MARP Price Fixing Update - Consumers Win!

[redacted]

So by your reasoning the only thing that should be important is price? Who cares about quality of instruction ... whoever is cheapest should survive!!! I will repeat - if you make your sale on price then you will loose it on price too. If you don't have to ability to be creative enough to move the price away from a price only discussion then you have no business being in sales. Anybody can make a sale on price alone.

It would be communism if the government (or other central planning organization) dictated that you must carry SP, and that you must abide by their MARP & MAP policies. And then it was further decreed that each diver had to purchase SP.

By resticiting how a company implements its business plan you are a lot closer to communism then by allowing them to design and implement a plan that suits their needs and wants.

I don't think anyone but you is saying price only. For me, price is the starting point and I'll work from there. But I do have to admit, price is a pretty big factor and there is just not much that will make me pay $600 from one retailer for a regulator that I can get for $300 to $400 from another retailer. But I don't put much value in a manufacturer's warranty and I do my own servicing.

We (USA) and most other countries already put restrictions on things business can do. In the USA, it's probably that "of the people, by the people, for the people" thing.
We already control monopolies and price fixing. MARP is just a poorly disguised maneuver around what would otherwise be illegal price fixing. I don't find MAP quite as distasteful but it is just another maneuver to limit free market competition. As a consumer, I would like to see it end but I do understand why small scuba shops think they need it. It's like when there is a food shortage so we either have to ration the supplies or thin the herd. In the case of retail scuba, I just think that allowing natural selection (competition) to thin the herd would be a better long-term solution to all these struggling dive shops.

 

[MarKon]

As purley a scuba customer, I think it would be intersting to note how many of the people arguing for MAP/MARP are LDS owners/employees, instructors employed by shops.

 

[MarKon]

After reading 12 pages, I am certain of one thing: Never open a dive shop. thank you, SB, for givig me something to do while working Friday afternoon.

 

[matthewmark_john]

I know -- we can just have the feds bail out the inefficient dealers! That way we get lower prices, subsidized by the ENTIRE community, not just the diving community. That seems fair, huh? Then everyone gets their money and their gear and everyone's happy.

 

[offthewall1]

I know -- we can just have the feds bail out the inefficient dealers! That way we get lower prices, subsidized by the ENTIRE community, not just the diving community. That seems fair, huh? Then everyone gets their money and their gear and everyone's happy.

Great idea. I have also written to my Congressman Dutch Ruppersberger asking when I could expect my bailout. Although I'm more like Ford (claiming not to need it) than GM or Chrysler, I figure if the government is taking my middle class income tax dollar and giving it to failing big businesses... then the least they could do is give me some of my own money back too.

I say let big business crash and burn. None of those companies should have received a nickel. I don't care how much allowing them to crash would hurt the US economy or world economy. The banks and auto makers should be allowed to crumble.

Right now all we are doing is throwing floats into a sinking ship. Floats which will eventually go down with the ship and be lost. The only way to save America is to let it fall then rebuild it from the ground up. That is a harsh reality that most do not want to face... but economically speaking, America is past the point of saving. The country is in a debt it can never crawl out from under. Our manufacturing is dead and we have little else to offer the world. We are now owned (almost literally) by China and a handful of other nations. It is scary.

Soon however, getting a dollar out of uncle Sam is going to be like squeezing blood from a turnip. The only thing we can do is print more paper money... a money which almost daily decreases in value on the world market.

Sorry for going off on the political tangent... but it is all distantly relative to the topic at hand. The failures of the big scuba companies are coming just like the failure of big businesses in every other market sector. More than 900 companies are marked for extinction in 2009. We've seen Circuit City fall... Ritz Camera... and many others. Strip malls and malls across the country have more vacancies than they've ever had.

Lets all hope someone in the government gets it. I agree that price alone does not define a business... but price in a down economy does define how much business - a business will do.

 

[CDNScubaMoose]

I don't think anyone but you is saying price only. For me, price is the starting point and I'll work from there. But I do have to admit, price is a pretty big factor and there is just not much that will make me pay $600 from one retailer for a regulator that I can get for $300 to $400 from another retailer. But I don't put much value in a manufacturer's warranty and I do my own servicing.

I guess that makes the two of us very different consumers. Myself, I put service, knowledge and the relationship with my LDS ahead of price (probably because the next closest LDS is 60-75 miles away). I can respect your POV since you have decided not to put value in the same area that I do. So your needs and wants are different then mine - that's cool. Just as SP and AL's needs and wants don't neccesarily mesh with what certain LDS's need and want. Each to their own.

We (USA) and most other countries already put restrictions on things business can do. In the USA, it's probably that "of the people, by the people, for the people" thing.
We already control monopolies and price fixing. MARP is just a poorly disguised maneuver around what would otherwise be illegal price fixing. I don't find MAP quite as distasteful but it is just another maneuver to limit free market competition. As a consumer, I would like to see it end but I do understand why small scuba shops think they need it. It's like when there is a food shortage so we either have to ration the supplies or thin the herd. In the case of retail scuba, I just think that allowing natural selection (competition) to thin the herd would be a better long-term solution to all these struggling dive shops.

I still struggle to see this as price fixing. You are not forced to buy SP and AL, if you want to support those companies then you have to support their policies ... if you don't agree with them, you have other choices. Now if all the companies formed a cartel and there was no choice (or if a monopoly was created) then there is an argument for price fixing. SP and AL have differeniated themselves from the rest of the market and thus giving consumers more choice, you might not like that choice but the ability to choose drives innovation.

 

[CDNScubaMoose]

As purley a scuba customer, I think it would be intersting to note how many of the people arguing for MAP/MARP are LDS owners/employees, instructors employed by shops.

Since you asked - I'll be straight up: I am a PADI instrcutor that teaches for a shop. However, I am not paid for my teaching services in any form (monetary or via equipment "key-man" pricing).

 

[widget]

I am confused, perhaps its because MAP and MARP is as foreign to me as "hens with teeth" having always traded in markets that prohibited the practise, or perhaps, I just dont understand the argument.

I have operated in the Scuba Industry for over 30 years in various countries, all of which have laws prohibiting the MAP and MARP trade agreements (anti competitive laws) and still, the entire dive industry including dive schools,shops, boat operators, traders and distributors all continue to trade and be profitable.

I guess, what I am asking is, "many countires the world over prohibit these practices, yet the industry (small LDS operators) is still there,competing with internet sellers, trading domestically on a daily basis and STILL making a profit.

Why would you think it will be differant domestically in the USA should these MAP and MARP practices be prohibited than say France, Italy, Germany or even here in South Africa where the anti competitive laws prohibit both MAP and MARP".

Please dont "shoot me" its just I cant see what the fuss would be if the regulation is removed. - surely business folk will just readjust to a differant (perhaps even better) working model?.

 

[redacted]

I still struggle to see this as price fixing. You are not forced to buy SP and AL, if you want to support those companies then you have to support their policies ... if you don't agree with them, you have other choices. Now if all the companies formed a cartel and there was no choice (or if a monopoly was created) then there is an argument for price fixing. SP and AL have differeniated themselves from the rest of the market and thus giving consumers more choice, you might not like that choice but the ability to choose drives innovation.

If all the Scubapro dealers in an area got together and agreed to a common pricing scheme, then that would clearly be illegal price fixing. In this case, the manufacturer did it for them creating the same situation. I don't believe it really matters that you can always go buy another brand and avoid those shops that are practicing price fixing.

In a way, I think I actually benefit from the anti-competitive practices of so many scuba manufacturers. The non-transferable warranties and deceptions they run on new divers helps keep the cost of my preferred fairly old used regulators and other equipment quite low. But I still hate to see new divers being taken advantage of and I hate to listen to some of the crap shops spew in defense of these policies and agreements.

 

[JonKranhouse]

What will actually happen if you manage to remove the floor from retail SCUBA pricing is that large Internet businesses (large like Wal-Mart's web site, not SCUBA Toys) will own the market, and the remaining shops will just sell classes, air fills and maybe a few accessories. Except that classes and air will now cost what they actually should, so there will be a lot fewer new divers.

Terry,

I respect that you teach 7 to 8 week-long college classes. Clearly you're concerned with the safety and welfare of your students, and want them to be well informed before venturing out on their own. And you've acknowledged that profit-motives can reduce the quality of instruction that other instructors offer, who say "Hey, we meet standards."

Instructors (independent or not) are more profitable when the classes are shorter and the price remains the same. There's really no way around it.

But your conclusions to fight to keep MARP and MAP presume that (A) the WRSTC standards can never change, and (B) only the high costs of equipment is what will keep stores in business. Respectfully, this is the decades-old sophistry promulgated by sales reps from the major brands. It's an industry model devised by a handful of businessmen to maximize what's in their best interests - not the retailers'. But change is inevitable, and it's better to be in front of the curve. There's no proof to back the reps' bogeyman warnings of impending doom in a post-MARP / MAP economy. That's just the sales reps' version of WMDs. Business without MARP and MAP works for those "wakadoo" European retailers. The tragedy for US retailers who are lured into fighting to keep MARP / MAP are the many unintended consequences of that choice that impact unwitting consumers.