Just my two cents worth being VERY new to diving. I have 2 local dive stores. The people in both are wonderful and I love going in and talking with them. "granted one of them scared me by giving me info that was false" but the people are still decent and honest. But my neighbor who bought all of his and his wifes equipment from them the day he completed his OW brags about how since he spent so much money with them they give HIM a 10% discount on all he buys. Well this neighbor is an aero space engineering manager with the airforce. I'd guess that his income is considerably higher than mine. I could not have afforded to purchase all of the equipment up front as he did. And it kinda irks me that since he has more money he was offered special discounts that I was not. "We both took our classes at the same Dive store" So I did what I could to afford, which was mainly buying on ebay. My 1st purchase was a 7m wet suit, same brand as my LDS carries, they do not even carry the top of the line from this brand and I got the top of the line suit for over 100.00 less than they are charging for the mid level suit. Next I bought a OS systems dry suit on ebay, I paid 205.00 for the suit, and 2 sets of fleece under garments. New 1600.00 The suit was worn 5 times by a man who found he has a heart condition and can no longer dive. Its in PERFECT condition. Next I bought a brand new still in box Apeks Black Pearl, which is basically an ATX200 but the fancier looking 30th anniversary model. I paid 450.00 LDS wants 699.00 for the standard ATX200 "Plus tax". Next I bought a Suunto Cobra with quick disonnect in mint condition with 3 dives on it, and paid 425.00 LDS wants 799.00 without quick disconnect. BCD I purchased brand new on ebay from a man who won it in a raffle at his local dive shop. My shop does not carry it but I got it for 280.00 I think. retail its 585.00. Bottom line is although I like my local dive shop and want to support them as much as possible, my income does not allow me the luxury of needlessly throwing money at them. Had I waited to pay their prices it would have been 2 more years before I could afford to have purchased all of that. I saved about 2200.00 GRANTED I did not get the luxury of a warranty on all of the items. Some did have warranty some did not. But I've never ever bought or regretted buying an extended warranty on anything I have ever purchased. In my experience if you buy quality goods from a top rate manufacturer, most defects will be noticeable immediately not 25 years down the road. And the BAD part about it for local dive stores which may be what they need to change, IF my equipment breaks, or needs serviced they will happily take it in and fix it for the same hourly charge that they would charge if you bought it from them and it was out of warranty. Honestly I do feel bad about not being able to give them the business but the reality of it is if I want to continue to dive and do it with good equipment I simply cannot afford to do it locally. And whats really surprising is my neighbor has NEVER even looked on Ebay and had know idea until I told him recently that we have 2 dive shops withing 5 miles of each other. He thought there was only 1 in our area. I guess being poor forces you to look at your alternatives.
I'll be glad to help you any way I can. I'm sure I'm more customer friendly (and probably more knowledgable) than a lot of shop owners out there. If enough people do this, I could even throw in a couple of free air fills.
