I've had this conversation it seems like a thousand times with the LDS in my area. In my estimation, the LDS spends an enormous amount of money to upkeep and maintain inventory, the square footage to showcase it and the costs of mostly idle employees to sell it. I believe that in the not-too-distant future the LDS will become the service and training station who may form relationships with larger 'box stores' or online depots for their retail gear. The margin on offering dive training, servicing equipment and providing air fills is exponentially better than the overall cost of selling equipment. Now, I think there is absolutely room for retail sale of essentials (o-rings, mask/fin straps, etc) but there are those (LP, scuba.com, etc) who can and are pushing the envelope of the market's pricing scheme and applying price compression at a level where the LDS cannot compete. It's time for the LDS to get out of that business and do what it does best and that's provide the training, fun dives, travel planning and misc. diver services that we all need in order to continue in this sport. Dive shops will get smaller and require fewer full-time employees, the employees that they do keep will likely be more 'on-demand' (instructors only cost money when they're teaching class at a high margin) than full-time retail/sales folks. I don't see this as a bad thing.
