Future of DiveShops?

[boulderjohn]

Hmmm, fills, hydro's and repairs are jack all. really, yeah they should be a profit center but for most dive stores in most areas that business is maybe a quarter of their customer base and nowhere near enough to keep a shop in business.

This varies by quite a bit according to location. Where I go in the winter, there is a dive shop that is only now branching out after existing for many years primarily for the purpose of filling tanks. Its banks are enormous. They have a 15 tank cascade of 300 cubic foot tanks EACH for nitrox mixes of 32, 36 and 40.

Here in Colorado very, very few people dive locally. Very, very few people own their own tanks. The average dive shop will not fill an average of a tank a week for customers. Its ability to fill tanks is so they have gas for instruction, so the ability to fill tanks is about 99% overhead--not profit.

 

[drrich2]

One factor impacting impulse buys for some people is the desire to read some online reviews from other customers, who in theory don't have a conflict of interest and are more likely to consider other brand offerings. And on forums like ScubaBoard. If someone at the dive shop talks up an Atomic B1 regulator, a customer might want to go home & read about it on ScubaBoard and/or reviews at Leisurepro, ScubaToys, Scuba.com or Amazon. Whatever he buys, he can go back to the dive shop, where he probably doesn't go often so it's out of the way, or he can order and have it show up at home or work.

Even people who don't purposely plan to use local retailers as show rooms then save with online sources are affected by this. And here's a thought. While the retailer served a customer education role, did the online vendor site not also do so, by providing these reviews?

Richard.

 

[boulderjohn]

The ability of an independent instructor to work out of the basement varies by location as well.

In my last couple of winters vacationing in Florida, I was easily able to to instruct visiting friends and relatives, and our condo didn't even have a basement. In that location, there are a lot of independent instructors. There are a lot of shops that exist primarily as shops. There are a lot of dive boats that work just as dive boats. There are various combinations. They all want the independent instructors to give them their business. I could choose from a number of operations offering me discounts for my students for gear and tanks. Most boats would have me go for free and have my students go on a discount. I could just instruct with almost no overhead to worry about.

Here in Colorado, it is just the opposite. There are very few independent instructors. If I were to become one, I would need to have a large inventory of gear of different sizes, gear that I would have to maintain to keep in working order. I would have to pay a real premium to rent lanes in the local recreation center pools. It would only pay to rent those lanes if I had enough students to justify the cost. Nobody is going to cut me any breaks on the costs for the OW dive sites. I would have to own a lot of tanks, and I would get no breaks on the fill costs if I don't buy my own compressor. I would need a lot of students to overcome all the overhead I would have to pay.

 

[RJP]

If the dive shop functions are separated into separate businesses, divers are going to have to get used to paying what stuff is worth. In our area, the dive shops have a long-standing competition to undercut each other for the cost of Scuba classes. In our area, scuba classes are ridiculously cheap and no one makes any money from them. The classes are just there to sell gear.

So many people in the scuba "industry" need to take an econ 101 course. Just see how many instructors and shop owners here on SB constantly bemoan the fact that people aren't willing to pay "what stuff is actually worth" these days. But that ain't how it works, folks!

Stuff is only worth what people are willing to pay for it.

You can determine your price... but the marketplace determines your worth.

I don't care if you are a good enough instructor to produce Fundies-quality OW students in a three-day Executive Class. If you charge $500 for the course, but no one signs up for it - maybe because the guy across town only charges $295 for a typical run-of-the-mill OW class - do you know what that $500 Fundies-quality course is worth? $295? Nope... not $295.

A $500 course that no-one signs up for is worth precisely ZERO dollars.

And you can't change that by somehow magically making people "get used to paying" $500 for an OW class. There are only two ways to change the value of the $500 course:

1. Lower the price, and lower the price, and lower the price... until people sign up for the class. That will probably be somewhere near - if not SOUTH of - $295. (And cross your fingers the other guy doesn't lower HIS price.)
2. Do something to make people WANT to pay more than $295 for your course. And if you you know what you're doing, that "something" can probably get people to WANT to pay $500 for the course.

The dive business is under a lot of pressure with more and more businesses trying to get their piece of an ever-shrinking pie. This is short sighted. The industry needs to pull together and work to make the pie bigger.

Getting back to the original question: The industry needs to work out a business paradigm that draws people in and makes it easy for them to become participants. So the business can grow and everyone can make a decent living.

But of course there's another quote from the same move, wherein lies the problem...

"Show me the money!"

What you're asking for doesn't happen when an industry "pulls together" -- it happens when someone spends some money. And no one is willing to do that. Certainly not in any professional fashion that would actually show an ROI.

 

[cmrangel]

One thing that I think LDS's could use to distinguish themselves but often do not is knowledge about products and working / talking with a customer to understand what will work best for them. All too often the internet is filled with conflicting information and opinions set out as fact. As a relatively new diver, it was very difficult for me to sort out all of the noise and such to understand what would work for me personally. Unfortunately, most of my LDS options are typically staffed by folks who don't really understand what they are selling or how to guide potential customers thru the considerations to decide what works for them. You often get a "well, people seem to like this one..." or the automatic pointing to the most expensive one and when you try to ask why that one is better for you, you get blank looks.

I would have happily spent more for the opportunity to talk with someone who truly knew the a lot about the various options and could have helped me through the process. I don't want someone just telling me what is best with no explination, I want to understand what the considerations are and what that may mean to me. After all, in diving this could mean my life or, at least, comfort and enjoyment of the sport.

I wish LSD's would realize that they don't need to beat the online retailers at their own game (price), they already have a built in advantage and that is that they actually have the opportunity to directly deal with their customer that may, over their diving career, spend thousands of dollars at their store. This starts the moment they have someone sign up for a new class.

I think this kind of knowledge and support will build in loyalty and if I consistently received such guidance/information from an LDS, I would be willing to pay more, not ridiculously more but would value this. Yes, there will always be those that would take the information and then go find the cheapest online price but you can't win them all.

I realize that this takes a lot of effort on the part of the LDS to keep it's staff up to speed on all the new equipment and technology but I don't see the effort and more often see very attractive but useless sales staff or those who don't take the time to understand/question you but are just pushing the one they think is the best.

 

[RJP]

I realize that this takes a lot of effort on the part of the LDS to keep it's staff up to speed on all the new equipment and technology but I don't see the effort and more often see very attractive but useless sales staff or those who don't take the time to understand/question you but are just pushing the one they think is the best.

What "new technology"? It would take very little effort to keep abreast of the glacial pace of change in the scuba industry.

 

[Scubatude]

One thing that I think LDS's could use to distinguish themselves but often do not is knowledge about products and working / talking with a customer to understand what will work best for them. All too often the internet is filled with conflicting information and opinions set out as fact. As a relatively new diver, it was very difficult for me to sort out all of the noise and such to understand what would work for me personally. Unfortunately, most of my LDS options are typically staffed by folks who don't really understand what they are selling or how to guide potential customers thru the considerations to decide what works for them. You often get a "well, people seem to like this one..." or the automatic pointing to the most expensive one and when you try to ask why that one is better for you, you get blank looks.

I would have happily spent more for the opportunity to talk with someone who truly knew the a lot about the various options and could have helped me through the process. I don't want someone just telling me what is best with no explination, I want to understand what the considerations are and what that may mean to me. After all, in diving this could mean my life or, at least, comfort and enjoyment of the sport.

I wish LSD's would realize that they don't need to beat the online retailers at their own game (price), they already have a built in advantage and that is that they actually have the opportunity to directly deal with their customer that may, over their diving career, spend thousands of dollars at their store. This starts the moment they have someone sign up for a new class.

I think this kind of knowledge and support will build in loyalty and if I consistently received such guidance/information from an LDS, I would be willing to pay more, not ridiculously more but would value this. Yes, there will always be those that would take the information and then go find the cheapest online price but you can't win them all.

I realize that this takes a lot of effort on the part of the LDS to keep it's staff up to speed on all the new equipment and technology but I don't see the effort and more often see very attractive but useless sales staff or those who don't take the time to understand/question you but are just pushing the one they think is the best.

This is exactly true. In a time when dive shops are closing all around, especially in the So. Cal. area, I am opening up a new shop. Your post reflects what I believe is missing from our dive community and in unobtainable from on-line sources, the trained, knowledgeable staff who have the divers best interest at heart. I think very often the LDS has driven customers to on-line retailers because there was simply no advantage to going to the LDS. We need to provide that advantage.

 

[DiveNav]

What "new technology"?......

Hey. We ARE developing some new stuff.....

..... glacial pace of change in the scuba industry.

... but I agree with you on this one when it comes to the "channel" adopting new technology ..... in 2014 we still have lots of LDS teaching with tables instead of dive computers

 

[EFX]

I think LDS's should continue to teach dive planning using tables. You get a better understanding of all that's involved with making NDL dives. More importantly, should your DC take a crap you can fall back on the tables and continue diving. What the dive industry needs to do is make wet/dry suits for women in styles that appeal to them that LDS's should stock. I witnessed a women who was ready to plunk down cold hard cash in my LDS. When the CD showed her the selection her comment was "Do you have anything other than black or do you have something that has a design [for women] on it". He didn't have anything for her so she walked. Too bad. With a sale comes the potential for selling instruction and keeping a customer long term.

I've seen a lot of comments regarding pros/cons of independent instructors but SSI shops require their instructors to be affiliated with a shop.

 

[RJP]

What the dive industry needs to do is make wet/dry suits for women in styles that appeal to them that LDS's should stock. I witnessed a women who was ready to plunk down cold hard cash in my LDS. When the CD showed her the selection her comment was "Do you have anything other than black or do you have something that has a design [for women] on it". He didn't have anything for her so she walked.

As we say in marketing...

'Shrink It & Pink It' -- The Sad Truth About How Tech Markets to Women - Lemondrop.com

Of course it doesn't actually work, but I've said too much already...