You've got a convert.
I'm an online shopper. I shop online for everything. Books, electronics, clothes, certain food items. Everything. So when I first started diving I was psyched to find the online dive suppliers.
I bought nearly all of my beginner gear online, going into the LDSs for only this or that.
BUT
Now the tides have shifted. I've started to get nearly everything at the dive shop. The expertise and friendliness of the staff at my favorite of the locals appeals to me in a way that I think nothing of dropping the extra couple of bucks for the gear. I get depressed when they don't carry or can't order the equipment I want... but they always make a convincing argument for why they carry the comparable equipment that they do and I wind up getting their stock than going online for what I'd thought I'd wanted.
There's also all the fit issues. My first mask (the one I'd gotten online) leaked like an Nonogenarian, but the one the LDS helped me select fits perfectly. So, this weekend I'm going to go get fitted for a custom wetsuit there. Yeah, there are (a very few) companies whose size charts say their stock will fit me and I could just order one of those online for much cheaper. But I'm not going to.
It's something of a revalation for me.
I know the few of many such points I make above have already been mentioned time and again when the LDS v. online arguments erupt, but it always winds up being an ethical v. practical battle which isn't really the point to me.
I appreciate the ethics of supporting small businesses and I appreciate the pragmatism of saving a few bucks. No, I'm not going to get worked up about "you should do this or that or you will be a bad person." Yes, I'm probably still going to buy stuff from LP from time to time.
But in the end, I just love diving and I'd rather haunt the LDS, chatting with other people who love diving with the smell of fresh neoprene in the air than sit at my computer looking at pictures of stuff that I covet. (Well, as the axiom goes, 'I'd rather be diving,' but, you know...)
I love the LDS and I'd rather spend there and know that I help a little toward keeping my haunt around.
I have seen the light.
Now I've got to go to Amazon.com to buy DVDs.
I'm an online shopper. I shop online for everything. Books, electronics, clothes, certain food items. Everything. So when I first started diving I was psyched to find the online dive suppliers.
I bought nearly all of my beginner gear online, going into the LDSs for only this or that.
BUT
Now the tides have shifted. I've started to get nearly everything at the dive shop. The expertise and friendliness of the staff at my favorite of the locals appeals to me in a way that I think nothing of dropping the extra couple of bucks for the gear. I get depressed when they don't carry or can't order the equipment I want... but they always make a convincing argument for why they carry the comparable equipment that they do and I wind up getting their stock than going online for what I'd thought I'd wanted.
There's also all the fit issues. My first mask (the one I'd gotten online) leaked like an Nonogenarian, but the one the LDS helped me select fits perfectly. So, this weekend I'm going to go get fitted for a custom wetsuit there. Yeah, there are (a very few) companies whose size charts say their stock will fit me and I could just order one of those online for much cheaper. But I'm not going to.
It's something of a revalation for me.
I know the few of many such points I make above have already been mentioned time and again when the LDS v. online arguments erupt, but it always winds up being an ethical v. practical battle which isn't really the point to me.
I appreciate the ethics of supporting small businesses and I appreciate the pragmatism of saving a few bucks. No, I'm not going to get worked up about "you should do this or that or you will be a bad person." Yes, I'm probably still going to buy stuff from LP from time to time.
But in the end, I just love diving and I'd rather haunt the LDS, chatting with other people who love diving with the smell of fresh neoprene in the air than sit at my computer looking at pictures of stuff that I covet. (Well, as the axiom goes, 'I'd rather be diving,' but, you know...)
I love the LDS and I'd rather spend there and know that I help a little toward keeping my haunt around.
I have seen the light.
Now I've got to go to Amazon.com to buy DVDs.