Obviously my attempt at a bit of humor was lost on you cat.
We treat our "Free Air for Certified Divers!!" as an advertising expense (sort of a loss leader but with no associated cost to us). Both the divers and S2K benefit so any criticism of the promo is lost at this end.
I'd be happy (and surprised) if Maxxam called me for any reason. I'm not looking for a deal. If you followed the other thread you'd see that the cost factor was not mentioned until the very last post after almost 2 weeks of continuous chatter. I'm looking for good service. If I get good service and a better price too, great - but the good service is what's hard to find in Canada. Too many of these institutional-type businesses have a better-than-thou attitude and do not treat customers with any respect.
Let's up the bet!! Get a salesperson from Maxxam to call me to explain their pure air program (basically make a sales call) and I'll give you a complete tank service (Visual/Hydro/ air fill) free. If the sales rep is able to persuade me that Maxxam can do as good a job as Trace Analytics for a comparable (not necessarily as cheap but reasonable) price and I decide to change (which I will do under those circumstances - I'm a businessman), I'll give you a free 80 cf tank!
The rules: I must receive the sales call before the end of May; the sales rep must tell me the name of the person who arranged the call (that person will be the winner) so I don't get into a fight with a dozen readers over who got him to call. In the event (highly unlikely) that more than one Maxxam rep calls me with different names, the reps will have to decide who was contacted first based on their phone messages or emails and then tell me the name. Basically the Maxxam rep(s) will decide the winner - not me.
Sorry about all the rules, particularly since I don't believe anybody will bother to call from Maxxam, but I don't need to irritate anybody on this board over this issue. I can do that quite well on my own thanks!
bwerb (?) is quite right on the 'roadshow' issue. Costco acts as a front for a LDS. The store decides what to buy; Costco buys it; Costco decides the price to sell and supplies the space; they split the profit.
In theory, the LDS uses the opportunity to solicit new divers and customers. In practice, a clerk mans the diving booth and he could care less. He doesn't ask for 'c' cards; he doesn't try to sell anything other than the cheap item on display so the he can get back to reading his magazine. The LDS loses, the diver loses, the sport loses, etc. Only Costco wins and they sure have no interest in divers or the sport of scuba.
This is not a new issue. This has been going on for several years. In the GTA the store that works with Costco is Waterline. Personally, having watched the program closely for a long time, I can't believe it's profitable to the dive store. I do know it's profitable to me. We've had more than a few divers walk in with several boxes of parts (regs, octopuses, gauges) asking us to assemble them. Yep! From Costco!! Yep! We charge for the service! The issue is - what's he going to do with the gear??
We've had many divers come in and question the Costco gear program and we've been very gererous (we sell Tusa gear among others) but have certainly pointed out the many benefits to dealing with the LDS.
Whats everyones view on this??
) or settle for "an inferior product".
