roastbeef--you sure read beautybelow's post differently from me! The way I read it was "use a different business model." And along those line, the first thing that came into my mind is "open a dive shop in a part of the world where there's no Costco!" For example, I opened a dive business here in Thailand. Furthermore, my business model doesn't rely on gear sales to much of an extent, so it doesn't make any difference if gear is being dumped into eBay for sale. Of course, in a place like Toronto the business model I use probably wouldn't be workable. Thus opening a dive shop in a part of the world where there's no Costco, and in addition, in a part of the world where there's no need to rely on gear sales to stay in business-- it does make sense, IMO.