink and nod at people who do SOME of the time (other times you actually yank their dealerships!), and IScuba, an Internet Scuba Shop, gets a whole lot of your gear and starts selling it.
The FTC comes knocking.
You could get screwed either way.
If you try to claim that your wink-and-nod constitutes mitigation of the anti-competitive effect, then instead of you trying to restrict the LOW price seller it could be argued that you're trying to restrict competition by the DIVE SHOPS!
IANAL, and I have no idea how something like that would play out, but it looks to me to be a mine field no matter which way you attempt to play it.
The real fight in these cases turns on two different competing doctrines - known as "first sale" and "colgate", respectively.
Nine West, for example, got nailed for this kind of "no discounting" practice, even though there were other makers of similar clothing items that didn't have such a policy, and even though they pled the colgate doctrine applied to them. The courts said "no".
It gets convoluted when you start talking about how a court will interpret this kind of thing, and from the FTC's point of view, just as with any other government agency, you never know what will "tweak" them. Why Nine West, for example, while NOT Fosgate (the car audio maker), both of whom appear to have nearly identical policies? No idea.
Let's say you're "StrokeReg Company".
You have a dealer agreement that says that nobody can sell at more than 10% off list price. You threaten to revoke the dealership of anyone who does.
But, you wink and nod at people who do SOME of the time (other times you actually yank their dealerships!), and IScuba, an Internet Scuba Shop, gets a whole lot of your gear and starts selling it.
The FTC comes knocking.
You could get screwed either way.
If you try to claim that your wink-and-nod constitutes mitigation of the anti-competitive effect, then instead of you trying to restrict the LOW price seller it could be argued that you're trying to restrict competition by the DIVE SHOPS!
IANAL, and I have no idea how something like that would play out, but it looks to me to be a mine field no matter which way you attempt to play it.
The real fight in these cases turns on two different competing doctrines - known as "first sale" and "colgate", respectively.
Nine West, for example, got nailed for this kind of "no discounting" practice, even though there were other makers of similar clothing items that didn't have such a policy, and even though they pled the colgate doctrine applied to them. The courts said "no".
It gets convoluted when you start talking about how a court will interpret this kind of thing, and from the FTC's point of view, just as with any other government agency, you never know what will "tweak" them. Why Nine West, for example, while NOT Fosgate (the car audio maker), both of whom appear to have nearly identical policies? No idea.
Genesis,
You only grab and respon to select sentences. we don't get list for regs and bc's and I hardly ever sell a dry suit. In fact a DUI dealership is one of the things we haven't been able to get due to the buy-in requirement. We must buy six rentals to get in. That's about as useless as tits on a bull. We have never sold more than six dry suits in a year so it would take a while to break even on that.
And...for the volume of air we pump in Lafayette In. I lose money on it. All the quarries have air and there is little reason for one to make a special trip into a shop for a fill. Also most divers here are vacation divers and they don't even own tanks to fill. There are a hand full of divers who get all there fills from us. Some because they are woried about cleanliness and others are trying to do us a favor. More than 90% of the gas I pump is for students and staff. The air is part of the class for the students (OW) and DM's don't pay for air. When it comes to selling air in three years I haven't even grossed the initial cost of the compressor (less than 1/4). Not a very good ROI. And that says nothing about filters, maintenance, air testing, banks or gas mixing equipment. It would take over 100 fills just to pay for the new seperator I put in today. The compressor is like the rent it is simply a cost of doing business. It can't be justified based on the demand for air fills.
I do know people who make money on gas. One just bought a 140 cu ft/min compressor. They pump more in a day than I will in a century. Trust me the compressor is for teaching and because we must have it to be a dealor (full service shop).
We must have a compressor to sell gear and gear sales must pay for the compressor just like the rent and utilities. It isn't a profit center. Sure I could give more away to try to sell gear but I'm not sure that math works.
And I have talked to my Lawyer in fact. It isn't as simple as forming multiple corps it seems and you still need sources for the grey market parts and stuff which are less than reliable at best.
No...the big problem is not being able to address the same world wide market that lp has. Without the volume we have little to work with. The manufacturers don't prevent us from lowering our price (well most don't). Our costs and volume prevent the lowering of price.
small business dillema.
You can't sell chocolates at the same price as WalMart.
But some how, the local corner convenience store manages to turn over a good number of Snickers every month.
How come?
Value.
At 3:00 AM when you're filling your car with gas, and you crave a chocolate fix, the extra dime or quarter for that candy bar looks like nothing.
When I ran my company there were deals I couldn't touch on the dollars. Some of them we just plain lost. But a decent percentage of those sales we managed to make.
How? Value again.
I couldn't compete with CDW, quite literally about a mile down the road, from my shop on CISCO routers. In fact, I wasn't even in the game. They often sold for damn near my cost.
Sound familiar?
Nonetheless, we went through about 50 of those routers in a year.... Heh, how'd that happen? Value.
If yours failed that you bought from me, I'd give you another one and I would fight with the manufacturer about the warranty issues. It wasn't your problem.
Mine came set up, ready to plug in and go. Theirs did not.
There was more to it, but that's the basics. Value was the key. We offered it, and while we didn't get every sale from the low-priced competition, we did get some of them. More than enough.
The problem with the scuba shops is that they want to charge the high prices but don't want to offer the value. My experience of the last few days is but one example.
Realize that I couldn't even get a promise to immediately swap a dead unit under warranty from them. What cost is involved in that, other than their dealing with the manufacturer on the issue?
You can't sell chocolates at the same price as WalMart.
But some how, the local corner convenience store manages to turn over a good number of Snickers every month.
How come?
Value.
At 3:00 AM when you're filling your car with gas, and you crave a chocolate fix, the extra dime or quarter for that candy bar looks like nothing.
When I ran my company there were deals I couldn't touch on the dollars. Some of them we just plain lost. But a decent percentage of those sales we managed to make.
How? Value again.
I couldn't compete with CDW, quite literally about a mile down the road, from my shop on CISCO routers. In fact, I wasn't even in the game. They often sold for damn near my cost.
Sound familiar?
Nonetheless, we went through about 50 of those routers in a year.... Heh, how'd that happen? Value.
If yours failed that you bought from me, I'd give you another one and I would fight with the manufacturer about the warranty issues. It wasn't your problem.
Mine came set up, ready to plug in and go. Theirs did not.
There was more to it, but that's the basics. Value was the key. We offered it, and while we didn't get every sale from the low-priced competition, we did get some of them. More than enough.
The problem with the scuba shops is that they want to charge the high prices but don't want to offer the value. My experience of the last few days is but one example.
Realize that I couldn't even get a promise to immediately swap a dead unit under warranty from them. What cost is involved in that, other than their dealing with the manufacturer on the issue?
A for instance. Had a guy in last night who had a whole list of stuff he was going to buy in preperation for his PPB class. Ankle weights, hard weights and some other trinkets. This week I sure could have used a sale and the little things are what we get good markups on. I recommended he not buy any of it until we got in the water and found out what he needed. I often show divers little tricks that negate the need for $100 weight pouches. If a diver follows my recommendations they will have a set of gear that they won't ever need to replace. They may add to it but nothing will be wasted. They save the cost of going through many rigs like I did. Much of it is gear configuration ecommendation that eliminate the need for all the junk that I would make a good profit selling but has little real value to the diver.
But we don't get msrp very often. How often do you pay it? I'm talking about what we sell it for. How can I sell a Zeagle Envot for $300 when LP has it for $189 if I remember right. And by the way that is very close to what I pay for it.
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