LDS Closures

[rye_a]

On the original subject, it seems to me that the LDSs that are surviving (and even thriving) are those that have evolved with the times. While some on-line retailers do sell international or grey market goods, others (I'm thinking of Scuba Toys) are authorized dealers for all the products they sell who started as and continue to be LDSs. Sure, they play the game of MAP, but unlike my LDS they are willing to come substantially off of MSRP. By doing so, they might lose some of their profit in each individual transaction, but they make up for it in volume.

They do all this while still filling tanks and providing training for their local customers, and they provide first class information and customer service. All this, and I don't need to leave work early to buy something from them.

Don't get me wrong, I like the guys at the LDS, but I'm tired of being made to feel guilty or like I'm not in the "club" if I don't buy absolutely everything from them.

 

[captain]

I have the compressor and the boat I don't need an LDS.I have not needed one for the last 40 years.
I have dived the pretty reefs but generally find them boring after a few dives.
I much prefer exploring the bottom of a place where hidden surprises might lie and no other diver or very few have gone before. Generally those places can be as close as my backyard or my neighbors backyard not an airliner ride away.

From the beginning the thrill of diving was to be able to go where no one has been and seek what may be hidden there.

At one time before Katrina New Orleans had 5 or 6 shops since Katrina it is 2 or 3 but I would say the number of divers who dive locally, mostly spearfishermen, is very small and has not grown in numbers in 30 or more years and most use one shop that has been in business for 50 years. I might add that that shop is part scuba store, part hardware store, part boating supply store and part hunting and fishing store.
The others are mostly travel agencies and training mills who produce the once a year vacation diver or the one vacation diver may be a better description. They do absolutly nothing to encourage local diving.

 

[Nemrod]

I won't miss the travel agency puppy mills either. I do miss the old hardware store/pharmacy/soda/dive shop days. Get your chicken and rabbit feed, grab a soda with your best girl and get your tank topped. How can you beat that.

N

 

[captain]

I won't miss the travel agency puppy mills either. I do miss the old hardware store/pharmacy/soda/dive shop days. Get your chicken and rabbit feed, grab a soda with your best girl and get your tank topped. How can you beat that.

N

I don't believe you can get any drugs at this one, at least not legal ones but everything else is a possibility.

 

[Papa_Bear]

I fear the demise of the LDS, you don't know what you have until you lose it! I needed something from a camera store last month and to my surprise digital and Internet have put the LCS out of business! Now I have to order my supplies on line and can't just stop by and pick them up! I have to order and wait or pay high fees for overnight delivery! I was blown away that three store went out within my area in a three months time! I miss them!

On the tech side, I can give you the number to a tech shop that wants to sell before the go out, just not enough customer base! He is teaching OW classes just what he didn't want to do, but techs have to come from some place and only about 1% will become tech or put out the money for classes and equipment! We just need heroes and a Sea Hunt to watch once a week!

 

[micklock]

I probably would not have started diving if I didn't drive by my LDS every time I went into town and finally stopped in one day and bought a mask, fins and snorkel, then about two weeks later went back and signed up for lessons.

 

[northcoastdiver]

I wish everyone could experience a good LDS. When I moved into the local area last summer, I didn't know anyone. After spending a little time around the shop I had more buddies than I could possibly use. Out of those, three or four have become regular dive buddies that I have learned from and am completely comfortable with in the water. My local shop also has weekly dives during the summer, as well as cookouts and other "social" events throughout the year that make the regular divers seem more like family than anything else. Sure, you can often find lower prices online (I buy online occasionally), but nothing can replace the Local Diving Society that a good shop provides. As for instruction, yes, some shops are crap. Thankfully my LDS offers competent instruction in courses ranging from OW through introductory tech courses. The instructors are experienced, knowledgeable divers who don't rush people through and doom them to failure from the start. Pretty much anything I need, they can help with. Obviously it's quite possible to dive without a LDS, but I know that my local dive community would suffer greatly if our shop shutdown.

 

[Stu S.]

When my favorite dive store closed, it created new choices. Do I want to drive the F-150 up and down Interstate 4? Not unless I have to.

I recently had to replace a flashlight. Drive 48 miles round trip, or pay $7.50 for UPS to bring that light? Click, click, and my order is processed. The light was here before I needed it.

As a young guy, my local dive store in Baltimore had hunting, fishing and scuba. Plus, Joe the owner was like Mike Nelson to us. There will never be another Joe, so on-line I go.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

As a young guy, my local dive store in Baltimore had hunting, fishing and scuba. Plus, Joe the owner was like Mike Nelson to us. There will never be another Joe, so on-line I go.

Sounds like Diver's Den?

Having recently moved to Arlington, I agree on the convenience of ordering thing. When I lived in the middle of the great American desert, I had to order specialty scuba stuff because no dealers existed within a 5 hour drive who sold it. Now that I live in the middle of America's worst commute, I will order the small stuff on line as it is a lot simpler, cheaper and even faster than trying to find it in this mess.

The shops I support are the one I get tech stuff from, the other one I get tech instruction from and a third one that enjoy doing reg repair for mostly because I just enjoy hanging out with them.

I got into diving for four reasons...

1., My uncle dove and was what passed for a PSD in his day and my first "cave" dive was with my cousin through a basement storage area under the steps when I was about 5 or 6 years old.

2. Seahunt re-runs were on TV every afternoon.

3. Jacques Cousteau specials aired on a regular basis.

4. The local dive shop owner was a genuinely great guy who was very supportive and encouraging of new divers. He also happened to look a lot like Jean-Michelle Cousteau. Reason four and a half is probably that in my early teens his wife was a hotty and in young adult hood his second wife was a lot less high maintence but even hotter looking - that is a "hero" message of a different but in some ways even more compelling sort.

All of the above sparked and sustained a desire to want to dive, and more importantly to want to explore and press the limits of diving.

 

[Stu S.]

Sure. Once, Joe put on a photo exhibit at the Parkville library branch. He was using a Nikonos at the time. Maybe it promoted his store, but it also showed people that could not dive what was down there.

It was all great fun. We went diving with a limited amount of gear, and we were not particularly "gear oriented". I still have big (real big) Scubapro knife that came from Joe's. It was my brother's.