One thing that everyone misses is that the deal is through Groupon.
From:
Should You Use Groupon For Your Small Business?
"So given that most Groupon campaigns offer the end customer around 50% off, let's run some numbers here. Say your product retails for
$100. By giving a 50% discount to customers, you will only make
$50. After Groupon's 50% cut, you only get
$25 for something you normally would charge
$100 for."
Apply that to $99 that a customer pays, the shop is left with ~$50 after groupon fees. Thus, in reality, $99 is to the customer, for a scuba shop it is WAY less. Point is, read the small print. With groupon you are not getting $99 from a customer, you are getting screwed.
There is some example with a bakery that decided to sell some cup cakes through Groupon. They were a small mom&pop business, they thought they are entering a digital age and groupon promotion sounds a novel idea promoting the business. Well, they lost money because people were just buying with the discount and were NOT coming back. Their loss leading turned to ruin them. It is possible that their cup cakes were not so good, in the end, groupon takes a huge amount from every sale as a fee. If a business doesn't know how to turn such customers into full blown full price repeat buyers, it is as good as throwing money away.
The only way I see $99 price to work is if the shop will penny and dime their customers for everything.
Snorkle set - $160
Books - $80
Air for each dive - $10
Gear rental for each day - $60
Access fee to pool per day - $20
Any redo/reschedule - $70
Heavy reminder to tip EVERYONE...
more fees...
... and it is rather awkward to drop the class because you already paid $99. You find out about all the fees only "after". Yes, you bought the class instruction but you got to pay for every breath...