are clearly a major issue, and one that isn't going to go away any time soon.
As near as I can tell, its being caused by the agency/shop/diver/manufacturer dynamic that exists today.
Yeah, that's a serious charge, and demands explanation.
OK.
Consider this:
In a recent thread (today, in fact) I pointed out that my g/f and her daughter just got certified. This is in a shop environment (inescapable around here) that plays the "gear game", with shops that play the protectionist pricing games, sell cheap training (as an investment per-hour, anyway) and generally pander to the model that DEMA and the big manufacturers (and some not-so-big ones like Halcyon!) seem to think are just peachy.
What model is that? The model that says that MSRP is the "right price", that the shop is your "lifeline" to diving, that you "need them" (rather than the other way around), etc.
What does this lead to?
One of two possible bad outcomes:
1. The new diver comes in, and "draws" a good instructor by chance (he lacks the knowledge to make an informed choice, and even if he had it, that's no guarantee - see my other thread!) He gets trained, and in his enthusiasm, which the shop encourages of course, he buys gear.
Two days later he finds out about Leisurepro, and the gear is now his. He adds it up and realizes that the $2,000 he spent on the hardware came to $1,100 at LP. He now feels taken for the other $900, and that "cheap" class suddenly is very expensive in his mind. He's been had, and the relationship he had with the shop has been irrevocably damaged. If he was lied to along the way (e.g. LP sells "counterfeit" or "second" gear lines, etc) that just makes it worse.
Now you've got a diver with a strong disincentive to come into the shop. But that same diver was "sold" the idea of the shop being his "gateway" to diving. He now feels trapped, and many will drop out at this point, figuring that the $900 down the drain is a small price compared to what he COULD lose if he keeps at it.
2. The new diver comes in and is not pressured to buy gear or sold the "bill of goods", or he simply knows someone who tells him that its all BS up front. He is not snowed by the sales job. However, he draws a crappy instructor, who thinks that buoyancy control is a letter puzzle rather than an essential skill.
Two dives out of OW training, he loses the line for ascent, possibly even due to his own acts (e.g. silting up the bottom originally caused by his lack of control!) and does a rocket-like ascent in free water. He may get hurt, but if not, he does get scared. REAL scared. HEH! This diving stuff is hard! That wasn't what I was taught.
This guy is likely to drop out from fear - not of being ripped off continually, but of something much more primal - injury or worse.
...................................................................................................
Ok, so we've defined a problem... what is the solution?
The two problems appear to be unrelated but they are not. By artificially propping up hardware prices and thus margins at the local shop, the inevitable decline in training standards is not only initiated but fueled. The game becomes one of cranking as many students as possible through "the system" at a low price, in the hope of selling one in five or one in 10 a full kit, which keeps the doors open. Do 200 divers a month, you can make a nice chunk of money.
But you can't do 200 divers a month and provide quality instruction with the staff levels, or time, allocated.
By removing the prop-up of hardware pricing, it will naturally find its own competitive level. This will be at a lower price-point than we have today. It will not, for the local shop, by "Leisurepro" prices, but it'll get in the ballpark. For a 10 or 20% increment over the mail order houses, the local shops will sell more gear. They'll make less on each sale - quite a bit less - but the traffic will rise in their store, divers won't feel like they've been robbed if they buy locally, and traffic = more diving - whether coordinated through the shop (and to their profit of course) or not.
The other inevitable reality is that training will become more expensive. But does the shop care? Not really. Money is money. Leisure expenses tend to be a fixed part of people's budget - when its gone, its gone.
What the shop gets out of this is that the "drop out" rate goes way down. You can't sell to someone who isn't there. The shops here in town have lost a whole bunch of opportunities to sell me various things - I might have bought or I might not have, but when I decided to get my own compressor, fill my own bottles and do my own Nitrox blending my trips into those shops collapsed from a couple a week to once a month or so!
IF they got back the "couple a week" AND, at the same time, had pricing that was enticing to me, they'd be selling me a whole bunch of stuff.
I recently outfitted my g/f and her daughter. Guess how much the local dive shops got of the money spent on BCs, regs, etc?
Zero.
If these two had certified and my g/f was not involved with me, guess what the odds are that she would have dropped out after her first "real" OW experience after class, when she found that she really didn't have all the skills she needed?
VERY HIGH.
The shops, manufacturers and DEMA either have to change this problem, or they will continue to suffer the shift to the 'Net and an extraordinarily high drop-out rate.
BTW, Halcyon is part of the problem, not the solution, as JJ is one of the staunchest supporters there is of the "fixed price, you pay full list" arm-twisting system and from reports here and elsewhere they are ruthless in threatening to, or actually, cutting off dealers who sell at a discount from their "list price."
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