What do you recommend buying/not buying online?

[bourj]

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I ended up getting my Hollis DC1 w/ Octo through Prime Scuba. And actually, the listings on Amazon didn't include one from Prime Scuba, so I emailed them, and they put the item up for me. Quite awesome, as I wasn't 100% confident in the other retailers I was looking at.

 

[SeaCobra]

Buying online or in person is personal preference, I tend to buy everything I can at a local store, but that is my style. I like the touchy-feely and I want to walk out with the item in hand. I absolutely hate waiting for packages to show up. I placed an order earlier this week with Innovative and paid extra for 3day shipping because there was a camera in the order for me. Now, I will not have the opportunity to use this camera for weeks now, but I tracked the order every day like an impatient kid at Christmas (something I never grew out of).

There are some excellent online retailers just as there are some excellent brick and mortar dive shops and I feel it is worth the time and investment to find a LDS that you like to do business with. Again, I'm old school, I got a guy for everything. Need your car fixed? Call my guy. Oh, need an event catered, I know a guy....

 

[ReefHound]

Amazon doesn't manufacture or sell scuba gear. They have affiliated merchants that do. You probably won't get any better price through Amazon than going to the vendor directly. And Amazon is charging sales tax for many states now. On the other hand, some prefer the backing of Amazon which ensures it's merchants abide by specified shipping speeds and return policies. Or you may have a gift card. ;-)

Some people buy online because of the convenience and find it less hassle than buying in a store. The online store is always open and you can shop when it's convenient for you. Items are delivered to your door and you don't have to fight traffic to drive to the store during business hours. Ditto on returns. No one is trying to upsell you and you get to browse all you want. Some like shops for the ability to buy/service gear same day but with reasonable planning and redundancy this issue can be overcome.

 

[Aqua-Andy]

I thought I would through my opinion in here. I'm all for supporting your local dive shop "I'm employed by a family owned local business" but I hate haggling for the best price. My process for shopping for goods is is to do research on line for customer reviews and to compare products, then I check prices for these products on various online retailers sites. After I have done all my research and feel educated enough in the product I will go to my local shop. This is where the problem lies, I can't help but to feel cheated with the local prices, I don't mind paying 10% more but when it is 30% to 50% more I become suspicious . I don't buy the argument of the online retailers don't have the overhead that a local retailer does. With an online business some pay every time someone clicks on your site from a search, they have to pay web developers, pay to stock much more than a small local shop does, pay for a warehouse, pay employees to receive stock and pull items, pay for the shipping of items, pay for phone support staff, and probably a lot more. The online retailers probably have the same or more costs than a local retailer but they are just different costs.

 

[chrpai]

I'd love to buy more gear from the LDS.... problem is 1) They don't carry what I'd (or many of us) would want and 2) what they do carry is marked up 50%.

Certain things I find local and used like tanks and weights but otherwise nearly every item I dive was bought online. There were a few things I bought from the LDS because the product and prices were close enough.

 

[ReefHound]

I don't buy the argument of the online retailers don't have the overhead that a local retailer does.

The fact is many of the online retailers ARE local dive shops.

 

[Teller]

I buy everything online. Mostly from Cave Adventurers.