If we jumped on that band wagon our supplier have already told us that they would stop supplying us. Certain supplier require a minimum MSRP and if we drop it too low they will drop us. so it becomes a catch 22, caught between trying to please your supplier and trying to please your customer base.
Operations like LP don't have those problems becuase they obtain their product back channel. If they obtained them like the rest of the LDSs out there you would have no probelm getting the manufacturers warranty with the product. Would you buy brand new, "not used," car from a car dealer without their standard bumper to bumper warranty on that vehicle? no you wouldn't. Not naming names here but "No one is authorized to sell certain manufacturers dive gear on-line. Yet LP does. The "no-one" means authorized dealers, so in order to be an authorized and supported dealer of of those manufacturers' products we have to play by those manufacturers' rules. So what do we, as LDSs, do....piss off all our manufactures so we can't obtain any inventory or piss off customers who accuse us of over charging them. If we all run to the cheapest provider just becuase they are the cheapest we are headed down the road to fewer and fewer dive shops, that will have to charge $100 per air fill and $2000 for a basic open water class because those will be the only 2 things keeping them alive, they will be the only 2 things you can't buy from the LPs of the world.
