The Aqualung Discussion [ Moved ]

[DandyDon]

Not new since over a year ago. They had a crap load of our stuff. Our new boss made policies that made the LDS(and authorized internet dealers) so competetive that a lot of our stuff that Leisure Pro has is the same or higher than the LDS, we almost should have waited a couple months.... We also know where that stock came from and it won't happen again.

The only new products that LP has gotten in the last year+ is the new BCD's we introduced and the Ultradry snorkel. We have purchased some of each (our personal credit cards have been busy...) to find the tags with the serial numbers have been cut out. Having some idea of where they may have come from but no proof, we have done some discrete markings on BCD's we are shipping to our "guess" We will continue to purchase from LP and eventually get the absolute PROOF required to stop that supply. We know another will pop up and the process will repeat but it will never be in volume at all.

Best,

chris

Thanks. Oceanic is my favorite scuba company, and I wanted to think more of them than that.

 

[cerich]

Thanks. Oceanic is my favorite scuba company, and I wanted to think more of them than that.

Ya think I'd be posting on here about this if I didn't know our house was clean?

 

[redacted]

Not new since over a year ago. They had a crap load of our stuff. Our new boss made policies that made the LDS(and authorized internet dealers) so competetive that a lot of our stuff that Leisure Pro has is the same or higher than the LDS, we almost should have waited a couple months.... We also know where that stock came from and it won't happen again.

Chris,

Did Oceanic have to cut back on any international markets to make headway with the grey market problem. I think I see a pattern in the international markets of those manufactures who seem to have gotten a reasonable level of control over the grey market source. Not too many northern Europe dealers.

Gary

 

[cerich]

Chris,

Did Oceanic have to cut back on any international markets to make headway with the grey market problem. I think I see a pattern in the international markets of those manufactures who seem to have gotten a reasonable level of control over the grey market source. Not too many northern Europe dealers.

Gary

Hi Gary,

I'm not going to go into detail on this stuff for obvious reasons.
I personally consider the US gray market a domestic problem.

Best,

Chris

 

[Kim]

Ya think I'd be posting on here about this if I didn't know our house was clean?

It's nice to hear that you try hard to keep the deal fair for your dealers. I have one question though. What's so bad about LP, or the internet generally, that manufacturers don't want them as authorised dealers - which would get rid of the problem, right? As I live in Japan I rely completely on internet purchases to get stuff. To give an example - a good BCD here can cost as much as US$1500 (or more)....I was asked for US$170 to get my apeks reg (DST/AT50/20) serviced - and that was excluding spare parts! I don't really see that just because I live here I should have to pay THAT much over what I know is standard retail elsewhere - so I go to the net. I've got used to the fact that I probably won't get the warranty - but what the heck....I can buy the stuff twice over and still come out ahead.
From what I understood about the original thread - no-one was actually moaning about the existence of someone like LP - just that their dealer agreements prevented them competing on an equal footing....which they were perfectly prepared to do.

 

[cerich]

It's nice to hear that you try hard to keep the deal fair for your dealers. I have one question though. What's so bad about LP, or the internet generally, that manufacturers don't want them as authorised dealers - which would get rid of the problem, right? As I live in Japan I rely completely on internet purchases to get stuff. To give an example - a good BCD here can cost as much as US$1500 (or more)....I was asked for US$170 to get my apeks reg (DST/AT50/20) serviced - and that was excluding spare parts! I don't really see that just because I live here I should have to pay THAT much over what I know is standard retail elsewhere - so I go to the net. I've got used to the fact that I probably won't get the warranty - but what the heck....I can buy the stuff twice over and still come out ahead.
From what I understood about the original thread - no-one was actually moaning about the existence of someone like LP - just that their dealer agreements prevented them competing on an equal footing....which they were perfectly prepared to do.

We don't have any problem with the internet. It is exactly the three choices Larry pointed out in his posting.

Best,

Chris

 

[Kim]

We don't have any problem with the internet. It is exactly the three choices Larry pointed out in his posting.

Best,

Chris

OK. So why is it that TUSA can get LP to behave and no-one else can? From what I've seen of Larry's prices he can usually (maybe always) match LP's prices on lines that they both carry, so I don't see the problem with making them 'official'. Wouldn't that remove the gray market bit completely?

 

[cerich]

OK. So why is it that TUSA can get LP to behave and no-one else can? From what I've seen of Larry's prices he can usually (maybe always) match LP's prices on lines that they both carry, so I don't see the problem with making them 'official'. Wouldn't that remove the gray market bit completely?

Others can and have as well.

This is not a blow off by any means but we do get to choose who our dealers are. We have also choosen to do all we can to stop our products reaching the gray market.

Why somebody is or isn't a dealer is NOT appropiate to discuss beyond the parties involved.


Best,

Chris

 

[redacted]

Hi Gary,

I'm not going to go into detail on this stuff for obvious reasons.
I personally consider the US gray market a domestic problem.

Best,

Chris

I understand. Abandoning select markets to maintain a manufacturer regulated price structure may be the right thing to do for your local dealers, but it also turns the US grey market and certain international "authorized" markets over to the remaining mfgrs who continue to profit from all sources. Unless you are successful in luring US "authorized" dealers away from mfgrs who are not as effectively limiting grey market outlets, the long term effect may not be in the black. Personnaly, I like the idea that some mfgrs have places like LP as an authorized dealer. That tells me their products are good enough to compete in a market with few artificial retail price constraints.

I like Larry's 2nd option. Remove all artificial price constraints and then see who has the best stuff.

 

[homo maris]

As a rep. one of the things we learn is that a med sized city with two GREAT dealers has a great dive market, the same size city with one great and one so so LDS will have an so so market. The same city with only crappy dealers will lose all their business to the internet and diving will shirk from that market. The BOTTOM LINE is the more great shops the better the whole industry is.

Chris, thank you for posting this. It supports the point I had made on the other thread.

The revenue of the dive industry have been in serious decline for the last 7 years (i.e. it has been a so so market). When it happens in any industry, the behavior of manufacturers is either to fiercely compete to increase the size of their slice of the pie or to ban together and increase the size of the whole pie. Diving equipment manufacturers have a split behavior. Some like AL and SP are increasing internal competition by controlling retail channels and others (Apollo, Oceanic, Zeagle) are encouraging expansion via, for example, the Internet. That split behavior projects on the LDS. Consequently, in the USA, we have GREAT dealers and so so-so LDS, which results, as pointed out above, in a so so market.

So how do we change that?
LDS' are owned by entrepreneurs who want to succeed and love diving. The lesser the constraints, the more an entrepreneur can succeed. The USA has laws and policies that put almost no constraint on entrepreneurship (as opposed to say large public companies). France, at the opposite, has laws and policies that choke entrepreneurship (many French entrepreneurs come to US and Canada to succeed). In The LDS has one single constraint: manufacturers policies. Many of these are restrictive. It is simple. For the diving market to grow, restrictive policies have to stop.

Imagine dealers getting manufacturer discounts based on total volume of product sold, regarding of brand. Imagine LDS advertising that they service "gray market" because there is no difference between gray market and normal market. Imagine LDS having a computer in the corner so that you can order online from Scubatoys what they don't have in the store. Imagine making it so easy for divers to get gear that we end up buying more, that more of our non-diving friends get certified.

The butterfly effect refers to the idea that a butterfly flapping its wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that ultimately cause a tornado far away from it. I have hope that this thread is the butterfly that will cause a dramatic change in the dive industry for the better.

JL