The Great local dive shop vs. online debate

[cadiver]

Those who think online is so great buy your air fill from them too. With the Warranty service parts are free. In the long run buying from the LDS is cheaper.

 

[Dryglove]

cadiver once bubbled...
Those who think online is so great buy your air fill from them too. With the Warranty service parts are free. In the long run buying from the LDS is cheaper.

Im lucky to have a great LDS and a few more within driving distance. I have always supported them and will continue to do so but i think it is wrong for you to threaten with warranty parts and air. Its the attitude of some shops that get me. I have been to a few that act like you owe them something for having a shop and providing air. Thats the kind of attitude that would cause me to buy all my gear online and purchase a small compressor. I can service all my own gear if needed. Now who needs who. I darn sure dont need you.

Leisurepro services the gear they sell although the kits do cost you. Another route is to learn to service your own regs if you can get hold of the kits which is damn near impossible. I have a source for kits so im not worried although my LDS does service all my regs but one that i bought second hand. You can easily save 200-300 bucks on a reg buying online. Thats a lot of years of reg kits.

If you are the typical shop that charges full retail for your gear you could probably buy a small compressor with the money you saved over buying from a LDS. Lucky for me i cant remember the last time i have paid full retail for a piece of gear besides some smaller no money making items. I have been to some shops and am appalled by their attitude and leave. If i was in the position where i didnt have the good shops and service i get i would buy online. I refuse to buy from a shop that treats you like crap and acts like they are doing you a big favor. Remember who the customer is. We choose to support you if you make it worthwhile for us. If you act like i owe you your not gonna get a dime from me. Remember to treat your customers right and we will keep coming back to you like i do with the 3 shops i frequent often. Of those 3 shops 1 shop is downright awesome and has always served me well.

 

[zeN||]

I am hoping a few things happen in the dive community, the expansion of internet sales, the production of an affordable compressor for the home, a brisk sharing of recreational dive information among divers via the internet, the promulgation of independent dive instructors seperate from the formal dive industry, the abolishon of c cards (how a private profiteering industry managed that one was quite a sales feat)
~zeN

 

[Genesis]

You got it.

 

[JohnF]

Genesis once bubbled...
You got it.

Methinks a new flavour of Koolaid has been sipped, and found to be good. Henceforth to be known as G.U.L.P. 8)

JohnF

 

[SterlingDiver]

Hi All,

I am newer to the sport of diving, but, I am a very experienced entrepreneur and consultant. I have started several businesses in varying industries with varying levels of success, but always with a profitable results.

My observations of the LDS here in the rocky mountain west is that they are very poorly ran. Where my family and I AW certified the shop was always giving my family the worst possible equipment to use and others in the class were receiving newer, higher quality equipment. What is wrong with this picture? Well I had 5 people in the class and make over $250K a year and the individuals that were being catered to were Joe lunch bucket types making around $30,000 a year. Mistake #1; not understanding your prospect and customer. Who has the cash to spend? Mistake #2; empty shelves or products that been on the shelves so long they are gathering dust and out of date. Mistake #3; You can walk into their shops and they will ignore you to talk on the phone and try to set up a follow-up visit that might make them little to no money while they could make many hundred dollars selling you, the customer who made the effort of traveling to their shop. Mistake # 4; They treat their customers like they are about 12 years, talking to you like you are a child or of low intellect.

With that poor performance, I started looking for an alternative way to get our gear, etc. All of the arguments I hear about why you shouldn't buy on line don't hold weight to me. In most every case the negative's can be managed or eliminated.

I am sympathetic to Mike's posts and the challenges he has running a LDS, but in a free economy, the market and consumer will always dictate the ultimate success of a business. LDS need to adjust and get more competitive or they will become a thing of the past.

I see little business savvy with our LDS's here.

SterlingDiver

BTW, Business 101; if you want to sell more products, price it at a lower price in order to move the product. Greater volume with a smaller margin will always out perform a high markup that sits in a shop for months or even longer. :mean: :mean: :mean: :mean:

 

[JohnF]

SterlingDiver once bubbled...
I see little business savvy with our LDS's here.

Typical of many small special interest businesses.

BTW, Business 101; if you want to sell more products, price it at a lower price in order to move the product. Greater volume with a smaller margin will always out perform a high markup that sits in a shop for months or even longer. :mean: :mean: :mean: :mean: [/B]

What does Business 101 say about studying demographics? Diving in most locales in a limited market. It's not like clothes and groceries that everyone needs. It's a fairly specialized and low volume business at the local level for most areas.

Let's say an entrepreneur wants to net himself $75,000/yr as a return on his time, risk and investment. Since fixed overhead varies from place to place, let's ignore that and deal only with the retained dollars for the operator. We'll just assume that there has to be that much more business to cover the overhead, but the rationale still applies.

So, to net $75,000 in retained dollars the operator has to do $225,000 retail dollars in sales at a 50% markup, and that's after the operating costs have been covered. That's like fully outfitting 100-125 new divers every year. My town has about 300-350 certified divers in total and there are 10 retail outlets that I know of within 40 miles of my home. Remember that these figures probably have to be at least doubled to take care of the fixed overhead.

And what if he tries to do the same thing on a 10% margin to compete with the e-retailers? He has to do $825,000 dollars across the counter. But if the area can only support the $225,000 volume then he's going to have to settle for barely $20,000 in retained dollars. For that, why would he risk anything. He can make that working 35 hours a week and never risk anything but his fingers in the burger bun cutter.

I think the real question is "Are local divers willing to pay extra for the convenience of having a local dive shop?" Realistically, the little guys can't operate a full service facility on the same margins as the big e-guys. They don't have the market, so they won't get the volume discounts and they're still expected to invest dollars in inventory, service parts and tools, as well as maintaining a shelf inventory. Any local retailer who tries explaining to his retail walkins that he doesn't stock anything for them to see will be laughed out of business, but those same folks will order sight unseen from an e-retailer to save a couple of bucks.

Sometimes we consumers don't deserve as much respect as some small businessmen try to give us.

That reminds me of another Business 101. "You can't sell from an empty shelf". So how do these e-retailers do it. They don't waste their money on displaying goods for fitting etc. Their shelves are jammed with the products packaged for shipping. They depend on the suckers in the local retail shops to do their demonstrations for them. But when all the little guys are dead and buried, where will the "smart" shoppers try on their suits and masks and fins?

Y'all are probably right. The day of the small LDS has perhaps come and gone. I wonder if it's really a good thing though.

JohnF

 

[Dryglove]

JohnF once bubbled...

They don't waste their money on displaying goods for fitting etc. Their shelves are jammed with the products packaged for shipping. They depend on the suckers in the local retail shops to do their demonstrations for them. But when all the little guys are dead and buried, where will the "smart" shoppers try on their suits and masks and fins?

JohnF

One of the most well known mail orders places(leisurepro.com) has a store front and you can try on the goods if you live near that area. Overseas that may be an issue but a lot of the mail order places here have a storefront. Maybe if the prices werent so high there would be more divers willing to take the plunge and get in the sport thus moving more products at a reduced price and bring him more bussiness and profit. A bussiness has to what they have to do to stay alive.If they are going to sell everything at full retail only because the community only has so many divers then he probably has another job or will go out of bussiness if that is his primary income as most people will utilize mail order.I would personally rather sell three items for the same amount of profit that i would sell the one product for and get more customers hopefully resulting in more future sells.


Most of the people i work with and know that i try to get into diving say they cant afford the high prices of gear from the LDS. So they either dont dive at all or they take lessons and buy all their gear online unless they have a great LDS like mine that will make you some decent deals which results in me coming back to buy more gear instead of ordering online. Luckily i have another shop within a few hours that is also great but sells different products.So if one doesnt have what i am looking for more than likely the other will.

 

[zeN||]

Cadiver I'll be the first to do my own fills, and for any of my diver friends as soon as I find a compressor that fits my budget zeN

 

[Genesis]

which is quite suitable for doing your own airfills. I own one.

Add $1k if you want to hyperfilter your air and PP mix Nitrox (for the filter stack), less if you build (as opposed to buy) it.