Unacknowledged subtext in fill pricing

[JahJahwarrior]

Goodness, how much are you folks paying to have an AL80 filled with air? It's only $7 at the shop I teach through.

Air? Air is for tires.

Ok ok, I do use air, but it is a hassle as most of my single bottles are labeled to indicate the MoD and I try to keep the fill within a % of that label.

Most shops I use with charge by cubic foot have a minimum charge usually about $4. I try to get fills at those shops to save money and reduce hassle.

At the recreational shops that charge by flat fee, the fill stations aren't usually convenient (long walk through store or down a set of steps), staff is less attentive (have to go find someone and explain what I want), fills are never fast (one shop won't do any fills the last hour open you have to return next day and they don't open early but the ocean does!), and I always seem to have more issues (partial pressure shop with VIP stickers thst don't indicate o2 clean for 100%, misreading hydro or VIP dates and not doing a fill, low fill pressure, not knowing proper fill for tank, trouble understanding din valves, etc)

I don't understand at all why shops don't seem to focus on making fills the best part of the shop. You can't buy fills online, and independent instruction can happen but it's rare to have a one man fill op running around giving fills. The fill station should be at the front of the shop, easy to get in and out, easy to see the testing information and CO monitor, banked gas for air, 32%, and perhaps some trimix blend plus boosted o2, and a staff that is super knowledgable and polite.

I walked into a shop marketing itself as the regional dive center and asked for a fill. The guy responded that they do boat trips and gear but no fills. Too bad for him as I had all my gear and a boat but no gas. No gas means as far as I'm concerned you cannot be a dive center, as fills are the center of scuba! Without a compressor it becomes snorkeling after your current fill runs out. I was shocked that a dive center wouldn't sell fills!

I also don't understand shops that claim they lose money on fills. I doubt they even know their overhead plus cost per cubic foot. Maybe they don't make money, who knows, but I think that's just a standby complaint they use to make you pity them. Me, I drive to the next shop that gives good service without telling me how they are doing me a favor with a $8-$9 fill of nitrox in a tank that was already at 1500 psi!




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[Eric Sedletzky]

The shops that do a lot of fills make money, for instance like Aquarius II down on the Breakwater in Monterey. They do a few hundred fills any given weekend at $6 (or is it $7 now?).
Small inland shops like the one I use might do a handfull during the week and on a good weekend maybe a dozen or two. The maintenance will be about the same but the shop with less fills per month will have higher costs. But like my shop at $8 for single fill without card any size or $65 plus tax for a 10 fill card for plain air.
Yup, air is getting up there.

I think they should charge per Cu ft. myself. Why am I paying the same for one of my 72's or a 19cf pony as a 120?
My first reaction is that it doesn't make sense. But then thinking about it it kind of does because the air is free of course, but the cost of paying the employee to hook up the tank and fill it no matter what level it's at is about the same and the compressor maintenance and all.
I used to have a set of vintage twin 38's. they wanted to charge me for 2 tanks but I tried to explain that the total was less than an AL 80. Didn't matter they wanted double.
Their pretty hard nosed at my LDS, but I got to hand it to him he sticks to his guns. His store his rules. Just like me he likes to make money.
One thing I can say about him, he does have some damn clean air. I've never had him rust out one of my tanks.
I do all my own cleaning and scrubbing. I appreciate pristine air and I'm willing to pay for it.

It is what it is, I just pay it. The way my thinking is, if it's all the same then for my recreational fun dives I'm going to always use the biggest tank I have and try and get the longest dive I can to get my money's worth. When I dive for money it doesn't matter the customer pays for the fills anyway.

 

[kr2y5]

In an area like Seattle, where there are lots of active divers, would it be feasible for a local dive club to evolve into a sort of community-owned, non-profit LDS, with its own compressor purchased from modest annual fees of its members, who in return get heavy discounts on air fills, or unlimited free fiils at higher membership levels, and retain voting rights over the club's policies, including the rules that govern pricing of fills and whatever services the club would want to offer. If there were a critical mass of members, which I imagine is not impossible in an area like Puget Sound, perhaps it could be just enough to rent a small place, buy a compressor, and some tanks to bank air, and hire someone to sit there, maybe even multi-task as a technician to repair equipment. In the era of online shopping, no need for a store with equipment to purchase, and if the LDSs lose money on fills, there should be no hard feelings...

 

[Ricky B]

The fill station should be at the front of the shop, easy to get in and out,

The two statements you made, back to back, explain why the fill station is not at the front of the shop.

In retail, if what you have is unique, it goes in the back of the shop so that the customer has to walk by all the other things you have for sale.

Go into any drug store. Where is the prescription counter? In the back. Always. You have to walk by the other merchandise so maybe you'll buy something else.

---------- Post added July 3rd, 2014 at 08:35 PM ----------

Why don't shops adopt a policy of a flat fee for a "fill charge" (to cover personnel time and overhead on the equipment) and then charge by the cf for what is put in the tank?

The costs of running the shop (rent, insurance, payroll, etc.) and of owning and maintaining the compressors are fixed costs that don't vary by the amount of the fill. My guess is that the marginal cost of adding 2500 psi vs. adding 500 psi is nominal. So the flat fee would be very high.

 

[JahJahwarrior]

The two statements you made, back to back, explain why the fill station is not at the front of the shop.

In retail, if what you have is unique, it goes in the back of the shop so that the customer has to walk by all the other things you have for sale.

Go into any drug store. Where is the prescription counter? In the back. Always. You have to walk by the other merchandise so maybe you'll buy something else.

That's a good point, but the fill should take about 10 minutes. I'll wander around and look at things. When I am carrying tanks, I'm not shopping or looking I'm thinking of ways to go to a different shop in the future. For instance, I could have taken 20 tanks for fills this weekend, but then I'm paying about $9 per tank and I have to carry them all to the back of the store in 10 trips in and 10 trips out. And they were all about half full. Same fill at another shop, I could leave them all in my car or worst case carry them 10 feet. At .11 per cube ( .9 is available at another shop I use often but they have a 15 foot walk...) I'm paying under $100 vs about $200 at the shop that makes me take 20 trips.

And then I sit in the ac, talking with employees, and buying stuff. Local shop with the long walk will tell me that it'll be a few hours and then I leave, not having really looked at a thing unless they sell ibuprofen at the front desk!

Last time I was at the no walk charge by the cubic foot shop I met three people and convinced one to buy a shearwater petrel while my tanks were filling...that guy was getting fills too, and we were all out of there in about 15 minutes.

And if I do happen to look, I check Amazon and find a better price and buy it there.

When the drug store requires you to walk in again for each single prescription and you have to carry a 40 pound insurance card, then I'll agree that fill stations go in the back!




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[Eric Sedletzky]

In an area like Seattle, where there are lots of active divers, would it be feasible for a local dive club to evolve into a sort of community-owned, non-profit LDS, with its own compressor purchased from modest annual fees of its members, who in return get heavy discounts on air fills, or unlimited free fiils at higher membership levels, and retain voting rights over the club's policies, including the rules that govern pricing of fills and whatever services the club would want to offer. If there were a critical mass of members, which I imagine is not impossible in an area like Puget Sound, perhaps it could be just enough to rent a small place, buy a compressor, and some tanks to bank air, and hire someone to sit there, maybe even multi-task as a technician to repair equipment. In the era of online shopping, no need for a store with equipment to purchase, and if the LDSs lose money on fills, there should be no hard feelings...

Actually, in ANY area this is a great idea.
Shops continuously complain about losing money on fills. If a club had their own compressor and paying members that would service and maintain their own compressor, then the shops could be relieved of this "money pit" and "total loss" of a necessary evil.
A dive club wouldn't even have to have a commercial space for a compressor, somebody's garage would do just fine, or a shed out in back on a members property.
Renting a commercial space would mean more overhead, and most or all landlords of any commercial space require some form of insurance which is even more overhead. However, if the cost are reasonable then it is a viable option.
It could double as a clubhouse with a tiki bar

A club with a compressor is an outstanding idea and it may be that this is the future. Coop and shared expenses governed by an elected body with a check and balance system. Completely non profit and members pay only only the actual cost per fill.
I like it.

 

[beanojones]

The costs of owning and maintaining the compressors are fixed costs that don't vary by the amount of the fill. My guess is that the marginal cost of adding 2500 psi vs. adding 500 psi is nominal. So the flat fee would be very high.

But they do in fact vary by the pressure the compressor is running at.

Increased potential energy always requires energy input. The physics of compression means that the most expensive part of the fill is the last 100 psi by a long shot. Everything wears quicker, more energy is required for the compression, the parts are more expensive, the risk get greater, etc. etc.

To answer the OPs question, I am sure shops would be happy to charge less for a fill to 500 psi maybe even to 1500 PSI , than for a fill from 2500 to 3000 PSI. On the user side 500 psi is 500 psi, whether from 0-500, or 2500-3000 PSI. On the shop side, that last 500 PSI is far and away the most expensive part. Metering energy from the shops side makes more sense than metering flow, though filters cost are pretty much about the straight CF pumped out.

(But those are all distinctions that really the diving industry can't make, while the sport diver getting her tank filled for a dive can make those distinctions. When I am waiting for 20 fills, at a station that has 20 whips on four boards, nothing seems less important than worrying about how much air each tank is getting, because the expense of adding a 20 extra HP gauges, the cost of paying someone to somehow bookkeep all this info, etc. Heck we don't even have time to do anything more that count the number of tanks we drop off and pick up.

Commerical accounts would avoid a shop that did some niggling stuff about partials, as would all the other high volume outfits. And then the compressor owner would realize that we commercial fillers are subsidizing the recreational divers tank. But all that is from the industry perspective, not the recreational diver perspective.)

 

[RVBldr]

As much as I'd like to pay by the cf, I'm betting that the overhead for calculating the specific fill is just laziness on the part of the shop. I'm sure that an simple app could be built to accurately charge a customer based on how many cf the tank took, but you'd have to select the particular tank size, but I'm thinking this really isn't a big issue. You'd end up gaining more customers then the hassle of calculating the fill. Unfortunately, my local shop closed last winter, and as a DM with the shop, I miss just walking in and filling my own tanks - sigh...

 

[kelemvor]

I've got an unusual number of local dive shops at my disposal. The largest of them has employees that would charge me for such a fill. Any of the managers that I'm used to dealing with would not, and historically have not charged me for a top off. The smaller shops also would not charge me. I've talked at length about fills and costs with them. They explained it to me as a necessary loss leader in the dive business. You have to provide fills to get people in the door but you don't make money on it. The minimum wage shop salesgirl is pretty and sells gear for them, but she doesn't seem to be "in" on that and will try to charge for such a top off.

As for why shops don't charge by the CF? Recreational divers would probably balk at the idea. I know that for sure until recently I would have laughed at the idea of paying more than $5 for air or $10 for nitrox to 40%. Locally anyway, on a dive trip you pay what you have to regardless of how "good" the deal is.

I can say that I prefer my local blending shop to the one that banks. Fills don't take much longer, and as long as I buy a fill card vs paying by the fill it's only $10 bucks for any mix I want to 40%. Also that same shop does a lot of cave stuff and they're happy pumping my lp108 up to 3600psi.


When out of town I've visited a few shops that charged by the cuft. Since that's unusual for me, it made me uneasy. Fills were slightly more expensive than local, but not by a lot. If a dive shop is using gas fills just to get someone in the door so they can sell some other thing, then I'd say that cuft based pricing is definitely somthing that I bat an eyelash at. I'm guessing I'm not the only one. Maybe it's all mental, but it's a fact for me. I'm sure I'm not the only diver who thinks like that. I think this is the reason that shops don't charge by the cuft and try to actually profit from gas fills.

 

[TN-Steve]

At my LDS, if I join the club that they sponsor, then all my air fills are free. Since the club is 35 bucks a year, that's going to be a no-brainer.