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This is nothing new or specific to SCUBA. It's done in all industries. You can't even get a corporate business credit card without a personal guarantee.
Terry
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MARP Price Fixing Update - Consumers Win!
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This is nothing new or specific to SCUBA. It's done in all industries. You can't even get a corporate business credit card without a personal guarantee.
Terry
You are absolutely right. Which is why so many small entrepreneurs in MANY industries are upset by the Leegin decision, because they are losing control of their own destiny. It's just that in the dive industry, finding verifiable data to make informed business decisions is impossible. So sales reps can say just about anything to a would-be retailer to close a deal. That degree of tilted playing field is somewhat unique to the dive industry - and certainly one-of-a-kind when you're mixing in life-support equipment.
I strongly suggest taking 1-hour to listening to:
Audio from panel of speakers at the American Antitrust Institute's December 2008 meeting, RE antitrust issues specific to small retailers
Also - it is worth reading Richard Brunell's testimony, from last Tuesday, to see how this impacts many industries.
Richard Brunell, Director of Legal Advocacy of the AAI, testifies before the House Judiciary Committee's antitrust subcommittee on April 28, discussing resale price maintenance in the period since the Leegin case was decided, criticizing the reasoning of the Supreme Court's opinion and urging a legislative reversal.
catfish
Contributor
It's lose, not loose. You have made this mistake at least a half a dozen times in this thread, so it's not a typo. I cannot take anything you say seriously when you cannot spell the words in your favorite phrase correctly.
Scuba.Pete
Registered
Here's the way I see it:
In a free market, if you don't agree with the practices/policies of a business or manufacturer you simply don't do business with them and don't purchase their products. You don't go whine to the gov't because "It's not fair." While I understand gov't involvement in business is sometimes necessary, it just doesn't seem to be justified in this case.
As a consumer who is not a fan of MARP, I don't have to support it...there are plenty of high-quality gear manufacturers that do not subscribe to this business practice. The same goes for retailers, if you don't like it then don't sell their equipment.
I'd be interested to know how many of you (supporters of this legislation) have purchased SP/AL equipment.
In a free market, if you don't agree with the practices/policies of a business or manufacturer you simply don't do business with them and don't purchase their products. You don't go whine to the gov't because "It's not fair." While I understand gov't involvement in business is sometimes necessary, it just doesn't seem to be justified in this case.
As a consumer who is not a fan of MARP, I don't have to support it...there are plenty of high-quality gear manufacturers that do not subscribe to this business practice. The same goes for retailers, if you don't like it then don't sell their equipment.
I'd be interested to know how many of you (supporters of this legislation) have purchased SP/AL equipment.
Seriously though...
I agree with the passion behind the effort but it is just misguided. I will pick on Scubapro here because I have been familiar with their equipment, their dealers and their pricing policies for 25 years. As a customer there at times have been things about their pricing policies I did not like - especially as a cash strapped college kid trying to acquire equipment, but the truth is I would have never become a diver if they did not have those polices.
The fact is it is really hard for a dive shop to survive in Pierre - SD - about 11 miles from the geographic center of the north american continent and about as far from salt water as you can possibly get - regardless of what business model you are using. If a company does not have pricing policies, small local dealers just don't survive as they get low balled by larger ones and the small local shops dry up. There are perhaps 4 dive shops in the entire state of SD and 3 of the 4 are Scubapro dealers - that says a lot. I can walk into any of those 3 and be greeted by name even after being away for years - that says even more.
In the big picture where 80% of the US population lives within 200 miles of the coast, maybe the inland bits don't matter as much, but if you restrict the policies that companies can use to help maintain their dealer networks you are going to create large areas where any shops that exist jump from one company to anotheer to try to survive in a very low profit industry and even in the more populated coastal areas, you are going to end up with a few regional big box retailers.
And that would be tragedy as scuba diving is not about equipment or how great an online discount you can get - it is about people. And it is in the end people who love to dive who bring in new people who aquire the same addiction, and in my experience, no place does that better than a smal local dive shop where everyone knows your name. Large impersonal shops and certification mills that crank out students by the score are just never going to have that same long term impact on a diver.
Lots of people talk about the internet and the need for a new business model and that is basically crap. Before the internet the industry had Central Skin Divers, Berry Scuba and a couple others I can no longer remember and they were the leisure pro of their day offering cut rate discounts - but offering no real service let alone gas or instruction. US divers (at a low point in their history) sold a lot of studd through mail order retailers and their dealer network reflected that as if you bought it, it was often low quality and hard to get serviced.
Shops that carried brands that tightly restricted prices and mail order sales survived and perhpas more importantly, the Mk 3 High Performance reg I bought new in 1985 still sees service on a deco bottle, still gets annual service support and the shop where I bought has been a dealer the entire time. It cost me maybe $50 or even $100 more than another brand (a lot more money back) would have through the mail, but those other brands are either no longer around or would have long since discontinued support for the reg. So in the end, the "over priced" reg I bought from a dealer unable to give me more of a discount (up front at least) was one of the better inverstments I ever made and along with my Jet Fins are the only pices of my original set of gear that I still use on a regular basis.
And I got more than just "overpriced" gear. I got a dive shop owner who stayed up late the night before the state spearfishing tournament patching a seam leak in my Scubapro Bouyancy Control pack (bought used from him a couple years before because I was on a tight budget). I got a dive shop owner who took the time to show me how things worked and why, who provided a level of service that you won't find in a larger shop and I got a dive shop owner who taught my wife to dive and I got an owner that I still regard as a freind.
The truth is, without the support and stability offerred by companies that have policies intended to ensure smaller dealers rain in business, there woudl not have been a dive shop or an instructor within a 1000 miles of where I grew up and I probably would not have become a diver nor made diving such a central part of my life.
So when someone decides it is therr right to mess with an industry model that has worked for the last 40 plus years to ensure small shops remain in business virtually anywhere there is diveable water, I take that personally and I will try my best to try to show them the error in their theory, no matter how passionate their intent.
I agree with the passion behind the effort but it is just misguided. I will pick on Scubapro here because I have been familiar with their equipment, their dealers and their pricing policies for 25 years. As a customer there at times have been things about their pricing policies I did not like - especially as a cash strapped college kid trying to acquire equipment, but the truth is I would have never become a diver if they did not have those polices.
The fact is it is really hard for a dive shop to survive in Pierre - SD - about 11 miles from the geographic center of the north american continent and about as far from salt water as you can possibly get - regardless of what business model you are using. If a company does not have pricing policies, small local dealers just don't survive as they get low balled by larger ones and the small local shops dry up. There are perhaps 4 dive shops in the entire state of SD and 3 of the 4 are Scubapro dealers - that says a lot. I can walk into any of those 3 and be greeted by name even after being away for years - that says even more.
In the big picture where 80% of the US population lives within 200 miles of the coast, maybe the inland bits don't matter as much, but if you restrict the policies that companies can use to help maintain their dealer networks you are going to create large areas where any shops that exist jump from one company to anotheer to try to survive in a very low profit industry and even in the more populated coastal areas, you are going to end up with a few regional big box retailers.
And that would be tragedy as scuba diving is not about equipment or how great an online discount you can get - it is about people. And it is in the end people who love to dive who bring in new people who aquire the same addiction, and in my experience, no place does that better than a smal local dive shop where everyone knows your name. Large impersonal shops and certification mills that crank out students by the score are just never going to have that same long term impact on a diver.
Lots of people talk about the internet and the need for a new business model and that is basically crap. Before the internet the industry had Central Skin Divers, Berry Scuba and a couple others I can no longer remember and they were the leisure pro of their day offering cut rate discounts - but offering no real service let alone gas or instruction. US divers (at a low point in their history) sold a lot of studd through mail order retailers and their dealer network reflected that as if you bought it, it was often low quality and hard to get serviced.
Shops that carried brands that tightly restricted prices and mail order sales survived and perhpas more importantly, the Mk 3 High Performance reg I bought new in 1985 still sees service on a deco bottle, still gets annual service support and the shop where I bought has been a dealer the entire time. It cost me maybe $50 or even $100 more than another brand (a lot more money back) would have through the mail, but those other brands are either no longer around or would have long since discontinued support for the reg. So in the end, the "over priced" reg I bought from a dealer unable to give me more of a discount (up front at least) was one of the better inverstments I ever made and along with my Jet Fins are the only pices of my original set of gear that I still use on a regular basis.
And I got more than just "overpriced" gear. I got a dive shop owner who stayed up late the night before the state spearfishing tournament patching a seam leak in my Scubapro Bouyancy Control pack (bought used from him a couple years before because I was on a tight budget). I got a dive shop owner who took the time to show me how things worked and why, who provided a level of service that you won't find in a larger shop and I got a dive shop owner who taught my wife to dive and I got an owner that I still regard as a freind.
The truth is, without the support and stability offerred by companies that have policies intended to ensure smaller dealers rain in business, there woudl not have been a dive shop or an instructor within a 1000 miles of where I grew up and I probably would not have become a diver nor made diving such a central part of my life.
So when someone decides it is therr right to mess with an industry model that has worked for the last 40 plus years to ensure small shops remain in business virtually anywhere there is diveable water, I take that personally and I will try my best to try to show them the error in their theory, no matter how passionate their intent.
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John_B
Grasshopper
John_B
Grasshopper
Here's another one.
The "penalty" for going the LP route with Aqualung/Scubapro regulators is that the customer doesn't get "free parts" when paying for their annual service. How much does that really "cost", when LP sells the popular $600 MK17/G250V for $360?
How can you small LDS guys compete with that?
The "penalty" for going the LP route with Aqualung/Scubapro regulators is that the customer doesn't get "free parts" when paying for their annual service. How much does that really "cost", when LP sells the popular $600 MK17/G250V for $360?
How can you small LDS guys compete with that?
widget
Contributor
Perhaps a different take. When I started diving some 15 years ago, I found it hard to buy gear. There was no one shop I could walk into and look at many different items from different manufacturers. So I had to drive around to 5 or 6 different shops to see 5 or 6 different brands. Then they didn't keep all models of their particular brand in stock. Each shop sang the praises of their own brand, and many (not all) bagged the other brands. I remember saying to my wife that someone should open a large shop stocking all the brands so that the consumer could go in and choose freely. I would have paid almost any price for this service. If there was a shop that stocked, or was able to give me a wide choice of gear I would support it. Why don't shops stock gear from different manufacturers? Is it something to do with the agreement they enter into with the manufacturer?
So gear choice depends on reading about it in reviews (eternally biased nothing to touch Apex UK press, or Scubapro US press), forums, friends opinions, (the LDS opinion is worthless as they will recommend the only brand they stock), and then finding a dealer who stocks what you want. Not surprising the internet dealers are doing well. I do pity someone trying to do business under these conditions. I once felt sorry for the youngsters starting their own business (who I did my open water course with) and charitably supported them, buying stuff sight unseen, at full RRP, knowing full well that I was being ripped off, I guess if they had come to me needing a cash injection I would have done it not expecting it to be repaid, it would have been more honest than the rip off RRP. Nowdays I get tax deductions for charity. I believe the current model is untenable, for both retailers and consumers, let the dive shops stock the gear they want to stock and believe in, and not restrict them to just one brand. There are few big guys out there that seem to have a reasonable selection of gear, but those are the guys venturing into internet sales, what we are talking about is the corner dive store. I think more than price fixing, it is the exclusive trade agreements that must go (if indeed there are such agreements, or similar, i can imagine it goes something like if you only stock our gear we'll sell it to you for x dollars, or we'll advertise for you or something, but if you stock other gear as well it will cost you x+100 dollars, I may be wrong?). Something is very wrong with the industry as a whole, (unhappy shop owners, increasingly beligerent and militant customers) and it probably needs a complete rethink. Too many players in a small market? I don't know.
So gear choice depends on reading about it in reviews (eternally biased nothing to touch Apex UK press, or Scubapro US press), forums, friends opinions, (the LDS opinion is worthless as they will recommend the only brand they stock), and then finding a dealer who stocks what you want. Not surprising the internet dealers are doing well. I do pity someone trying to do business under these conditions. I once felt sorry for the youngsters starting their own business (who I did my open water course with) and charitably supported them, buying stuff sight unseen, at full RRP, knowing full well that I was being ripped off, I guess if they had come to me needing a cash injection I would have done it not expecting it to be repaid, it would have been more honest than the rip off RRP. Nowdays I get tax deductions for charity. I believe the current model is untenable, for both retailers and consumers, let the dive shops stock the gear they want to stock and believe in, and not restrict them to just one brand. There are few big guys out there that seem to have a reasonable selection of gear, but those are the guys venturing into internet sales, what we are talking about is the corner dive store. I think more than price fixing, it is the exclusive trade agreements that must go (if indeed there are such agreements, or similar, i can imagine it goes something like if you only stock our gear we'll sell it to you for x dollars, or we'll advertise for you or something, but if you stock other gear as well it will cost you x+100 dollars, I may be wrong?). Something is very wrong with the industry as a whole, (unhappy shop owners, increasingly beligerent and militant customers) and it probably needs a complete rethink. Too many players in a small market? I don't know.
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