The Great local dive shop vs. online debate

[Spray25]

I agree with a lot of what Genesis says.......................

Like most things change in the diving world is inevitable. The diving industry is fighting it very, very hard. Often times adapting to change is much better than fighting it. The diving industry will change with or with out you on board.

I like the idea of supporting an LDS. However, I am on of the unfortunate ones who does not feel he has an LDS worth supporting. I think Genesis, and others, would agree there are good shops out there and I hope they continue to do well.

LDS owners need to be good business men (or women) to survive. Many, including the couple that I have dealt with, refuse to set themselves apart from the crowd or to compete for business. Many shops have an attitude that you, the consumer, HAVE to buy from them and that they set all the rules. This is not true. What you are seeing is an ever increasing population of people who are weighing in on the subject with their wallets.

Every person has a different level that they will pay for "service". They also have different definitions of what service is.

With the extremely poor level of service I have gotten from my LDS coupled with his full retail no exceptions policy, and Hostile attitude towards any one who has gear from another source (internet or another LDS) causes me to shop else where for almost all of my gear.

Air Fills? Sorry, but with the money I have saved on my gear I could easily buy a compressor. I also have faith in the American business man. If the demand exsists for an air fill only station it will be invented. If that means going to Wal-Mart to fill my tanks so that I am not forced to buy my gear at overinflated prices then I will.

Warranties....... There are plenty of people who have tested LP's warranty with exceptional results. There are also people who have had their LDS not support them or give them good service on warranty repairs. So would it be fair for me to say; "Don't buy from an LDS, they say they have a manufacturer's warranty, but they never back it up!!" NO that would not be accurate or fair.

Bottom line? The industry is changing. The LDS can adapt or be put out of business. I'm sorry if this seems harsh, but it is the truth. The truth in any industry, not just diving. Look around you for a minute....... Do you see how your own business, whether you own it or just work there, has changed? How about the last place you worked? No business can survive long term without change to remain competitive. Insustries change. Look at the airlines, many of the larger carriers are not doing well because they got to fat and the lean and mean companies like Southwest and Jet Blue are killing them right now. Not only are they less expensive, but they have better safety records, and are more "on time".

In the end I hope that the LDS, the good ones, survive. It will not be easy, but few things in life are.

 

[Genesis]

Let's do the (simple) math...

Assuming you and your spouse both dive enough to bother buying your own gear.

You can spend $1200-1500 for your hardware from a LDS (retail price, including reg, computer, BC, mask, fins and accessories) each, or you can buy the same caliber of gear from LP and spend half that.

If you spend half that, you have $1500 saved.

With the $1500 you are more than halfway towards a compressor for air diving (Alkin W31).

If you and another pair of people you know go in on this compressor, you are now ahead of the game.

You can add Nitrox to that unit for anywhere from a few hundred to $1500 in cost, depending on whether you do continuous blending or PP, and whether you buy a hyperfilter (you should for PP) or not. But with Nitrox, you will pay for the compressor (much) faster; if each of a pair of you do 100 dives a year, you'll pay for it in two years! If you have four divers, it'll be even sooner. At that point its pure savings...

 

[Spray25]

Your numbers aren't big enough.

I realize we all have different budgets, but at the time I bought my gear I had some descent money to spend. I decided to go with very high quality (read expensive) gear right from the start. The LDS wanted $1600 for the BC and computer alone. I spent less than $900 at LP. It was just bairly over half. That's just two pieces of gear for me. I bought a lot more than that and the wifes gear too.

With what I saved on MY gear ALONE I could have bought a compressor. I would not need to worry about calculating how long it would take to pay for the compressor. I could simply look at it this way: I can got to the LDS and buy my stuff. OR I can go to LP buy the same stuff and they through in a free compressor.

Another thought on the warranty..... If I do run in to problems I can buy a new unit and still only spen as much as the LDS wanted to start with.

 

[Genesis]

I started buying stuff from LP and figured "heh, no warranty, no problem - I'll just buy it again and we're even."

Then I realized that with the exception of a computer, if something broke it wouldn't ALL be junk anyway, and for most things like regs, what would "break" would be a 50 cent O-ring - literally.

So I bought a set of the tools for SP regs (since that's what I had), got a bunch of O-rings, and now all I can't get is seats - but I've found a source for rebuild kits on eBAY; $10 for a seat is a bit expensive, but compared to paying some monkey $50 for an overhaul its STILL cheaper, and I know it was done right!

When I got all done I then did the math on the compressor, and deduced that I could pay for THAT simply on the savings in gas fill prices for Nitrox in about two years. That was simple - in went the compressor.

Now I seem to need the LDS for exactly nothing. And I'm saving a lot of money, both on gear and gas. Hmmm..... this is nice. I dive more, have less hassle, know how to (and have the parts to) fix my own stuff.... exactly where's the downside in all this?

The local shops screwed themselves out of thousands over the next few years - of my money - with their attitude and approach. I would have never bothered to learn how to fix the stuff, nor buy the tools, nor bought my own compressor were it not for the misinformation and outright lies, not to mention anti-competitive practices.

They have only themselves to thank for it - and I know I'm not alone, as I'm aware of several other divers around here who have done the same thing.

Its a damn fine way to put yourself out of business, if you ask me.

 

[navy85]

MikeFerrara once bubbled...
There are those who find value in a shop like mine but they are few. I have nothing to offer the casual vacation diver. At least nothing that's worth my time or theirs..

:box:
Actually, maybe you do - someone like me who has been diving only on vacations but wants to do more. I'm checking out a few LDS now so I can do so and enjoy the local diving - even looking to buy some equipment from them. For me, there is value in having a local source for service (training/equipment sales & service/advice) and I am willing to pay a reasonable amount for it. Might I buy online? Perhaps, but I'll at least give the LDS a chance to *lose* my business first.

Why the prejudging? I can understand your frustration, having read some of your other posts (and if you read some of mine, you'll see that I am in favor of supporting the LDS as much as possible), but all you are doing with this mindset is writing off potential customers. Maybe there aren't enough people like me in your market to support your shop - but everyone individual is unique, so if you ignore us, you never find out.

I'll step down now...

 

[diverbrian]

This is an issue to me like the DIR/non DIR discussions that I see here. Neither side will convince the other that they are right.

Obviously, I support the LDS. The hidden benefits (with ours, anyways) include knowledge of the staff (about local diving as well as equipment), service, ability to get training in how to use the gear that you buy, fitting of gear to individuals, and just plain personal service. For me, it is worth the price. I am NOT a Wal-Mart shopper for much the same reason. I don't like the "help yourself because we won't pay someone who actually knows about what you are buying or even where it is at in the store" philosophy. BTW, this is if you can FIND someone to help you find something as lean as some of these "big box" places run.

Some of us feel cost is a more important consideration than personal service apparently. I feel that the personalized service is more important. I am not mechanically inclined enough to fix my own regs and such. The local colleges do not offer courses in regulator repair the last time I checked, even if I was. I am not going to maintain a compresser and maintain medical grade oxygen tanks for my nitrox. There are many of us like this, I don't own and will not own a boat for the reasons of all the maintenance involved taking the fun out of it for me. I want to be able to pick up my gear in the morning and go diving, not wax my boat or spend time fixing my equipment. Yes, I pay a premium for that lifestyle. I feel that it is worth it. Others don't and it doesn't look like the two sides will meet even though I understand where the "price first" people are coming from, I just can't bring myself to go over to their philosophy.

 

[Ezh]

diverbrian once bubbled...
Others don't and it doesn't look like the two sides will meet even though I understand where the "price first" people are coming from, I just can't bring myself to go over to their philosophy.

Well, all I can say, that for me it's not a philosophy, but rather a question whether I'll have the gear that I want this summer (with LP's prices) or in 2 years (with LDS's prices).

khel

 

[MikeFerrara]

navy85 once bubbled...

:box:
Actually, maybe you do - someone like me who has been diving only on vacations but wants to do more. I'm checking out a few LDS now so I can do so and enjoy the local diving - even looking to buy some equipment from them. For me, there is value in having a local source for service (training/equipment sales & service/advice) and I am willing to pay a reasonable amount for it. Might I buy online? Perhaps, but I'll at least give the LDS a chance to *lose* my business first.

Why the prejudging? I can understand your frustration, having read some of your other posts (and if you read some of mine, you'll see that I am in favor of supporting the LDS as much as possible), but all you are doing with this mindset is writing off potential customers. Maybe there aren't enough people like me in your market to support your shop - but everyone individual is unique, so if you ignore us, you never find out.

I'll step down now...

There just aren't enough of you, especially at the margins we are getting. Here in public I can't say how but in the last few months I have sold more equipment packages than I have in the last year and a half or so. The markup was so little though that I just paid the bills. The overhead is too high and the volume and margins too small. Actually I sold about half of my own personal gear also. At those markups I need very large volumes (like the internet). LP, somhow has sources of gear without being a dealer. I don't. I can't do what I've been doing on the internet. I would be cut off in less than a month.

Genesis, your analogy was a good one except for one thing...everyone is on the net. Only a tiny portion of the population dives. In this part of the country there are many divers who literally have no reason to ever walk into a dive shop locally after they get certified. The local market is very small.

We aren't attatched to any old business model. We've only been in business for three and a half years. We bucked the system on many levels but I'm afraid we don't have the muscle (read as money) to take it any further.

 

[Alex_Hurley]

Just so you guys in America know how lucky you are with you scuba gear prices. When i was searching for a BC in Melbourne (Aust) the quoted price was about twice that of the LP price.

i bought a BC for 470 US, the exact same unit costs over 1000US here. This is of course because there is less competition, but either way the price difference is amazing.

Obviously its hard to support these LDS, so i now take my chances not having a warranty, and rather walk around with fat pocket, well at least i get more gear for my dollar even after shipping and taxes.

 

[jonnythan]

Alex_Hurley once bubbled...
Just so you guys in America know how lucky you are with you scuba gear prices. When i was searching for a BC in Melbourne (Aust) the quoted price was about twice that of the LP price.

i bought a BC for 470 US, the exact same unit costs over 1000US here. This is of course because there is less competition, but either way the price difference is amazing.

Obviously its hard to support these LDS, so i now take my chances not having a warranty, and rather walk around with fat pocket, well at least i get more gear for my dollar even after shipping and taxes.

We're happy we're not Australia, but sad we're not Europe.