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

[scubadobadoo]

VERY FUNNY! I was just the first to read it, lol! Excellent! Oh, and I agree Net Doc. ScubaBoard or uh "Scubadobadoo" has made a dif. in this discussion.

 

[ReefHound]

Darn it all, for a fleeting moment I thought that I had achieved notoriety.

 

[RJP]

Well played!

Hopefully, I made you THINK! No, ~you~ isn't the only problem. ALL of us share in what is going on in our industry. Don't ever think that ~you~ can't make a HUGE difference in how the industry does it's business. You may THINK you are just a minor cog, but ~you~ is a part of a much bigger collective called :sblogo:

For those really concerned about being singled out, I have used some special programming to enable each of you to see your own username and not what I actually typed. Hopefully some have gotten a laugh, but I did it so that EVERYONE would think about the real implication that ~you~ has an impact on the Scuba Diving Industry!!! Hopefully the folk at DEMA will figure this out as well!

However, your original comment runs the risk of being "too clever by half" in perhaps the most ironic way possible!



In all my years as a marketer, I have developed a sure-fire way to determine if a brand/client/sector/business/industry is doomed: when the conversation works it's way around to the supposition that source of all the difficulty is the fault of the CUSTOMER!

The industry has to figure out how to make it easier for me to be a customer, not the other way around.

Your follow-up makes a good point about the power that a community of interest such as ScubaBoard can wield in helping the situation, but it's up to ~you~ dear manufacturer/LDS/etailer/NetDoc/etc to make it work.

 

[mexken]

Even dive training organizations like PADI fully embrace the concept that training sells dive gear and that dive gear sales keep dive shops open. If dive centres could make a living selling gear without training, like Leisure Pro they would. Or if they could train divers without selling dive gear (cus their students buy it on the internet) they probably wouldn't do both. The truth is that the profit is in the gear sales, duh. And if we don't produce divers that will buy our gear we will starve. Go buy your next reg from some nondiver dude sitting behind a desk in New York, then ask him to help you put it together, adjust it if necessary, then service it, help you with replacement under warranty, and show you the fine points of it's safe use. I for one am tired of being asked to support dive equipment that was purchased from nondiving retailers. If you are a tech geek and want to deal with this yourself, go nuts, but most divers don't have the knowledge or the interest to do it themselves. We might be talking life saving equipment here. Finaly, in the effort to "evolve" modern retailing we will have to find an "on line" way to fill tanks safely, too. Diving would not exist without Local Dive Stores. LDS's will not exist without making a profit selling and supporting dive gear. Let your LDS make a profit selling you gear and he will "be there" for you when you need air, or service, or advise, or a ride to the beach.

 

[mdb]

Even dive training organizations like PADI fully embrace the concept that training sells dive gear and that dive gear sales keep dive shops open. If dive centres could make a living selling gear without training, like Leisure Pro they would. Or if they could train divers without selling dive gear (cus their students buy it on the internet) they probably wouldn't do both. The truth is that the profit is in the gear sales, duh. And if we don't produce divers that will buy our gear we will starve. Go buy your next reg from some nondiver dude sitting behind a desk in New York, then ask him to help you put it together, adjust it if necessary, then service it, help you with replacement under warranty, and show you the fine points of it's safe use. I for one am tired of being asked to support dive equipment that was purchased from nondiving retailers. If you are a tech geek and want to deal with this yourself, go nuts, but most divers don't have the knowledge or the interest to do it themselves. We might be talking life saving equipment here. Finaly, in the effort to "evolve" modern retailing we will have to find an "on line" way to fill tanks safely, too. Diving would not exist without Local Dive Stores. LDS's will not exist without making a profit selling and supporting dive gear. Let your LDS make a profit selling you gear and he will "be there" for you when you need air, or service, or advise, or a ride to the beach.

Just one more tired story, buy from us or die etc. The modern Dive Retailer will survive.
The LDS who fails to evolve will be gone.

 

[redacted]

Diving would not exist without Local Dive Stores. LDS's will not exist without making a profit selling and supporting dive gear. Let your LDS make a profit selling you gear and he will "be there" for you when you need air, or service, or advise, or a ride to the beach.

Diving existed before there were local dive stores. And diving will continue to exist long after the uncompetetive local dive stores have failed to survive.

 

[prthd9]

I think the points made are valid. LDS must keep up with current times. This is the internet age and failing to, at least, develop a good webpage is almost like taking an almost empty take with you on a deep dive; its suicide. LDS can still develop webpages; possibly sell more gear; and then customers can still come into the shop and get assistance. The only difference is really that I don't have to come into the shop every time I want to look around.

 

[WarmWaterDiver]

My apologies NetDoc. I should have paid closer attention.

Buenos Noches!

 

[ReefHound]

Go buy your next reg from some nondiver dude sitting behind a desk in New York, then ask him to help you put it together, adjust it if necessary, then service it, help you with replacement under warranty, and show you the fine points of it's safe use. I for one am tired of being asked to support dive equipment that was purchased from nondiving retailers. If you are a tech geek and want to deal with this yourself, go nuts, but most divers don't have the knowledge or the interest to do it themselves. We might be talking life saving equipment here. Finaly, in the effort to "evolve" modern retailing we will have to find an "on line" way to fill tanks safely, too. Diving would not exist without Local Dive Stores.

Same ole same ole scare tactics and bullying. The days when that worked are over. You are a prime example of the ones that will be extincted in this industry. Good bye.

 

[PhilEllis]

Let your LDS make a profit selling you gear and he will "be there" for you when you need air, or service, or advise, or a ride to the beach.

Hi Mexken. Unfortunately, this entire discussion comes straight at you, and yet you miss the point. Over the past year, thread after thread on this very chat board has outlined exactly what YOU have to do to make sure that you will always be there. I, and others, have made a number of posts and responses on these issues, every one of them outlining what is necessary to ensure that the local dive store is a surviving entity in the carnage that is about to unfold in our industry. I call it carnage because that is exactly what it will be. When I think of carnage, I think of the antelope on the plain that is attacked from behind by the lion, never even knowing that the lion was hungry and stalking. In the worst case senario, ONE THIRD of all local dive stores will close this winter. Please read carefully and understand how YOU can survive this.

Even dive training organizations like PADI fully embrace the concept that training sells dive gear and that dive gear sales keep dive shops open.

Our beloved PADI will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars at this week's DEMA and over the coming year, telling people like yourself that the time has come. It is no longer enough to insist that you will live or die with the old local dive store model. We now know the anwer....stick with the old model and die. Now, if you are lucky enough to have a dive center in a large metro market, a center already grossing a million or more dollars annually, you probably have little to worry about. If not, you need to listen to the message offered by some on the board that have knowledge, a message for which a new standard bearer appears to be emerging......PADI. The time for change is now! Please don't wait another year. You simply don't have that kind of time. You are correct....most dive centers must sell gear. The "new" business model is all about that. Selling gear. Selling gear in higher volumes than ever imagined.

Go buy your next reg from some nondiver dude sitting behind a desk in New York, then ask him to help you put it together, adjust it if necessary, then service it, help you with replacement under warranty, and show you the fine points of it's safe use. I for one am tired of being asked to support dive equipment that was purchased from nondiving retailers.

This statement demonstrates a single minded, myoptic view. I assume by this comment you mean our friends at Leisure Pro. If so, you are looking at one gigantic tree in an even larger forest. The truth is, the battery of local scuba stores, just like yourself, that not only serve a local market but expand their sales through international websites, is growing faster and faster. They now dominate the online scuba sales segment. To assume that they cannot offer customer service EQUAL TO OR BETER THAN YOURS is a gigantic mistake. Over the telephone, we can often provide better pre-sale assistance than many stores can provide in person. Most of us can fit a customer with a buoyancy vest or wetsuit as well or better than you can in person. Our performance proves this point. So far this year, I have sold over 750 wetsuits on the internet. As of yesterday, we have had 22 returned because they were the wrong size. In most of those cases, the customer had the correct fitting wetsuit back in their hands, with a total transaction time LESS THAN what it would have taken for the customer to walk into a local store and get the correct suit ordered. Oh. They don't pay any freight to get this exchange. We pay the freight. We completely assemble all regulators, test them on modern dynamic test stands, and deliver them to the customer ready to go diving. All of the warranty paperwork is completed and the warranty is pre-registered for the customer. They even get a free regulator bag. When it comes time for annual service, they simply send it back to us or take them to a local authorized dealer for service. (Of course, many of those local dealers get so p***ed off about where they originally purchased from that they turn down the $60 for labor and send them packing. I love this. And I love each and every one of those $60 invoices.) They usually have the regulator back in their hands in 7-10 days.....and it always works correctly. We have only had 2 regulator returned for additional adjustments this year. That is 2 regulators out of over 120 "internet" rebuild tickets. In most local dive stores, customers are finding the wait time for annual service to be 2 weeks.....3 weeks.....sometimes even longer.

I for one am tired of being asked to support dive equipment that was purchased from nondiving retailers.

Then don't! And make sure you tell you customer how tired you are of this practice. That will really get them loyal to you. Again, you COMPLETELY miss the point. It is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS where a customer purchases his or her gear. Your business is to make them YOUR customer by providing the best service and advice you can. Your job is providing better cost, quality, and delivery than they can achieve anywhere else.

Let your LDS make a profit selling you gear and he will "be there" for you when you need air, or service, or advise, or a ride to the beach.

It is not the customer's responsibility to "let you make a profit". That, my friend, is your responsibility. You cannot judge the customer unfairly if they insist on getting the best value in their dive gear purchase. If you want to make the sale, make sure they get it at YOUR store. Increase you sales volume so you don't need the uncompetitive markups your currently attempt to realize. Do some advertising. Open an internet store to suppliment your local sales. Just do something! Don't sit there and wait for all of this to over run you.

I am sorry if this sounds harsh. It is a message that is not easily delivered with kindness. Feel fortunate that there are some people even willing to deliver the message to you. If you act now, you will number those messengers among your friends. If you don't act, well......I guess it will not matter.

I hope my comments have been helpful.

Phil Ellis

Additional Note:

We might be talking life saving equipment here. Finaly, in the effort to "evolve" modern retailing we will have to find an "on line" way to fill tanks safely too.

Mexken, you want a sure-fire way to send your customers away running? Continue these two agruments. They are the oldest, weakest, most desperate arguments ever offered for why a customer should pay you more for what they can otherwise get for less. I don't know a lot about history, but I bet the last words heard as General Custer lead his brave troops down the Little Big Horn were...............

"See if you can get your tanks filled on the internet!"