Uncle Pug once bubbled...
Though they usually don't *give* stuff away they have what are called *loss leaders*, items price at or below their cost to get shoppers into the store in the hopes that they will buy other stuff too. I'm sure that the grocers in your area do the same. And I'll bet that your principles don't keep you from buying items that are *on special*.
A good price isn't against my principles but you didn't say you wanted a good price you said you wanted things given to you. We have lots of loss leaders. In fact I would like to see another business that has more.
Yes... mark up on the spools is more than markup on the DUI... but how many spools would a fellow have to sell to equal the profit on one DUI CF200?
A bunch but another question is how many CF200's do you have to sell before there is any profit at all? especially if you have to give people presents to sell them.
You see, my buying things like the DUI from the LDS (along with quite a few other folks) enables them to be one of the largest DUI dealers in the nation.
I think that they actually prefer that to receiving awards for selling the most spools in a month.
I never thought that I might get an award. The reason I commented on this is because one of the few things I have found that are more screwed up than the dive industry is the perception most divers seem to have about what goes on behind the scenes at dive shops. Divers perceptions of what is profitable and what isn't and why things work the way they do seem to be just exactly backwards from reality. These misconceptions seem to be one of our bigger road blocks. The widespred attitude that if you didn't screw the shop than they screwed you.
In the case of this thread a diver gets a "green" leaky gauge from LP and people sugggests that he might get a free fix from his local shop because a good relationship requires such things to be free. If a shop sold a leaky green gauge they would have their name plastered all over and likely be accused of attempted murder.
We don't get green leaky gauges from the manufacturer and neither does LP. We don't sell green leaky gauges and neither should LP.