Question for dive shop owners

[O-ring]

As I continue my fantasy about leaving corporate America and pursuing a career in the dive industry (can you tell I am having another bad day?), I had a question about general shop strategy. Without getting into location analysis and feasibility studies, is it generally better to locate your shop in:

1) an area of decreased competition where you are the only or one of the only LDSs in the area - may be an area where diving isn't that popular and you may need to cater to an extremely small niche market.

2) an area where diving is really popular and consequently there are many other shops to compete with but a larger number of potential customers. In this arena, have you had success competing on price, service, knowledge, or a combination of these?

Has anyone had success in either:

1) not doing retail gear sales and only training or leading dives? (seems like the inventory holding costs would be high - except for personal gear for the classes, which you could make a decent margin on)...or just doing special orders? Or does the shop basically use the training and dive leading as loss leaders and make revenue on gear sales?

2) catering to a small hardcore diving niche (technical, extended range, whatever you want to call it)?

Thanks!

--Eric

 

[Dee]

I'm not a shop owner but if you'd like a customers opinion....

Originally posted by O-ring
1) an area of decreased competition where you are the only or one of the only LDSs in the area - may be an area where diving isn't that popular and you may need to cater to an extremely small niche market.

We live in a rural area outside of Houston. We have one shop about a mile from the house but we don't use it for all kinds of reasons. One being that unless they viz'd your tank, they won't fill it. The closest good dive shop to us is an hour away. There are enough divers in our area to support a dive shop.

2) an area where diving is really popular and consequently there are many other shops to compete with but a larger number of potential customers. In this arena, have you had success competing on price, service, knowledge, or a combination of these?

Has anyone had success in either:

1) not doing retail gear sales and only training or leading dives? (seems like the inventory holding costs would be high - except for personal gear for the classes, which you could make a decent margin on)...or just doing special orders? Or does the shop basically use the training and dive leading as loss leaders and make revenue on gear sales?

Do you want a dive shop or a training center? We continued our training with our Instructor because we were comfortable with him and had faith in his abilities. His dive shop is where we hung out learning about different kinds of gear, listening to all the old salts telling stories and buying stuff we needed, not what was pushed on us. When we were ready, we signed up for further classes. If we had been trained in a training center I doubt we would have gone back for the extra training. There needs to be a continuing relationship between students/customers and the Instructor/dive shop.

As for dive shops in general, I like to touch and feel the merchandise before buying or ordering it. If I'm going to buy something sight unseen, I can do that online and save some money. And no, I don't look at something in a shop then order it onliine....but I know some do that. I actually spend more money than planned because a shop DOES have it right then, right there.

2) catering to a small hardcore diving niche (technical, extended range, whatever you want to call it)?

Over the years we have migrated to a couple of shops that are more technically oriented. One big reason is for the knowledge in gear. And they have that gear available so I can actually see how a bungeed necklace should be configured, for example. They also have all those little things like SS snaps, D-rings, webbing, etc. that can't be found in 'regular' dive shops.

Just my thoughts as a customer!

 

[Uncle Pug]

Keep making money so you can spend it on diving and dive stuff...
Work is what you do to pay for your fun...
IF you take your fun and make it work what will you do for fun...
Work?

 

[O-ring]

Keep making money so you can spend it on diving and dive stuff...
Work is what you do to pay for your fun...
IF you take your fun and make it work what will you do for fun...
Work?

The wisdom here is pretty self-evident...after all, I used to love technology and went and turned that into work and now I don't like it much anymore...I can't imagine how depressing it is to be an adult film star...

 

[Uncle Pug]

Originally posted by O-ring
I can't imagine how depressing it is to be an adult film star...

Yeah... no kidding... I'll bet Jim Carey misses those days back in Jr. High when he acted goofey just for fun and to annoy teachers...

 

[large_diver]

O-R,

There are instructors that operate without being directly affiliated with any shop.

My BOW/OW/Rescue instructors are an example: YMCA-affiliated and not affiliated with any shop. This group is made up of a group of about 10-15 instructors -- all they do is teach classes, from BOW up through the various leadership training levels. The "director" (my BOW instructor) actually seems to have a pretty good system going. He has BOW courses running every week night of the week (M-F) in 6 week cycles in various locations throughout Boston. The classes are always in synch, so if you are unable to attend in one location, you can make it up on another night during the same week at another location. On weekends during the spring and summer they are doing BOW checkout dives and advanced/rescue/leadership training.

They have loose relationships with local shops in terms of ensuring rental gear availabillty. I believe he has an inventory of his own tanks and inexpensive gear he uses each night of the week for pool work. For OW dives, students have to rent from an LDS.

I am sure they are not making a ton of money on this...just wanted to provide an example. I have to assume they succeed based on volume...so for this model to work, you would need to be in a bigger metropolitan area. It would also obviously be sticky to be competing with shops for training volme, but at the same time trying to build relationships with them regarding student gear rental....

This guy has been doing this for some time...

 

[jbd]

in Uncle Pugs response. Sounds like you have experienced that very thing. Maybe something like large_diver mentioned would be something you could do as a profitable hobby. Might help you deal with the corporate life knowing that you have something fun to do after work.

 

[O-ring]

I often thought it would be a great retirement part-time job to teach diving or open a little shop on the beach somewhere.

Anyone need a business partner in, oh, say about 20-25 years?

 

[jbd]

income from teaching scuba is part of my retirement plans. We will live off the pensions and investments etc and the money from teaching diving will be a little "mad" money.

 

[O-ring]

Since I will be old I can say things like:

"When we used to do it we didn't have tanks...we used an old sabre toothed tiger's stomach that we stuck to our backs with honey we had to get from the beehive ourselves"

"hoses? pshaw... we didn't have those either...we had to kill an African bull elephant with our bare hands and use it's veins as hoses...now don't get me started on regulators"

"be glad you have fins...we had to use beaver tails...from man-eating carnivorous beavers..."

*you get the point*

--Eric (anxiously looking forward to retirement!)