The Future LDS Maybe

[shellbackdiver1]

I do an awful lot of shore diving in the south part of Taiwan. There is this LDS that I use. Let me describe it for you.

I drive up and park my car. Look around for a dive truck/van that they let divers use for FREE. I get in and drive it up to the entrance of the garage. We look into the center of the garage and there is at least 200 tanks all filled up and ready to use. AL and steel and 3 different sizes are available. The cost is 3US/tank for instructor, 4.50US/tank for DM and the rest pay 6US/tank. We load the truck up with tanks and gear, change in there FREE showers, grab some FREE weight from the pile, take some FREE bottled water for the SI's and away we go.

Mind you there was absolutely zero talk at all with the owners. No "where to go" or "how is the vis".....nothing. Also they sell nothing....only have air.

Upon our return we unload the gear and wash all of it in there FREE wash buckets. They have about 15 of them filled with fresh water waiting for you to use. Then we hang all the gear on there FREE covered scuba gear racks. Use there FREE showers. Pay for the tank rental fee only, and then for the only communication is "thanks, bye, bye".

Come back two hours or so later for our gear.

My LDS is scubaboard.com and my retail store for gear is any number of the online dealers.

Is this the wave of the future?

 

[K9trnr]

Sounds like heaven, but it can't happen given the LDS would be sued and put into bankruptcy quickly. Now if you'd added that courts, attorneys, and judges don't exist...

 

[shellbackdiver1]

On what grounds could they be sued?

 

[JimC]

Better, what grounds could they make money? No one is making any money carrying that kind of overhead on $6 tank rentals.

Not going to work in North America.

 

[shellbackdiver1]

Maybe they are not making that much money, I dont know. I do know that on the weekends they turn over almost all of the tanks twice a day and then at night atleast 50 more go out. So if they are doing say 400 tanks on Saturday and Sunday and another 100 on friday and then zero for the rest of the week. Just for numbers sake lets say average cost is 5US/tank, multiplied by 1000tanks, equals 5000US per weekend times 40 divable weekends, 200,000US just for air.

 

[eckybay]

Right.
And all LDS are in areas where there's enough diving to have that sort of numbers just for tank rentals?
There are few, if any, places in North America where a LDS could last on tank rentals alone. Like the other poster, I think the overhead in this part of the world would just be too high.

 

[GreenDiverDown]

That's not a dive shop...

... sounds great if all you want to do is pick up some tanks.

Reminds me of the Casino Point van.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I do an awful lot of shore diving in the south part of Taiwan. There is this LDS that I use. Let me describe it for you.

I drive up and park my car. Look around for a dive truck/van that they let divers use for FREE. I get in and drive it up to the entrance of the garage. We look into the center of the garage and there is at least 200 tanks all filled up and ready to use. AL and steel and 3 different sizes are available. The cost is 3US/tank for instructor, 4.50US/tank for DM and the rest pay 6US/tank. We load the truck up with tanks and gear, change in there FREE showers, grab some FREE weight from the pile, take some FREE bottled water for the SI's and away we go.

Mind you there was absolutely zero talk at all with the owners. No "where to go" or "how is the vis".....nothing. Also they sell nothing....only have air.

Upon our return we unload the gear and wash all of it in there FREE wash buckets. They have about 15 of them filled with fresh water waiting for you to use. Then we hang all the gear on there FREE covered scuba gear racks. Use there FREE showers. Pay for the tank rental fee only, and then for the only communication is "thanks, bye, bye".

Come back two hours or so later for our gear.

My LDS is scubaboard.com and my retail store for gear is any number of the online dealers.

Is this the wave of the future?

Very nice ... but you are in Taiwan. That wouldn't work in the USA ... people here aren't as responsible or respectful as Taiwanese people.

As an example ... when I was in Taipei, on Sundays they close down one of the major freeways for a few hours on Sunday. The bicycle company Giant rolls a few semis full of top line bikes onto one of the onramps so that people can sign them out and take them riding. Everything's free to Taipei residents, and a very small fee for non-residents. For less than $1 US I rented a bike that over here would cost well over $1,000. Lots of other folks were out there with bikes every bit as nice. At the end of the day, all the bikes were returned in good order.

Contrast that to an experiment in the city of Portland, Oregon a few years ago. The city made available to people some inexpensive bicycles kept in various locations throughout the city to make it easier for people to get around. The idea was you'd check out a bike at a kiosk, use it to help you get around the city, and drop it off at a kiosk close to where you were going. Within a few short weeks, all the bicycles were gone ... most were stolen, some were dumped in the river.

If an LDS were to try doing business as you describe, all of those tanks would simply disappear ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[ReefHound]

On what grounds could they be sued?

How about when an unlicensed driver gets in the truck and runs over other divers or crashes into the tank fill building and it all explodes?

That model sounds like a way for a LDS to make a small fortune... provided he starts out with a large one. The cost of services far exceed the tank revenues. Heck, bottled water costs $1 or so, take a few of those and you wipe out most of the tank revenue right there. Then there's employee wages, utilities, compressor overhead, insurance (or does that exist there), vehicle maintenance, etc.

BTW, tell us more about this great dive site where people burn 250 rental tanks a day.

 

[Scottri]

No way it would work. The compressor maintenance would be huge. The liability would be a killer, who would pay to have the tanks vip'd and hydroed? Most shops don't make much money on air fills. I own my own tanks so how would I get them filled? I'm not willing to send my gear out of state to get it serviced. My LDS provides a lot of services other than just renting tanks and selling gear.