MikeFerrara once bubbled...
The current economics of the dive industry is funny. Divers are running aroung complaining about LDS prices and bragging about the deals they get on line but what I see in the water tells the rest of the story. They may be getting their equipment cheap but their getting cheated because they're not learning to dive. I see several hundred divers a month in the water and it's so VERY VERY rare to see some one with even the most basic skill set. Divers are for the most part getting a great deal on mostly junk equipment that they'll likely never learn how to use. Such a deal. You get certified by a non-diving fool for a couple hundred bucks. Then you get a bunch of junk cheap from LP that you will through in the garbage if you ever stumble your way to learning to dive. You'll likely respend the training money also.
I just finished reading thru this entire thread and although I've pretty much stopped paying attention to these threads preaching the propagation of the 'isms so contrary to what the USA was originally founded in, I sympathize with your situation, and that of most LDS's across the continent. I'd like to try to reword the situation, perhaps see it from a different perspective.
If I understand the situation, the LDS offers low cost training as a loss leader to create a retail customer base. The newly certified diver hopefully becomes a loyal customer of said LDS. The LDS hasn't the clout to dictate to the suppliers as he doesn't generate the volume to make demands, and has no choice but to toe the company line(s) when it comes to sales and marketing.
The problem is that there has been a proliferation of low overhead marketers like LP who invest little if anything in customer service showrooms and local service facilities, and seem able to function outside the rules imposed on the legit LDS's. They leave it up to the LDS's to offer the products for the consumers to get sized and generally to shop around, then to do the required service at the local level post-sale. This leaves the LDS with no source of income except whatever service he can get and the air fills which may or may not be a profit source. I'm not sure how much revenue service can generate, but I suspect that warranty service costs may be fairly rigidly controlled by the manufacturer, and not necessarily to the benefit of the local service guy. I doubt that most inland compressors pump enough air to be profitable at $5/fill after figuring in time and maintenance.
So the result is a lack of incentive for the local shops to offer quality training. I don't think it's realistic to blame the wannabe divers for not understanding the dangers of lousy or bargain-priced training. After all, they're coming to learn what they need to know. If they already knew what they need to know, they wouldn't need the training, right?
This brings us to the dive cert orgs and the question of what responsibility they have to monitor the quality of dive instruction. The course content generally, if one goes by the manuals supplied, is probably comprehensive enough in scope to let them off the hook content-wise. This puts the pressure on the orgs and the instructors to keep the standards of the teaching high. This filters down ultimately to the final instruction really being only as good as the instructor. Most instructors can't nor should be expected to do this for the love of the game alone. They spend a lot of time and money to become instructors and are entitled to something in compensation besides the satisfaction of a job well done. Satisfaction doesn't put bread on the table or pay the mortgage.
What's the solution? Somehow we need some of these self-appointed activists to get behind the LDS's and work to make things better for them instead of beating up on them. For the most part they're just little guys, often inexperienced in business,who jump in with both feet and get beat up from the top and the bottom. We all want the convenience of a local dive shop, but we don't want the poor bugger to make a dime off us. The problem with a short-sided attitude like that is that eventually we'll break all the LDS's, and the instructors, and then what will happen to what some already see as an abysmally low standard of dive training and diver skill?
If I understand you correctly Mike, the fees to offer quality training would have to be significantly increased to make it worthwhile for the instructors to offer the training without the added income of the retail business. That may be prohibitively expensive for the wannabe divers as well as divers wishing to improve their skills and knowledge with further training. This isn't conducive to better divers.
The alternative is to find a way to make the local retail dive business viable in today's business environment. Simply steering potential customers to the online retailers doesn't help the situation generally. It's a bandaid solution to a communicable disease. Treating the disease this way is only staving off the inevitable death of the industry, and the sport without gear to support it. Do we all really want a sport supported only be faceless warehouser/shippers, or do we want some faces and personalities on those folks we rely on for our life-support apparatus.
Naturally the changes needed can't be effected overnight, but I fail to see how beating the life out of our LDS's is going to improve the situation ultimately for any of us. In fact I think this crusade to bury the LDS's is ill-conceived and perhaps even mean-spirited. I'm not suggesting a handout to the LDS's, rather encouragement for them to work to sort out the industry from within so that we can all have the benefit of a local dive shop to train, equip and service us in this passion so many have for diving. Turning our backs on the LDS's is non-productive. If anything we perhaps need to find ways to put pressure on the manufacturer/distributors to work with the LDS's to help them become more viable in the dive economy. Perhaps there's a median point where the combined revenue from training, air, retail sales and service will be satisfactory to the LDS and make it worthwhile to stay in business to offer the consumer the benefits of real time shopping and on site service. The bonus to the consumer will be the availability of enthusiastic instruction, info and advice from a knowledgeable "real person" not constantly worried about how to make payroll this Thursday, not to mention a place to drop in and hang out to share stories with other divers, much like we do on the internet.
Respectfully
JohnF
