clownfishsydney
Contributor
From my experience over the past 30 years, from most being competent it has changed to most been useless.
Are the majority of dive shops bad?
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I cant speak for all stores but what I have seen is a simple tactic You sell some name brnd stuff and fill in with generic. Npw lets say the name brand cost around 50.00 so you retail it for 100.00 now take a generic copy of the same mask the store pays 15.00 adds that same 50.00 markup customer buys the now 65.00 mask with the same fit and feel. before you decide this is a scam think about the fact that buying the generic ask allows the store to stock a wider variety of mask giving you a better chance at finding a good fit. The other thing that generic mask allow is keeping a mask that fits a lot of people after the major brand drops it.
caydiver
Contributor
I think there are plenty outstanding ones. I know several right here in GC. Sadly as it gets harder to cover operating costs some smaller dive centric ops are branching out into retail and other activities. Some manage to do it right and some not so much. I have nothing against the big boys but obviously the guys in the shop and on the boat don’t have as much leeway when the pencil pushers and consultants are in the mix.
rjgiddings
Contributor
No I think the majority of dive shops here are really good. The ones still open are anyway.
The days of pre-2008 economy crunch had, at least here in the Puget Sound region - way, way too many dive shops. It was amazing...shops were in every little hamlet. Lynnwood, Everett, Smokey Point, Kirkland, Edmonds, Seattle, Bellevue, Kenmore, Woodinville, Tacoma, Federal Way... they were like drunks at a big house party, bumping into each other. Everyone knew everybody else. Dive shops were 15 min away from each other. Maybe 10 minutes. Some of them were 5-star facilities and some were filthy crowded bomb sites. So different.
And sure enough a LOT of them have since folded. I can't say if this was from sudden lack of play money from the otherwise wealthy clientele ( the credit / debt heavy economy taking a nosedive) , or the shift to Online shopping, or people just getting into other hobbies. I suspect a blend of all of that. Nothing can sustain a small hobby industry for that long...eventually laws of economics comes swooping in. These shops closed en masse.
I should say that while I think the shops still standing are struggling still - they haven't changed in their inventory or staff that much. I'm still getting 32 EAN fills for $ 14.00. Viz inspections on tanks are like, $ 20.00. Meh. Seems like none of that has changed.
The days of pre-2008 economy crunch had, at least here in the Puget Sound region - way, way too many dive shops. It was amazing...shops were in every little hamlet. Lynnwood, Everett, Smokey Point, Kirkland, Edmonds, Seattle, Bellevue, Kenmore, Woodinville, Tacoma, Federal Way... they were like drunks at a big house party, bumping into each other. Everyone knew everybody else. Dive shops were 15 min away from each other. Maybe 10 minutes. Some of them were 5-star facilities and some were filthy crowded bomb sites. So different.
And sure enough a LOT of them have since folded. I can't say if this was from sudden lack of play money from the otherwise wealthy clientele ( the credit / debt heavy economy taking a nosedive) , or the shift to Online shopping, or people just getting into other hobbies. I suspect a blend of all of that. Nothing can sustain a small hobby industry for that long...eventually laws of economics comes swooping in. These shops closed en masse.
I should say that while I think the shops still standing are struggling still - they haven't changed in their inventory or staff that much. I'm still getting 32 EAN fills for $ 14.00. Viz inspections on tanks are like, $ 20.00. Meh. Seems like none of that has changed.
Aaron Harmon
Contributor
Mark up on those is HUGE!
Oh yes, the markup is huge. I should have stated my question differently. Is there really that much revenue from those 3 things. I feel that the anchors are exposure protection, BCDs, regs, and computers. But I'm not a dive shop owner, and my guess is that we might get 11 different answers from ten different shop owners.
mask fins boots and snorkels are the anchor
Aaron Harmon
Contributor
Yeah, I've heard masks wholesale for next to nothing by the case. The same is true of the garbage snorkels that they include that nobody wants/needs. I don't know the wholesale cost on a pair of fins. Does anyone know the cost of a set of atomic aquatics split fins? That's what my LDS pushes. I think my wife and I were both required to buy the "combo" for $300 or so as part of the deal. I'm not complaining. I make a good living and I know that they need to too. I'm just curious.
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