The market is not going to grow, because the retail industry has a vested interest in selling conventional BCs. Looking at Scubapro, their BCs range in price from $400 to over $900. Do you really think it costs that much more to make one BC over another? Manufacturers and dive shops will protect their margins as much as possible.
The market COULD grow if dive shops would be willing to put in some time and effort into promoting BP/W systems. The problem is that many dive shops are tied to manufacturers in that they are given discounts when aggregate sales reach different levels. So lets say you cut a deal with Aqualung or Scubapro to carry their stuff. Anything that you sell with their name on it adds up in the aggregate pool and eventually the more you push their stuff the more you save on the next batch. This can be good but it’s also a trap. Dive shops just want to make money and remain solvent. All the stuff they get in from the Aqualungs and Scubapros works fine and the general public is none the wiser.
Selling BP/W would throw a wrench into this whole structure. It would dilute sales from other systems and throw off the whole aggregate sales structure. Also, instructors would have to begin to wear them teaching classes, they would have to stock their rental fleets with them, they would have to be pushed on the floor, the sales staff would need to be educated about them and be able to set them up and adjust them properly for customers. I know all this from my times going around to dive shops throughout the state trying to place my plate.
I sat down with a shop owner once and he said “Son, let me tell you how all this works. First, I love your product and what you’re doing but I can’t carry it and here’s why...”
I found out there are several kinds of dive shops or outlets. One is the generic corporate model that is generally the smaller local shop that pretty much is an outlet store for one of the big names. You walk in and see a line up of poodle jackets and maybe a back inflate or two, a line up of a few split fins and maybe a paddle fin or two, a rack of the usual mask selection, a few turn racks of trident do dads, save a dive kits etc. a rack of a few suits. There’s nothing exclusive or interesting. Everything is priced at full retail. These are the shops I walk into and turn right around and walk out. Nothing in there for me. The manufacturer comes in, set them up, and the shop just becomes a yes man for the manufacturer. These are the ones that will probably never carry a BP/W system until the manufacturer says so and that will never happen.
The other shops are the bigger ones generally with a strong online presence and enough clout to tell the manufacturer how it is and not be pushed around simply based on their volume. Leisure Pro would be one of these. Then there are the specialty shops that are rooted in online sales and carry a lot of exclusive gear for techies and such. This would be more like DGX or maybe Deep 6?
Most shops in California fall into the first category. There are only a few larger shops that carry BP/W gear and more advanced gear. One in Sacramento and one in LA that I know of. There might be one or a few in the Bay Area but they seem to be GUE affiliated.