Groupon Deal - is this course recommended?

[beaverdivers]

How can a training facility offer " Quality " instruction when they are selling so many students at 75% off a price that is already a loss leader?

Hope that 25% don't show, 25% drop out and 25% do their OW dives and never dive again.

Maybe, 10% actually become " Divers "!

Personnally, I would rather just have one private person that I train to become a real " Quality" diver.

 

[captjohnr]

I am saying that Groupon is a Huckster and may be in violation of Florida Law.

huck•ster (h k st r)
n.
1. One who sells wares or provisions in the street; a peddler or hawker.
2. One who uses aggressive, showy, and sometimes devious methods to promote or sell a product.
3. Groupon Deals


Fla. Stat. § 817.06 reads:


Ҥ 817.06. Misleading advertisements prohibited; penalty
(1) No person, persons, association, copartnership, or institution shall, with intent to offer or sell or in anywise dispose of merchandise, securities, certificates,
diplomas, documents, or other credentials purporting to reflect proficiency in any trade, skill, profession, credits for academic achievement, service or anything
offered by such person, persons, association, copartnership, corporation, or institution directly or indirectly, to the public, for sale or distribution or issuance, or
with intent to increase the consumption or use thereof, or with intent to induce the public in any manner to enter into any obligation relating thereto, or to acquire
title thereto, or any interest therein, or ownership thereof, knowingly or intentionally make, publish, disseminate, circulate or place before the public, or cause,
directly or indirectly, to be made, published, disseminated or circulated or placed before the public in this state in a newspaper or other publication or in the form
of a book, notice, handbill, poster, bill, circular, pamphlet or letter or in any other way, an advertisement of any sort regarding such certificate, diploma, document,
credential, academic credits, merchandise, security, service or anything so offered to the public, which advertisement contains any assertion, representation or statement
which is untrue, deceptive, or misleading.

Show me a liar, and I'll show you a thief ~ French proverb


Captain John L. Russell 3
MDEA Instructor Evaluator/Course Director 2098
NASE Worldwide Master Instructor 18759242us
PADI Master Instructor 40957 Resort # 21143
SDI/TDI 11794 Resort # 1002301
Licensed Investigator 567-A since 1973

 

[nimoh]

How can a training facility offer " Quality " instruction when they are selling so many students at 75% off a price that is already a loss leader?

Hope that 25% don't show, 25% drop out and 25% do their OW dives and never dive again.

Maybe, 10% actually become " Divers "!

Personnally, I would rather just have one private person that I train to become a real " Quality" diver.

What I am saying is that you can only have the class with 25% of the people, and need to bump the rest. 75% discount is a little extreme, my point is that it can be discounted a bit to generate interest, and hopefully make up the difference on gear sales.

I'm not an instructor, or a store owner, so obviously I don't know the details of how much of a loss leader that OW is, and even while I am re-reading some of my posts, I realize that I am overextending to make this point, so perhaps, I'll just concede that overselling the OW class is a bad idea

---------- Post added April 17th, 2012 at 01:54 PM ----------

I am saying that Groupon is a Huckster and may be in violation of Florida Law.

huck•ster (h k st r)
n.
1. One who sells wares or provisions in the street; a peddler or hawker.
2. One who uses aggressive, showy, and sometimes devious methods to promote or sell a product.
3. Groupon Deals


Fla. Stat. § 817.06 reads:


Ҥ 817.06. Misleading advertisements prohibited; penalty
(1) No person, persons, association, copartnership, or institution shall, with intent to offer or sell or in anywise dispose of merchandise, securities, certificates,
diplomas, documents, or other credentials purporting to reflect proficiency in any trade, skill, profession, credits for academic achievement, service or anything
offered by such person, persons, association, copartnership, corporation, or institution directly or indirectly, to the public, for sale or distribution or issuance, or
with intent to increase the consumption or use thereof, or with intent to induce the public in any manner to enter into any obligation relating thereto, or to acquire
title thereto, or any interest therein, or ownership thereof, knowingly or intentionally make, publish, disseminate, circulate or place before the public, or cause,
directly or indirectly, to be made, published, disseminated or circulated or placed before the public in this state in a newspaper or other publication or in the form
of a book, notice, handbill, poster, bill, circular, pamphlet or letter or in any other way, an advertisement of any sort regarding such certificate, diploma, document,
credential, academic credits, merchandise, security, service or anything so offered to the public, which advertisement contains any assertion, representation or statement
which is untrue, deceptive, or misleading.

Show me a liar, and I'll show you a thief ~ French proverb


Captain John L. Russell 3
MDEA Instructor Evaluator/Course Director 2098
NASE Worldwide Master Instructor 18759242us
PADI Master Instructor 40957 Resort # 21143
SDI/TDI 11794 Resort # 1002301
Licensed Investigator 567-A since 1973

I guess I can see your point if the dive shop is offerering PADI OW/AOW cards without meeting the minimum PADI standards, so that students think they are certified, but are technically not. Is this the point you are making?

If so, wouldn't the dive shop be in violation of the law rather than Groupon?

 

[captjohnr]

con·spir·a·cy



 /kənˈspɪrəsi/ Show Spelled[kuhn-spir-uh-see]
noun, plural con·spir·a·cies.

1. the act of conspiring.

2. an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons; plot.

3. a combination of persons for a secret, unlawful, or evil purpose: He joined the conspiracy to overthrow the government.

4. Law . an agreement by two or more persons to commit a crime, fraud, or other wrongful act.

5. any concurrence in action; combination in bringing about a given result.

 

[nimoh]

con·spir·a·cy



 /kənˈspɪrəsi/ Show Spelled[kuhn-spir-uh-see]
noun, plural con·spir·a·cies.

1. the act of conspiring.

2. an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons; plot.

3. a combination of persons for a secret, unlawful, or evil purpose: He joined the conspiracy to overthrow the government.

4. Law . an agreement by two or more persons to commit a crime, fraud, or other wrongful act.

5. any concurrence in action; combination in bringing about a given result.

Perhaps I don't understand the process of offering scuba classes via Groupon. I am under the impression that the store lists the class on Groupon, and then students register through groupon (and groupon takes a commision), and I think that the store sets the price, and the class curriculum. I am also assuming that the store would set a maximum on the number of participants.

So, isn't Groupon safe in assuming that since the dive shop is offering PADI OW certification, that they are in fact meeting the standards?

I wouldn't expect Groupon to know anything about scuba diving, let alone certification standards, so not sure how they can be held accountable for substandard classes. I am not trying to be obtuse, just trying to figure out why you think Groupon is the bad guy.

 

[t-mac]

I think we are both confused on some of the same points, nimoh. It seems to me that everyone is assuming that the groupon thing is simply a means for carrying a fraud or at least purposely offering an inferior service. I don't dispute that it may be the result, but that result may be due to many less sinister things. As far as training goes, I wouldn't want to be in the cattle car and perhaps you could have other quibbles with the ethics/quality of that kind of training, but I don't see it a necessarily sinister or illegal -- and it may be perfectly legitimate according to agency standards. It would just surprise me if this were more than an honest attempt to generate more business, but for some reason it is going afoul. Personally, if I were to do it, I would probably offer DSD rather than OW. It's less of a hit on the shop to discount it and it more clearly draws people to consume another product -- OW (if you don't give them a bad experience, which is my original point). Again, I'm not endorsing any of this. I'm just trying to understand the business idea behind it. Perhaps there is a shop owner out there willing to admit to using groupon who can enlighten me?! [Didn't think so -- don't blame you!]

 

[ScubaSteve1962]

How can a training facility offer " Quality " instruction when they are selling so many students at 75% off a price that is already a loss leader?

Hope that 25% don't show, 25% drop out and 25% do their OW dives and never dive again.

Maybe, 10% actually become " Divers "!

Personnally, I would rather just have one private person that I train to become a real " Quality" diver.

I got and OW certification course through Living Social in Hawaii, they allowed me to use it for my referral dives and refresher course, I did my classes at home. I ended up being the only student in the class and they worked around my vacation schedule. For that reason I ended up doing AOW and Nitrox with them during the same week. I'm stating this to say all good deals don't turn out to be bad deals.

 

[nimoh]

I think we are both confused on some of the same points, nimoh. It seems to me that everyone is assuming that the groupon thing is simply a means for carrying a fraud or at least purposely offering an inferior service. I don't dispute that it may be the result, but that result may be due to many less sinister things. As far as training goes, I wouldn't want to be in the cattle car and perhaps you could have other quibbles with the ethics/quality of that kind of training, but I don't see it a necessarily sinister or illegal -- and it may be perfectly legitimate according to agency standards. It would just surprise me if this were more than an honest attempt to generate more business, but for some reason it is going afoul. Personally, if I were to do it, I would probably offer DSD rather than OW. It's less of a hit on the shop to discount it and it more clearly draws people to consume another product -- OW (if you don't give them a bad experience, which is my original point). Again, I'm not endorsing any of this. I'm just trying to understand the business idea behind it. Perhaps there is a shop owner out there willing to admit to using groupon who can enlighten me?! [Didn't think so -- don't blame you!]

I wouldn't participate in such a class either, I have had 5 or so different instructors for my various scuba classes, and each time I sought out a good instructor. I have even gone so far is to try and find out what the other students taking the class were like before signing up.

Probably just better to leave it alone, since all we are discussing is who is to blame for the (possibly) substandard education a student might receive, and I don't think it really matters all that much.

---------- Post added April 17th, 2012 at 03:30 PM ----------

I got and OW certification course through Living Social in Hawaii, they allowed me to use it for my referral dives and refresher course, I did my classes at home. I ended up being the only student in the class and they worked around my vacation schedule. For that reason I ended up doing AOW and Nitrox with them during the same week. I'm stating this to say all good deals don't turn out to be bad deals.

would you go so far as to say that they probably lost money on your OW, and then made it up later on?

 

[ScubaSteve1962]

would you go so far as to say that they probably lost money on your OW, and then made it up later on?

No because I checked around and their prices were comparable to everyone else's. I understand they want to get you in and sell you more, but isn't that the American way?? My LDS gave me free OW classes, free air and pool time when ever the pool is available, since I got all my gear from him. So that's basically was the same thing. They are probably hoping that 50% of the students become repeat customers, and "in this economy" they're just trying to stay in business.

 

[nimoh]

No because I checked around and their prices were comparable to everyone else's. I understand they want to get you in and sell you more, but isn't that the American way?? My LDS gave me free OW classes, free air and pool time when ever the pool is available, since I got all my gear from him. So that's basically was the same thing. They are probably hoping that 50% of the students become repeat customers, and "in this economy" they're just trying to stay in business.

I agree completely there is nothing wrong with getting you in for OW and selling you more later. I think it is pretty much the topic of this thread to investigate if a dive shop can make money doing this, sounds like in your experience it can.

Losing money on the OW is probably too risky, but perhaps breaking even on the OW might be worthwhile.