@LandonL I have no idea what your business model is, or the cost structure of your product. But I do know if someone buys another product you make nothing.
Very true, however we prefer customers to be happy with their product purchase, of course we prefer that they buy from us, but that may not always be the best fit. From our standpoint, it is better for a potential customer to buy elsewhere than to purchase our product and be unhappy with it. This is the main drive behind our generous refund policy. We feel our products are great value for the price, and we try to offer what we feel is the best service along with it. We are reasonable guys and will do what we can to make a customer happy, but if that isn't possible we will offer an amicable parting of ways.
Walmart does well catering to the low-price crowd, while other retailers are suffering badly. When I tell my students that Sears was once the largest retailer in the U.S. until they were surpassed by K-Mart, they look at me in disbelief. What happened to them and how did Walmart get so big?, price first and service second. I am not sure what service you are selling.
Walmart does well catering to the low-price crowd, that is their business model. Target however, does not target the low price crowd and is succeeding as well. Many luxury car manufacturers like are leaders in the industry without trying to market themselves to customers only seeking the lowest price. Do you measure their success as inferior because they are not as large as say Walmart, or Ford?
The same could be said for Apple. They produce a product that could hardly be called budget friendly, and charge a premium over similar products from competitors. Indeed Apple is the largest company in the world, surpassing Microsoft in market cap, and still remaining so. How did they do this? It certainly wasn't by trying to compete by providing the cheapest product that was another clone of other computers, laptops, cell phones, media players, etc. Apple created an ecosystem, a system with multiple levels of integration, providing not only the product, but the retail facilities for the product, the service facilities for their product, and an excellent level of customer service. In many cases the internal components were not anything beyond what others offered, it was the usability and service that excelled past their competitors, the extras that defined them. (mainly in OS X integration and seemless use between devices, but thats a different conversation). They were able to achieve this by going above and beyond what others in the industry did, by doing something different, not by copying the same model and trying to do it cheaper. Many of those same principles can be applied across industries.
I am not sure what service you are selling. It is a regulator, it should work, period. So what service do I need? How do you do it better than DRIS, LP, CA, DGX, or other reputable online shops? Also you may want to poll this, but I would think that most people do not look at servicing cost when purchasing a regulator. I would guess that budget is much more important.
We are selling regulators, along with other products, and we do our best to offer what we think are improvements over the general competition, but we are also selling a service, and that service is what we aim to define us. We want customers to know they always have a reasonable solution to get service for their equipment, by either sending to us or using an affiliate demo center or instructor, we want the customer to know we stand behind our product 100% and will refund them if they have a concern. We send them spare parts kits so in an emergency they can get their equipment serviced in a remote location, and will provide the service manual for free, or even technical assistance over the phone. Hopefully you won't ever need these services, but we want to be there to provide them if necessary. On that note, of the above mentioned, CA is one of our Demo Centers, and the partnership has been beneficial to both of us. You are correct, most divers purchase regulators without considering the service cost, but we hope to enlighten them to the benefits during the purchase, and hopefully we will appeal to other divers who are knowledgeable about this cost already. Budget may be important, but isn't the deciding factor for everyone, and we aim to provide as much information as possible about why we can provide a great product at a great price, without being the cheapest.
Every manufacturer/retailer is looking for that customer that values "something" over price. What is the percentage of these customers in the scuba marketplace? How are you going to attract these customers over more established competitors with deeper pockets? If that something is service then how are you going to compete against a competent dive shop?
You are probably correct, that isn't the majority of customers in the scuba marketplace. However that doesn't mean they can't see the benefit once it is presented to them. We hope to attract them to our customer base by what we offer, and if they choose to go another direction, thats ok too. We are the first to tell someone if they have a competent local dive shop, they should support them. We don't want to compete with them, and if anything, we want to form a mutually beneficial relationship with them as a Demo Center. The unfortunate truth is that many dive shops out there today are not what one would consider 'competent'. They take weeks for service, overcharge, attempt to punish customers for purchasing elsewhere, push unnecessary products, etc. These types of practices don't work elsewhere in other industries, and should not in ours as well.
In the end, we may not be the best fit for everyone, but we try our best to offer the best product and service we can. But, if the response for our products, service, and affiliate programs have been any indication so far, we feel we are on the right track.
