Scott M
Contributor
I am new to diving so I have little to offer in that respect, other than if you can afford it, "get private lessons".
I do however know a little about the manufacturer/wholesale/retail business.
My thoughts:
First off, if I was in the dive shop retail game I would be livid at the treatment they get from the manufacturers. If your in the business, you can not believe for one minute that the manufacturers are not supplying LeisurePro (or others) with their gear either directly or indirectly. It is simply impossible to move that amount of equipment without the manu. knowing about. The manu.'s have simply found a way to enter into an agreement with the LDS's and break that agreement at the same time. How hard to you suppose it would be to track an item (any item) with todays technology the smallest item could be traced back to the mine in which the ore was taken from. How hard do you figure it would be to track a dive computer for example?
Do you seriously believe that LP has no warrantee from the manu., do you think they simply eat every problem?
Some manu. would have you believe the items are "obtained" through the black market. What exactly does that mean? There stolen from the manu.? Thats a lot of stolen merchandise for a manu. to eat. I would think if this was the case it would be well worth an investigation. Do you really want to buy from a manu. that has that much merchandise leaving through the back door and not know about it or able to stop it? I would have to question the quality of the gear going out the front door if this was the case.
Some would have you believe it was "produced" on the black market? What does this mean? I find it hard to believe that any group could reproduce a dive computer or regulator (an EXACT replica no less WITH their name on it) without buying the individual components from the suppliers. And if this is happening why are the manu. not stopping this at the supplier level? As a manu. you work to engineer a product and possibly have it patented. You then select one or possibly several suppliers to produce the needed components. If you did the research, did the testing, marketed the product, bought the needed compents and assembled them. Would you not question how the exact item is being produced elsewhere, under your label? The list goes on but you get my point.
The problem is "Buying Power", LP has it and you don't! As an LDS you have very little power over a manufacturer in general because you quite simply do not have the buying power to effect decisions and make no mistake about it the manufacturers know this and use it. No one shop selling 15 regs a year is going to get any major manu. to change. Most shops I would assume are just happy to be granted the right to sell and service the products they do have.
However, there is a solution!
The industry I now work in played similar games to this in the early years. Through the foresight of many good retail dealerships there were large buying groups formed. This allowed the small retail dealer to have more buying power therefore more power in the industry as a whole. This was a tough thing to accomplish but has paid off a million times over. It took a lot of guts for competing dealerships to band together for the good of the whole but they did and it worked.
There are a lot of organizations out there that would benefit in the long run from such a group (several groups). At first they would not support it but eventually they would have to.
The best part of this, we as consumers would be able to buy at LP prices AND have LDS service and support, not to mention the LDS's profits would sky rocket keeping the industry as a whole alive.
Just my thoughts. What are yours?
I do however know a little about the manufacturer/wholesale/retail business.
My thoughts:
First off, if I was in the dive shop retail game I would be livid at the treatment they get from the manufacturers. If your in the business, you can not believe for one minute that the manufacturers are not supplying LeisurePro (or others) with their gear either directly or indirectly. It is simply impossible to move that amount of equipment without the manu. knowing about. The manu.'s have simply found a way to enter into an agreement with the LDS's and break that agreement at the same time. How hard to you suppose it would be to track an item (any item) with todays technology the smallest item could be traced back to the mine in which the ore was taken from. How hard do you figure it would be to track a dive computer for example?
Do you seriously believe that LP has no warrantee from the manu., do you think they simply eat every problem?
Some manu. would have you believe the items are "obtained" through the black market. What exactly does that mean? There stolen from the manu.? Thats a lot of stolen merchandise for a manu. to eat. I would think if this was the case it would be well worth an investigation. Do you really want to buy from a manu. that has that much merchandise leaving through the back door and not know about it or able to stop it? I would have to question the quality of the gear going out the front door if this was the case.
Some would have you believe it was "produced" on the black market? What does this mean? I find it hard to believe that any group could reproduce a dive computer or regulator (an EXACT replica no less WITH their name on it) without buying the individual components from the suppliers. And if this is happening why are the manu. not stopping this at the supplier level? As a manu. you work to engineer a product and possibly have it patented. You then select one or possibly several suppliers to produce the needed components. If you did the research, did the testing, marketed the product, bought the needed compents and assembled them. Would you not question how the exact item is being produced elsewhere, under your label? The list goes on but you get my point.
The problem is "Buying Power", LP has it and you don't! As an LDS you have very little power over a manufacturer in general because you quite simply do not have the buying power to effect decisions and make no mistake about it the manufacturers know this and use it. No one shop selling 15 regs a year is going to get any major manu. to change. Most shops I would assume are just happy to be granted the right to sell and service the products they do have.
However, there is a solution!
The industry I now work in played similar games to this in the early years. Through the foresight of many good retail dealerships there were large buying groups formed. This allowed the small retail dealer to have more buying power therefore more power in the industry as a whole. This was a tough thing to accomplish but has paid off a million times over. It took a lot of guts for competing dealerships to band together for the good of the whole but they did and it worked.
There are a lot of organizations out there that would benefit in the long run from such a group (several groups). At first they would not support it but eventually they would have to.
The best part of this, we as consumers would be able to buy at LP prices AND have LDS service and support, not to mention the LDS's profits would sky rocket keeping the industry as a whole alive.
Just my thoughts. What are yours?