Rather than asking what shop owners “think” is killing their business, maybe the better question is to ask the scuba diving consumer why they’re not going into their LDS to spend their money. I think the industry is thinking about the “problem” from the wrong angle. Hence, the problem persists.
Well, I can tell you why I stopped going into my LDS for a time many years ago.
I first went into this shop to buy a wetsuit only for kayak fishing.
Then I kept returning to get more stuff to ab dive. After many return trips I became interested in scuba diving. At this point I'd been going in there for a couple years already and was building a relationship with them, I knew everyone by name, and I assumed I was kind of getting in to the loop of the customer circle.
Then I took OW and loved it. After that I signed up for AOW since that was what they said was the natural progression in diving. I went to rent some gear for the class and they said everything they had was rented already so it was time for me to buy gear if I wanted to do this class at this time. OK, so I bought a load of gear at full price (didn't know any better) and they really upsold me on everything.
I took the class with all my newest gear plus all the extra little toys they sold me that I absolutely had to have like ankle weights, a tank banger, and some other rotating display gizmo stuff.
Not even a week later the owner puts almost everything I bought (except for the regs) on sale. That kind of pissed me off but the sales clerk (owner was somewhat absentee) tried to assure me that it was a spur of the moment sale, (yeah right).
About the same time I started seeing catalogs of what all this stuff was available for through mail order (LeisurePro at that time). I really got the feeling that I'd been fleeced and they really got me. I spent thousands there.
I went in there a few more times over the years after that but it always seemed akward and unfriendly. The staff was getting crustier and a lot of people I dived with stopped going in there.
One time I had a very bad experience there with trying to get Scubapro to replace a broken face plate on my reg, since they were an "authorized" dealer.
I got a total run around and ended up with nothing, no new face plate, but had to pay the shop money for their "work" in phone calls to SP trying to find a solution to my problem before they would give me my reg back.
I ended up posting something up on a dive message board and had one coming in the mail that day from a fellow diver somewhere on the east coast.
I started shopping at another place that just opened and they seemed better. Then they got this hot shot little miss sales lady that I found to be completely obnoxious. They would hassle me every time I needed things like tank valve O-rings or burst discs telling me their insurance didn't like when they sold parts like that to non proffessionals. So they turned me off and that's when I decided to break free from dive shops.
For a while I had access to a private compressor so I was local dive shop free for several years.
Since that time, the original owner of my first shop sold out, and now I heard that his other shop he had in another city just closed. His right hand man from the local shop here bought it a few years ago and is now trying to resesitate it, it's still somewhat on life support but he seems to have stabilized it. I've since returned to this shop and slowly began to support him since I always thought he was a nice guy. He always seemed to be the one who helped me the most in the early years.
I always still get nervous buying air cards there though because I don't want to go one day and find the place shut down.
So yeah, you might say I could be part of the problem too, but I felt I was mistreated on several occasions so to me it was justified. All that was a long time ago though, and I'm tired of holding a grudge.
Believe it or not, I'm kind of worried about this shop, I'd like to see him stick around. Since they lost abalone diving it's going to be a challenge for all the shops around here. If they go out it will be a much longer drive for me to get air fills.
I was reading a few posts about the club in Alaska and the success they had with pooling divers together into a big club to share expenses for an air compressor. The club structure might just be the thing that saves the sport and participation. At that point if the LDS disappears then so be it. Maybe we'll see the old owner of the LDS at a club meeting!