All this is great stuff.
Just to compare what I do to what dive shops are dealing with:
I’m in the sign business.
I’m an actual “sign painter” doing hand lettered signs, one of the very few left.
I hate the way digital technology has taken over visual communications. I think computers have dropped a lot of the sign industry into mediocrity and sterilized a lot of the creativity that was once the competitive edge. Now since everybody is pretty much picking the same fonts out of the same sign programs it boils down to price. There are still a few good designers out there but by-in-large the industry has been taken over by non artists that are just looking for business opportunities. “Any idiot can do it” (with a few computer skills) has never been a truer statement than in the sign business now.
There was a time when I almost dried up and blew away due to the shift in medium. Getting mad and cursing the new technology of computers wasn’t doing any good. Instead, I had to look at what I could do with hand painted and hand crafted signs that the digital world could not do. Turns out metal leaf, gold leaf, pinstriping, artistic flair, longevity of paint, overall one-off uniqueness and artsiness, were all things that computer cut vinyl and digital prints can’t do. So this is what I focussed on.
I am busier than hell now.
I don’t dare compete with digital technology trying to duplicate perfect block lettering for some basic sign where they only want to pay $150.
Instead I hand design and hand paint the sign with all sorts of cool stuff and flair and guarantee it for at least 10 years, but it’s $600. Some people see the value, but it’s enough people to keep this one old school dinosaur guy busy full time.
Dive shops need to think hard about what they CAN do that the internet CAN’T do.
Sitting behind the counter with your arms crossed and a scowl on your face pissed off at the world because people buy stuff on the internet isn’t going to magically turn things around.
Just sitting there and hoping sell gear at 100% markup to some clueless person who doesn’t shop online isn’t going to work anymore.
The deal has to be offered in some other form since shops are bound on pricing. I saw free fill cards, service deals, free t-shirts, etc. these are good ideas.
But more important is the human interaction and friendliness, these are things that the internet can’t provide.
Also things like:
A shop dive club
Shop sponsored fun dives.
Buddy connections
An atmosphere of community.
More physical involvement in actual diving.
So many owners I’ve met haven’t been in the water in years.
If people have a reason to come into your shop other than just to buy gear then gear sales will actually become a by product of people coming in.
Also, shops need to think more about being cutting edge on gear. The wall of jacket BC’s and split fins is getting old. Some shops I’ve been into diversified into other water sports like surfing. kite boarding, kayaking, freediving, etc.
It used to be that dive equipment was sold at regular sporting goods stores. When they became exclusive I don’t know, it was before my time. Perhaps they need to go back to being included in a general sporting goods store?
I think the old model of the dive shop is at a low point right now. The future will dictate who survives and adapts, and who dries up and blows away.
The creative ones will survive.