Dive Shop POS Software Recommendations?

[mikecotrone]

I have looked at Dive Shop Express and I was wondering if there are others that you have seen. I am looking for an existing shop that does repair, sales, customer contact management, POS, etc.

Thanks!
Mike

[Phat_HC]

We've been using this in the store I teach at for years and while it lets us get by thats about where things end. Having worked at a major software development company for more than 10 years I can tell you with confidence that Dive Shop Express could only be considered current tech if it was written ten years ago. Its backbone is essentially the Microsoft Access 97 runtime which provides a number of performance issues and access limitations. As an example we regularly have problems completing a purchase in the POS application if someone in the store has the customer contact manager open.

When it comes to working with your customer base there is no supported method for interfacing your customer contact info with other business systems such as e-mail beyond sending them a copy of a receipt.

The travel tool is very inflexible and is virtually unusable when it comes to managing travel related content such as waivers and has no provision for supporting details like individual travel itineraries. They have notes that you can add it a user profile where you could keep these details as plain text info. You then need to cut and paste these details into another doc and format them. The bottom line on the travel piece needs a lot of work to better support the information related to travel as well as a method track and deliver them to the customer.

You also have very few options in terms of mining your customer data in order to preform any targeted marketing. You're limited to a handful of criteria to search on and have to export a list as a CSV file to then clean up and extract things like e-mail addresses from.

With the limitations in mind its fine in terms of selling equipment and the service system works well enough.

I called and talked to them about getting some custom development work done to interface with our e-mail system about six months ago and still don't have the proposal on what the work would take and cost. That said during my discussions with them I was told they're not planning any major upgrades for the next two years to improve the application as they're in the process of rewriting the whole thing in Java. As they're looking to use Java rather than the more current and powerful .Net framework I'm not holding out for much hope for improvements when this update arrives (in about 18 months now).

[Wookie]

Mike, PADI has one for PADI stores. I don't know a thing about it, but if you are PADI, contact your rep.

[Crowley]

The dive centres I've worked for have used proprietary software but EVE comes highly recommended. Yes, it's also recommended by PADI and it's currently under evaluation at my centre but whatever people think of agencies, the biggest dive business on the planet must have some faith in it or they wouldn't bother.

C.

[BurhanMuntasser]

I suppose the Dive Shop market is so small and low budget for software developers to invest any resources to develop up to date business applications for them.

The only other alternative that I can think for dive shops is to use MSFT Dynamics GP and customize it to fit their needs. This will cost over $25K at least I think.

[mikecotrone]

I suppose the Dive Shop market is so small and low budget for software developers to invest any resources to develop up to date business applications for them.

The only other alternative that I can think for dive shops is to use MSFT Dynamics GP and customized to fit their needs. This will cost over $25K at least I think.

Thanks! We have a Microsoft EA agreement so Dynamics isn't too bad cost wise, but it isn't full life cycle management for CRM, POS, and Inventory management. I like the Idea of Dive Shop Express, but the code appears to be MS Access and it looks very dated. I do agree that there really isn't much to the contact management as far as email/sales campaigns.

[mikecotrone]

I suppose the Dive Shop market is so small and low budget for software developers to invest any resources to develop up to date business applications for them.

The only other alternative that I can think for dive shops is to use MSFT Dynamics GP and customized to fit their needs. This will cost over $25K at least I think.

The dive centres I've worked for have used proprietary software but EVE comes highly recommended. Yes, it's also recommended by PADI and it's currently under evaluation at my centre but whatever people think of agencies, the biggest dive business on the planet must have some faith in it or they wouldn't bother.

C.

Thanks Crowley. I saw their website and Eve looks well used within PADI. The diveshop I am consulting with is NAUI and PADI so I will begin to look at this.

Thanks for the recommendation!

[mikecotrone]

We've been using this in the store I teach at for years and while it lets us get by thats about where things end. Having worked at a major software development company for more than 10 years I can tell you with confidence that Dive Shop Express could only be considered current tech if it was written ten years ago. Its backbone is essentially the Microsoft Access 97 runtime which provides a number of performance issues and access limitations. As an example we regularly have problems completing a purchase in the POS application if someone in the store has the customer contact manager open.

When it comes to working with your customer base there is no supported method for interfacing your customer contact info with other business systems such as e-mail beyond sending them a copy of a receipt.

The travel tool is very inflexible and is virtually unusable when it comes to managing travel related content such as waivers and has no provision for supporting details like individual travel itineraries. They have notes that you can add it a user profile where you could keep these details as plain text info. You then need to cut and paste these details into another doc and format them. The bottom line on the travel piece needs a lot of work to better support the information related to travel as well as a method track and deliver them to the customer.

You also have very few options in terms of mining your customer data in order to preform any targeted marketing. You're limited to a handful of criteria to search on and have to export a list as a CSV file to then clean up and extract things like e-mail addresses from.

With the limitations in mind its fine in terms of selling equipment and the service system works well enough.

I called and talked to them about getting some custom development work done to interface with our e-mail system about six months ago and still don't have the proposal on what the work would take and cost. That said during my discussions with them I was told they're not planning any major upgrades for the next two years to improve the application as they're in the process of rewriting the whole thing in Java. As they're looking to use Java rather than the more current and powerful .Net framework I'm not holding out for much hope for improvements when this update arrives (in about 18 months now).

Wow a rewrite to Java is a huge undertaking, but they must be going after the other platforms by the looks of it. I would also would love to see a .NET framework rewrite, but knowing they are written in VB/Access anything will look better aesthetically. I really wish they would "reel" in the application into one or two executables vs. having about 10 executables for specific functions.

Thanks for the info and I appreciate your time on this! (I own a network engineering and software dev company also )
Mike

[BurhanMuntasser]

Mike,

In real life, I am the Regional GM for an IT System Integrator in the Middle East and we do a fair amount of GP installation/customization. GP offers full solution for all parts related to an ERP including workflow, warehouse/stock management, POS, etc. CRM is a different product from MSFT that is excellent and very customizable.

We can do customization/development for you for both GP and CRM with pretty competitive prices if you have your specs and requirements very well defined. PM me if you want to discuss further.

[abyss_scuba]

While I like Summer and find her very helpful. I think Dive shop express was the worst purchase I have made in purchasing anything for my shop. There is no way to do layaway, you basically "lend" the customer the money and the unit i "sold" on the day you start a layaway. It has given me nothing but headaches and I would not recommend it to my worst enemy.