leah:
I am just curiuos what the real deal is. I keep hearing everytime I offer to give money to an LDS at thier posted prices how they are doing me a favor and loosing money when I give them money. I am all for them making a profit. I certainly do in my business. Just wondering what the real cost is.
There is no one answer Leah.
I had a chat with a LDS a few yars ago. He has a very significant installation.Siginificant banks, quenching for steels all in nice space. His comment was that if he were starting up today he could never affort such an installation and volume being what it is would probably not even go into the business. His facillity and major equipment were acquired and paid for during the Seahunt/Cousteau inspred explosion in diving. Today he says 1/2 of his clientel is folks like me (50 YO) getting to the sport on the backside of rearing their families. My point is his busness model does not include the cost of acquisition. Operation and maintenance are his out of pocket expenses and he'll deal with replacement if it's ever needed in his lifetime. I heard went up to $5 or $6 this year.
We have another shop with a bodacious compressor installation that was paid for when we had bonanza in sea urchin harvesting. They were filling cylinders on an overnight basis and had all they could to to keep up with demand. Again it was not the sport divers that covered the cost of acquisition. They still do a good volume on commercial fillls of several dozen at a time.
I'm sure that these sorts of stories are repeated elsewhere.
Lets talk labor... I have one shop that has somebody incapable of doing a good fill. Hooks them up and lets them whistle. I'm in and out in less than 10 minutes with 4 HP 80s they are poor fils so obviously I avoid this. Across town they will do slow :15 fill. If I leave the cylinder I can count on it having been topped off the next morning with a spot on fill. The manhour content of these fill is very different. Some even have DM candidates working the shop for free.
Even electricity rates vary considerably across the nation and world.
Some maintenance work is time bassed and some is on hours of use. The volume of business will govern which of these limit triggers the expense and the number of fills it is amortized across.
As a business woman I'm sure you can appreciate that there are many ways to model cost. Loaded vs unloaded hours, SG&A and so forth. I really wonder how many shops have ever sat down and done a comprehensive analysis. I'd like to see it too!
Meanwhile don't let anyone put you on a guilt trip, they just want to be appreciated. The LDS in many areas is walking a fine line and there can be a lot of stress that needs venting. That or if they are truly loosing money overall they will be gone soon.
Pete