Biggest thing killing dive shops?

[wetb4igetinthewater]

The cute single chicks .....

One of the benefits of being a ski patroller (Mt. Hood). Girls digged the red jackets.

 

[Trace Malinowski]

One of the benefits of being a ski patroller (Mt. Hood). Girls digged the red jackets.

That's not a benefit. It's a liability. I spent 30 minutes looking for the TV remote today because of a girl.

 

[Wookie]

Yeah, but they smell nice and are soft in all the right places.

 

[dmaziuk]

What do you deodorize your TV remote with?

 

[Wookie]

They may have cooties, but they really don't smell bad.

 

[Aviyes]

This reminds me of years ago (90's?) when a local ski area (Stevens Pass) started a yearly event where they'd bring in alternative bands to play at the new snowboard park to appeal to younger riders. The person who proposed the idea was at first shut down for it until he asked "So how many of you liked Jimi Hendrix growing up? And what was the attitude of your parents towards your taste in music."

Everyone switched their vote and it was a huge success.

Hey, whatever is their thing is their thing. As Frank said, who cares? I don't. Just get them to dive.

Then they added speakers to blast music up the Brooks chair that covered the jump park as well. Also, had the benefit of getting some of them out of the skiers way on the other lifts.

 

[HantsDiver]

Make sure you have enough gopros on selfie sticks in your rental stock. Millennials are not interested in taking that one perfect shot of a nudie; they can google that. They want endless videos of them self everywhere to post on Instagram and count the “likes”. ;-)

This is another thing 'desperate dive shops' running the wrong volume model do in successful areas. They put a professional photographer in the water so you can buy the video's after your final open water dive.

Marketing for them, and a revenue stream.

 

[dmaziuk]

I've a picture of my better half doing the mask-off, mask-on in the dark green murk that just got warm enough for a 7 mm suit. I highly doubt she'd pay money for it. Edit: professional quality would only make it look worse.

 

[BDSC]

One of the things I tried to do early on in this thread was to try and find out just how many dive shops in the US closed in 2017 and I tried for 2016. I could never find any stats at all. Don't know if I did the wrong search or no one has kept track, or someone knows but don't want others to know.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

One of the things I tried to do early on in this thread was to try and find out just how many dive shops in the US closed in 2017 and I tried for 2016. I could never find any stats at all. Don't know if I did the wrong search or no one has kept track, or someone knows but don't want others to know.

That would be interesting data, but even more interesting would be the reasons they closed, which I doubt would be obtained. A local dive shop closed last year because of the owner just couldn't stop creating enemies that included customers. Dive shops are businesses built on relationships. There is one dive shop in the area in particular that really understands that and there's a community of divers that is incredibly loyal. And for good reason. The owner is the most honest shop owner I've ever met.