Your local dive shop needs your help. In today's economy, many dive shops are suffering financially or going out of business. Selling dive instruction and trips does not pay well. In most cases dive instructors are working for very little money, purely out of passion for diving. The majority of money divers pay towards a diving certification or trip goes to covering expenses, such as pool or boat rental, electricity, maintenance of rental gear, transportation, and certification fees. How do dive shops stay in business? By selling gear. And before you say gear sold in dive shops is too expensive, consider what you stand to lose by cutting out your local dive shop and purchasing your gear online.
1. Your Local Dive Shop is Going to Close
This is not an exaggeration. If a dive shop can no longer afford to pay its bills because it is not selling dive equipment for a profit, it will go out of business. That wonderful resource of advice and camaraderie, that divers' hangout and networking spot will no longer be available to you.
2. You Won't Be Able to Try on Gear Before Purchasing It
I am embarrassed to say that even I have been guilty of trying on gear in a dive shop and then going home and ordering it online. What divers need to realize is that dive shops are offering customers a service by allowing them to try on and test gear before purchase. Maybe dive gear is 10% more expensive at your local dive shop, but you can try it out, ask advice of the salespeople, and demo the gear in the shop pool before purchasing it. In the end, this saves divers time and money because they purchase the piece of equipment that best fits their needs.
3. Dive Shops Won't Be Able to Go to Bat for You
One of greatest advantages of purchasing dive gear from your local, manufacturer-authorized dealer is that the dive shop will defend you in case of an equipment malfunction. Most of the dive shop owners I know will happily call up equipment manufacturers to replace defective equipment or equipment that is under warranty. A majority of the time, the dive shop can simply replace the offending item immediately from their in-store stock (as long as you are polite!) and take the issue up with the equipment manufacturer later. Have you ever tried to replace a piece of defective dive gear yourself? Don't. The manufacturers do not want to talk to you. They want to talk to the authorized dealer that sold it to you. This is the only way the manufacturer can confirm the state of the item when it was sold.
4. Gear Maintenance
Many dive shops will only service equipment that they have sold. Before you get yourself in a huff about this policy, stop to consider that it actually makes sense. A dive shop that sells gear, even used gear, has a general idea of the state of the equipment when it was sold. When dive shop personnel preform maintenance on a piece of equipment, they may be liable for that gear and anything that happens to a diver if it breaks underwater. Would you want to take responsibility for complicated gear that may have unresolved, pre-existing issues -- gear that could have problems you didn't know about or know to look for? I thought not.
Dive shops everywhere are hurting in this economy. Divers using their free services such as advice, networking, and socializing, have a responsibility to support them through equipment purchase. This is their primary source of income. If we don't support our local dive shops now, they may not be around to support us in the future.
Speak up? Do you think it is okay to buy gear online? Why or why not?
image copyright istockphoto.com, fotek
Comments
I don’t see what’s wrong with trying things on in the shop and buying online (you admitted doing it yourself). If they can’t stay competitive, even with online shops, then maybe they shouldn’t be in business. Meanwhile, people who like personal contact and customer service will go to their local dive shop, and people who want the lowest price will buy online.
“Q” do you go into footlocker try on shoes and then go online and order them?
#3 and #4 are biggies for me. I had a computer cr@p out on me a few days before a big spearfishing trip. The shop owner since my computer in for replacement and gave me his personal computer for the weekend. I don’t think any online stores would do this.
Good luck getting your tanks filled online.
I completly agree with you Nathalie. If we don’t help local shop soon or later we will end up only with big industry diving…. only the big one will survive and all human size business will not. Please help them to make sure that we can still find shop who makes us dive in small group, on the good dive site and with passion
I have purchased many things online and many things from a dive shop.
The only thing I don’t like is when a new diver or even only a student comes to a dive shop and a salesman tries to sell not what the person actually needs but what is the most expensive they can sell.
I am not saying that all shops do it, but I’ve had many clients to come here to finish their dives for OWD course with their own gear and the stuff the “expert’ told them to buy wasn’t good for them at all. BCD not good fora newbie , equipped full of useless gadgets, mask not fitting properly, the fins that were not suitable for the style of diving the diver would do.
The best is to go buy the diving equipment with a friend that is a real diver and knows about different types of equipment. If you don’t have a friend like that, search online, ask at forums and then go and purchase what you want and not what somebody wants to sell.
@one of the Mike’s
Yes, I have done it with hiking boots and had no problems whatsoever.
I guess we just have different morals. I would hate for someone to do that to me to save a few bucks so I won’t do that to them. They put in the effort to help you try on and find out just what you need and then you stab them in the back to save a few dollars. Just remember that karma is a bitch with all the shops have to close down for no support and you have trouble getting gear serviced or air fills.
Don’t worry about me; I sleep very well at night.
Having been an instructor for over 10 years, having NO local dive shop suport and NEEDING gear for students and personal use -I was forced to learn how to use the Internet. Eventually that led to a home based online business selling scuba accessories and used gear online. At our peak we were selling 60 – 80K a year and moved from a home bae to a retail dive shop. So maybe I see things in a different perspective than most. We were never a full service dive shop nor did we carry a large asortment of gear other than accesories. We worked to SUPPORT the local dive shops because we understood the necessity of having full service dive stores. Not only did we work together, we thrived from the interaction. Our suppliers even encouraged our internet sales but WE always made an effort to digitally edit out logos or names so that our products appeared generic.
The problem with internet sales is not that they occur, rather how manufacturers sell their products to dive stores. The BEST dive gear is ALWAYS what the local dive shop carries. The manufacturers force them to purchase packages of inventory that usually inclue items they do not want, need or know they will never sell. XXL Hot Pink Gloves or XXS anything. They mandate how their product can be sold, displayed, advertised and require the shop to purchase a mandatory amount of gear each year in orer to maintain the line. If they fail to reach their required goal, the line can be pulled leaving the shop to find another line they can afford.
The scuba industry is about the only retail business that operates like this and is why so many shops fail. If we were talking about a sporting goods store, we would have catalogs of inventory available to us through a distributor and every manufacturer related to the field would offer their invengtory to us. We would pick and choose what we needed for our clients, our locality and economic conditions. Can’t do that with scuba …
So a consumer – especially in our “improving economy” who is intelligent enough to shop, WILL search the Internet and if the pricing is significantly lower than local prices, they will buy from the Internet. Maybe we can’t buy air on the Internet but I can darn sure buy my own air compressor and fill my own tanks. Service? – I can find xozens of laces I can send my stuff of to be worked on – on the Internet.
Don’t blame the consumer, don’t blame the dive shop. Blame the manufacturers for developing such a restrictive marketing stratagey that creates these issues. They know what the problem is but have no interest in changing. If they get a shop to sign up, get paid for a minimum startup package -they made their sale and have one more shop to promote “The Best Scuba Gear”. Because every manufacturer has the best gear ….
If you REALLY want something to investigate – find out WHERE the gear is being manufcturered and once found, how many of the manufacturers use the SAME factory. Then go look at online product catalogs and compare products …. a surprising amount are exactly the same or have minor cosmetic differences … and can be many dollars different in cost.
The scuba industry is going through a change. We may be fortunate to live long enough to see it improve and rebound. If you talk to coastal shops, their businesses are still strong. If you talk to land locked shops – if you can find one still open, they are struggling. At the same time, the scuba industry claims business is improving.
When you start seeing pawn shops open up in “affluant” areas of town – that is a visible indicator that the area has lost ground. If you equate that to onine scuba sales – which appear to be on the rise – I think it is an indicator that the scuba business in general is trending down.
And it has nothing to do with you or I wanting to save some money or not supporting a local dive shop. If the local dive shop has what you want, need or will even try to match a legitimate Internet price I think we will buy from them. But the changes that need to ocur to revive the industry MUST come from the manufacturers or we will continue to lose local shops.
No problem buying from a local dive shop, providing, of course, that they have what I want. In my case, my local dive shop only sells items for recreational diving, so to get tech and cave diving items, Ebay and on-line specialized stores are my best ressources.
The only thing convenient to buy online are books from Amazon. To buy expensive dive gear online is asking for trouble. Dive shops are run by experienced dive professionals who not only love their sport, but are knowledgeable about the gear they sell.
I don’t know if anyone has this experience but for me, whenever I walk into any dive shop, the proprietor — a complete stranger — would, without fail, welcome me as “one of us”, people in the dive fraternity. I have never been treated as a customer, and when I walked out of the place I would always feel happy that I have given some business to my fellow diver.
I’ve always found this a fascinating topic of discussion, and one I plan to write about in the future.
I’m afraid I have to take the opposite stance, that I’m not responsible for saving local dive shops.
What are the advantages of buying on the internet? The biggest is cost. You will save a lot of money. Sorry, that’s the way it is. I bought my IDC crewpak online for $150 less than a local shop tried to sell it for! That’s pretty significant, and they didn’t even bother to compete with it. All he said was, “in our defense, you never know what you’re getting when you buy online.” Oh, brother. That’s the weakest defense I’ve ever heard.
Second is selection. Online wholesalers have everything available.
Third is no pressure sales. Nobody trying to force any particular gear on you.
Fourth is the whole internet as a resource. Find out everything about every single piece of gear you look at. This is pretty significant for me, and helped me get some of the most solid gear available at a great price.
The biggest disadvantage is that you can’t hold it, play with it, or try it on. This isn’t a biggie to me. These days it’s trivial to send something back. Better yet, call the online store and ask any questions you want. They’re usually more than glad to give you advice (”A 6′0″ 170lb man? You should go with the ML of that wetsuit”)
A place to get airfills seems the biggest reason to “save” local dive shops. There are alternatives, however. Look into your local fire dept., for example.
What about training? I’ve been seeing a shift into independent instructors working with dive shops. A lot of Hawaii runs this way. My DM instructor wasn’t associated with any shop.
Local dive shops need to get with the times. It is not my job as a consumer to rescue them.
Excellent points. Yes, we all want a bargain, and yes, it’s always possible to find something cheaper online. But dive shops are one of those local resources that we just can’t afford to lose. Trying things on, getting air fills, having trips organized, getting hands-on advice and training and service, it all means we need those local dive shops. That said, perhaps local dive shops need to get more innovative in marketing products and services that only a local retailer can provide.
The article and comments are great in a perfect world where, by the nature of the dive flag waving over a store, a dive center is a GOOD dive center. However, in the real world, being a local dive center does not necessarily make you the best resource for equipment.
I became an instructor at an incredible dive center. They train huge numbers of divers every year, book many full trips and are constantly selling equipment. And all in a land locked smallish college town. In that town, there is no question, you buy your gear at the local dive center. Knowledge is incredible, service is perfect and prices are VERY competitive with ANY online retailer.
I’ve since moved to a larger city with more options for dive centers and only your first point remains valid. Many will go out of business. But they don’t do points 2-4 anyway, so why should a diver support them? Provide poor service all around THEN charge a premium on top of that? Why would any hard working consumer in their right mind do that?
Support a local dive center IF you have a decent one. If not, why not save some money and buy online?
I’ve been in the diving industry for around 20 years, dive professional and gear tech. I sell a lot of used gear online and it started with the sale of my own dive gear from the closed front door.
It is true that in a dive shop, the first motivation for the employees is the sale- often at the expense of the student/customer. Pushing unnecessary gear on the newbie leaves a sour taste for the beginning diver and those that continue don’t feel the comaraderie and loyalty to the LDS. Or, some just feel it is a right of passage for the beginning diver, but the point is that we all (or most) buy accessory gear online- and a lot of it comes from my old dive students who bring back gear, often never used, and then it gets sold online. Some are a good deal (even some ebay’rs now are dive pro’s) and the economics of the situation can not be changed. The experienced independent dive pro’s will buy online, but if you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t know about a dangerous sport’s environment, don’t buy online. get some training at your LDS. Pay for some experience. then go buy online. LDS will stay in business with an increase of divers, interest in diving, but local support goes both ways. So, promote diving, stop writing in the forum, go get your tanks filled and go blow some bubbles
It appears to me after reading all these posts that a dive shop has to adapt to the internet and the consumer must make a decision on how much he will depend on the lds. There are many divers out there who have no dependence on the dive shop for any of the offered services. A brick an mortar establishment will never be able to complete on price and availabiity with an online store. But a dive shop also offers the comraderie of other divers and experiences – the personal touch – that keeps many divers diving. Dive shops have a responsibility to have an adequate inventory on hand and to treat each person that comes through the door as a potential customer.
ScubaMax Gear is always a good price!