Aqualung's stance on e commerce

[redacted]

AWAP,

Have you even read the Toothfairy's stance on Internet sales??? My God man, chaos will ensue!

It my daughter's little venture. I just hope it doesn't spell the end of all the local toothfairy shops.

 

[barebones]

While I'm sure that no one will ever be able to get Aqualung to admit they sell direct, the above example is a perfect example of it.

Leisure Pro had the Legend LX ACD (ACD is same as DVT) in stock before the normal local dive shops had them. Now, how would that happen if it wasn't a direct shipment.

This right here shows that Leisure Pro is more important to Aqualung than their own dealers.

Leisure pro gets the grey market stuff from overseas. The regulators are made in Europe. It stands to reason that the distributors there get it before the distributor (Aqua Lung U.S.). Big companies move slow. Leisure Pro exploits the soft spots.

The only way LP can acquire SeaQuest BCs at reasonable costs is to get them from U.S. dealers. The BC products are made in Mexico and here. The shipping is too much over and back across an ocean. Thats why you don't see as many on their site and why those products are not quite as good a deal. Its the same with Atomic regulators.

Leisure Pro is a very rich predator. Look at one of their other online companies, Adorama.com. They TELL the dive companies to sell them or else. If you sell them, they'll play ball as long as everyone else does and more importantly, as long as LP wants to. If not, they will the destroy the perceived value of the dive companies products regardless of profit. Most companies have caved and are now controlled by the whim of their client.

Predatory Pricing is against the law. If I have a gas station across the street from yours and I sell my gas well below the cost of doing business just so I can drive you out, I've broken the law. Problem is; Its almost impossible to prove.

So everyone who says they will deprive themselves of Aqua Lung, Apeks, Scubapro and occasionally Atomic regulators is playing into the hands of LP. Not to mention that you are righteously surviving with lower performing equipment.

I buy those products from my LDS or on Ebay if I don't care about free parts. The rest of the stuff, not so much.

You can get Oceanic and Tusa and Dive Rite and what ever at your LDS at the same price as online. Sometimes I buy from the my LDS. Sometimes I buy from an Online outfit because its 9 miles to my store and I don't feel like doing an 18 mile round trip. I save the state sales tax, another issue, and I have the stuff on my door step in 4 or 5 days.

Let's go diving.

barebones

 

[SoggyShoes]

I have no problem with internet sales. Places like Divetank.com and Scubatoys.com have great customer service and very competitive prices (along with having a full service brick and mortar store). I have now found a great LDS and mostly shop with them. They work hard to come as close as they can to match prices and offer phenomenal service. They never bad-mouth the products I purchased elsewhere, are willing to service all the my gear regardless of where I purchased it (which is not true for a number of shops in my area), and if I get a great deal on something else where they say so. (We have talked openly about the great deals we got on Craigslist.) As a result of this service and the friendships I have developed through the store I find myself continually willing to think less and less about price and more about the added value of shopping at my LDS.
This makes me believe that good LDS will survive regardless. Another example of this is where I purchase and service all my PC computers. Talk about a market that allows for a free for all with sales! I use a little shop called Iguana Micro (http://www.iguanamicro.com/). The owner, Matt, is having trouble keeping up with the growth in his business. I know that he is not buying the volumes or getting the discounts that Dell, Gateway, Best Buy, Costco, New Egg and the like are getting but he stays competitive and makes up for any difference with customer service. He claims that as his internet presence is not what the big boys previously mentioned are that online sales are mostly there as a connivance to his customers. To me, this shows that there are different approaches that can survive and even excel in a market.
There is one big difference between Iguana Micro’s situation and my LDS. Iguana can advertise and sell his products in the same mode and pricing as anyone else that sells the same product. He may go out of business doing this but the choice is his. My LDS is an Aqualung dealer. They, like most good shops, slide around the pricing controls by bundling packages and offering other deals or service. As I stated earlier in this thread what makes me mad is how Aqualung is shafting the LDS. I can (if I wanted to) buy any product for the lowest price off the internet. It is the LDS that is unable to be on a level playing field due to Aqualung’s practices being the opposite (and deceitful) from their rhetoric. It is Aqualungs current practices that are in my mind the biggest threat to the LDS. Aqualung either needs to control distribution or control pricing (both easily done by tracking serial numbers). Bose electronics, Dyson vacuums, and every car dealer have demonstrated the ability the do this. Not doing this is what will kill the good LDS (the bad ones – and there are a lot of them- should die anyway). Manufactures still have control over distribution.

Soggy

 

[DIR-Atlanta]

Predatory Pricing is against the law.

So is price fixing, but you never hear the industry types complaining about that.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Leisure pro gets the grey market stuff from overseas. The regulators are made in Europe. It stands to reason that the distributors there get it before the distributor (Aqua Lung U.S.). Big companies move slow. Leisure Pro exploits the soft spots.

barebones

When I had a shop I was a cressi dealer. They wouldn't let me sell online but the stuff was all over the net being sold for about what I paid for it.

Cressi came right out and told me that cressi across the pond didn't prohibit online sales.


So...why would any dealer want to by from cressi in the US when the rest of the company is screwing you?

 

[DIR-Atlanta]

Cressi came right out and told me that cressi across the pond didn't prohibit online sales.

That's because EU says they can't, and then actually takes the necessary steps to ensure that they don't. Technically, they shouldn't be able to prohibit on-line sales in the US either, but unfortunately the relevant laws are not that well well-enforced.

 

[MikeFerrara]

As a result of this service and the friendships I have developed through the store I find myself continually willing to think less and less about price and more about the added value of shopping at my LDS.


Soggy

This is all well and good but lots of divers just don't need much in the way of service. In an area where lots of divers don't dive locally, they just aren't in and out of a shop very much. Whatever they buy, they can buy anywhere. When they do buy based on price there's a pretty good chance that they buy a brand that the local shop doesn't deal and therefor isn't authorized to service, so the shop doesn't even get the service work.

Then of course, you have divers like me who, even though I dive locally, I still don't need anything from a shop. If I'm buying something all I need them to do is sell it for a reasonable price, take my money and hand me my stuff. Unless they run outside and wax my truck or come over to the house on Saturday to cut my grass or something there just isn't anything they can do to add value.

Around here, all the local dive sites have fills on site. No one even needs a shop to get fills. The shop is the one who needs the compressor to fill tanks for their own pool sessions (they don't even need it for the open water dives because of the onsite fill stations.

Yes, a shop can play games with packages to get around price restrictions but if I'm buying a reg, I don't necessarily want a package. Oh, I might take a bottle of defog (not really because I have enough defog left from the shop to last 50 divers about 50 lifetimes). They could tell the reg manufacturer that they charged me $205 for the defog and didn't really give me $200 off on the reg. LOL but that's not how it works anyway. I got nailed for violating price restrictions just by someone opening their mouth to another dealer. Nobody was looking at sales slips.

 

[friscuba]

Price is not the only differentiator. I'm a relative newcomer, but what I see as the achillies heel of the LDS is that for years they have relied on just being there to generate business. It didn't matter what they sold or what they charged, they were the Local dive shop, or the shop where you did your training and you would buy from them. This is the model that AL is trying to perpetuate. "You will buy or prodcuts at the LDS because you have to." For years, many shops relied on what was essentially a local monopoly. By definition, monopolies don't behave in the best interest of the consumers, so when other options come along, consumers flee.

If the LDS wants to survive, they can do so simply. Provide services that can't be gotten elsewhere. Do what they are good at. Be local, provide one on one service. Training, air, help to new divers. Prices will have to go down, but they won't ever need to match online. People expect to pay more at B&M stores, and they are willing to, within reason. But extortion won't do it.

Not all local dive shops can survive simply by providing services. Outside of large coastal cities, maybe even just the ones on warmer waters, it's nearly impossible for a dive company to survive solely on services. I suspect Dallas is large enough that it may have a dive company, even a couple dive companies, that somehow make a living off services only. I'd be that would not be the norm in Dallas though, and practically unheard of in most of the US. Most dive operators rely on a combination of services AND retail just to survive - do poorly at one or the other and it's tough to make a go of it.

Shops in most smaller markets would die if their retail sales tumble. If the only way to get dive equipment was online, the service portion of diving would also dry up in most parts of the nation and the hobby would suffer and shrink. Aqualung probably realizes this.

 

[redacted]

Not all local dive shops can survive simply by providing services. Outside of large coastal cities, maybe even just the ones on warmer waters, it's nearly impossible for a dive company to survive solely on services. I suspect Dallas is large enough that it may have a dive company, even a couple dive companies, that somehow make a living off services only. I'd be that would not be the norm in Dallas though, and practically unheard of in most of the US. Most dive operators rely on a combination of services AND retail just to survive - do poorly at one or the other and it's tough to make a go of it.

Shops in most smaller markets would die if their retail sales tumble. If the only way to get dive equipment was online, the service portion of diving would also dry up in most parts of the nation and the hobby would suffer and shrink. Aqualung probably realizes this.

When there is not enough grass for all the cattle, you have to get rid of some so the rest can survive.

 

[coach_izzy]

When there is not enough grass for all the cattle, you have to get rid of some so the rest can survive.

Yep, you get rid of the old and the ill...