Major Industry Change re: Online Scuba Sales....

[mdb]

[QUOTE=RJP: I'm not trying to be pedandic here-

Maybe you are not "trying" but you are.

 

[mdb]

double post

 

[cerich]

You wanna "fish"? OK.

As a professional marketer, here's the most important question I can ask you:

Who is Oceanic's competition?

I'll wait until you post your answer before I tell you that you're wrong.

Other sports that compete for leisure dollars, in particular those that don't require as much travel to participate.

 

[RJP]

Other sports that compete for leisure dollars, in particular those that don't require as much travel to participate.

You're halfway there!



Two hints:

Why are you limiting the consideration set to "sports"?

What does "travel" have to do with it?

 

[daniel f aleman]

Well, diving requires swimming - fully 75% of the population will not swim (can't, won't), that's a huge factor; another is the lack of general health of a person who wants to dive, throw out another 10%. We ain't playing golf here folks. Diving will never be anything more than a niche in the sports market (if it can really be called a sport).

In terms of science, business, research, military, diving has a place, but that ain't sport either...

 

[Thalassamania]

Knock out the shop, $100 becomes $50.00. Knock out the distributor and it becomes $25.00, go right to the production factility and it's only about $12.50. And that's before you move the plant to China.

 

[OkieDiver]

You wanna "fish"? OK.

As a professional marketer, here's the most important question I can ask you:

Who is Oceanic's competition?

I'll wait until you post your answer before I tell you that you're wrong.

Any company or business that is NOT Oceanic. Marketing 101

 

[RJP]

Diving will never be anything more than a niche in the sports market

That's a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you define scuba as a sport, it will never be more than a niche, in that market.

And being a "just a niche" may be fine, just be a "niche" in a bigger market!

Starbucks would have been a niche player in the "morning coffee market" versus McDonalds, Dunkin Donuts, and the local coffee shop. But instead they decided not to define the market as "coffee" and almost overnight McDonalds, Dunkin Donuts, and the local coffee shop were scratching their heads and saying "what the **** just happened"?

 

[Bill51]

During a recent trip to Table Rock, I was amazed at the number of avid divers who dive solely to spear fish the lakes in southern Missouri. I bet that's a market people rarely think about. Redneck fishermen :fork:

That’s a niche market within a niche market that is not catered too extensively but plenty of competition whether it’s a little shop in Springfield MO or a fishing center with some dive gear down here on the coast. I discovered years ago that many of the Bull Shoals and Table Rock spear fishers had no desire to ever dive Cozumel or the Cayman Islands. As a couple of shops in KC discovered, they’re also some of the cheapest divers around who already know where the best Internet price is. Our goal now is to get a few more fishermen to try diving if for no other reason than to see what their favorite reef or wreck looks like.

 

[RJP]

Any company or business that is NOT Oceanic. Marketing 101

Too clever by half! It's time to get more sophisticated than Marketing 101.

You're close. V-E-R-Y close. But is Quaker Oatmeal Oceanic's competition?

Another way of looking at it - what does Oceanic sell?

PS - I'm now running the risk of being not only pedantic but semantic as well!