LDS pool and new equipment

[Jim Lapenta]

We have a policy at the shop where I train that allows any certified diver to come in and use the pool when it will not interfere with classes. Use our tanks and weights or all gear for $25.00 for up to 3 hours. You have to sign a waiver and short medical questionnaire. Doesn't matter where you bought your gear.
What this has done is get people in the shop who quite often later, do buy or take classes from us. Same as when I mail order service regs. I don't care where you bought them or from who. As long as they are brands I service. Just because you bought from a competitor doesn't mean you're not a potential future customer.
The previous owner of the shop where I train had a guy who would come in once a month or so and try on a suit or BC or look at a light. Then would come back to show the better deal he got on line. The owner always said "good deal" or something along those lines. Never berated him. He was almost ready to say something when the guy showed up with some friends.
The way he was treated made him bring them to this little shop. I was there. 4 hours later they left with complete BC, reg, and computer setups for two couples. Over $5,000 in that sale. Just because he wasn't a jerk. Taught me a valuable lesson.

 

[Dogbowl]

We have a policy at the shop where I train that allows any certified diver to come in and use the pool when it will not interfere with classes. Use our tanks and weights or all gear for $25.00 for up to 3 hours. You have to sign a waiver and short medical questionnaire. Doesn't matter where you bought your gear.
What this has done is get people in the shop who quite often later, do buy or take classes from us. Same as when I mail order service regs. I don't care where you bought them or from who. As long as they are brands I service. Just because you bought from a competitor doesn't mean you're not a potential future customer.
The previous owner of the shop where I train had a guy who would come in once a month or so and try on a suit or BC or look at a light. Then would come back to show the better deal he got on line. The owner always said "good deal" or something along those lines. Never berated him. He was almost ready to say something when the guy showed up with some friends.
The way he was treated made him bring them to this little shop. I was there. 4 hours later they left with complete BC, reg, and computer setups for two couples. Over $5,000 in that sale. Just because he wasn't a jerk. Taught me a valuable lesson.

Exactly. That’s what I consider real business acumen. I don’t “get” the egos of certain LDSs when they make people feel bad. They won’t come back.

I try very hard to spread my scuba dollars around the several LDSs in my area. In fact, I always go to one of them first, but somehow or another I always end up buying from the shop that’s an hour away. They know how to sell. Give me a deal here and there. Not pushy. Make me feel special. And I give them my money! Lots of it. The fact that they carry every brand under the sun (or at least the brands I want and read about here) and can order anything for me when I want it, helps tremendously.

 

[Marie13]

Those of you with easy access to a LDS pool may not realize how fortunate you are. My LDS doesn't have one. They rent a lane for classes at the large indoor public pool next town over. Not sure on cost, but they're at the mercy of the schedule, swim teams and such having priority.

Last winter a dive buddy and I went to the small indoor pool of another LDS in the area. $15/hour got you weights and a tank. It was generally available 9-12 on Saturday mornings. But it was too small to do a lot, with a sharp incline from 3ft to 10ft. Hard to work on kicks because you had no room to stretch out and do uw laps. They also heated the pool to about 90 degrees as they also rented it out to people who did water therapy. Too warm for me.

Last winter I was able to piggyback on an OW class once with my shop and do some work in the big pool. That was lovely. After asking about winter practice sessions for this off-season a few months back, my shop has set up winter pool practice sessions for certified divers on the same day they're doing OW classes. We get a separate lane from the students and an instructor will be on hand for liability purposes. 3 hours one Saturday a month Dec through March in the off season. $80 for all 4 sessions, $30 for a single. There's a cost since they have to rent pool time. I consider it reasonable. You're on your own for arranging any gear/tanks/fills you might need. I can't wait to get my gills wet again. 25 meter pool is great for underwater laps when working on kicks.

 

[Neilwood]

We have a policy at the shop where I train that allows any certified diver to come in and use the pool when it will not interfere with classes. Use our tanks and weights or all gear for $25.00 for up to 3 hours. You have to sign a waiver and short medical questionnaire. Doesn't matter where you bought your gear.
What this has done is get people in the shop who quite often later, do buy or take classes from us. Same as when I mail order service regs. I don't care where you bought them or from who. As long as they are brands I service. Just because you bought from a competitor doesn't mean you're not a potential future customer.
The previous owner of the shop where I train had a guy who would come in once a month or so and try on a suit or BC or look at a light. Then would come back to show the better deal he got on line. The owner always said "good deal" or something along those lines. Never berated him. He was almost ready to say something when the guy showed up with some friends.
The way he was treated made him bring them to this little shop. I was there. 4 hours later they left with complete BC, reg, and computer setups for two couples. Over $5,000 in that sale. Just because he wasn't a jerk. Taught me a valuable lesson.

The owner was a smart cookie - rather than alienate a customer over purchasing elsewhere, he took the long view and it paid off for him.

I live in an area with relatively few dive shops - there is one in Edinburgh (20 miles, no on line pricing but they tend to be quite expensive and no social media), one in Coatbridge (about 20 miles, no on line prices but responds to enquiries through facebook pretty well) and one in Glasgow (about 30 miles, on line presence and fairly keen prices).
I have bought from all of them however I will not buy anything from the shop in Glasgow now (despite only having been in once). I went through for a sale (as a very new diver) to look at some equipment (BP&W and regs). Told the shop what I wanted "single tank diving only recreational depths etc" but ended up being talked in to a SP BP&W with a 27Kg lift horseshoe wing (that is what they had in stock and I didn't know any better - they were even looking at selling me a dual bladder wing at one point). Went diving with my OW instructor for AOW (he is a BP&W diver) and he commented on how huge it was. Did a bit of research and found that the wing I should have gotten was actually only about £10 cheaper but they would have had to order it. So instead of selling me the right thing and letting me pick it up the next week, they sold me the wrong thing and I ended up having to change it for a different one at my own cost (couldn't take it back as it was used). So over selling me on one item has meant that they have missed out on the following purchases that I decided to get on line or further affield - Wet suit (£150), dry suit (£1000), undersuit (£100), fins (£100), dive computer (£800 Perdix AI), torches (£100) etc. I have subsequently found out they are known for sharp practises with regards to tank testing and filling as well.

 

[CT-Rich]

For the diver shop that has a diver come in with an internet purchase, the best strategy really would be to say, "oh hey, net time you are buying gear, let me know and I will match what you see on line..." I know my shop will match prices I see on line and they know I dive on a tight budget. I don't ask for specific discounts, but they usually give me an good/ great deal and I try to keep my purchases cash so they don't get hit with the credit card fees. It is probably pretty hard to tell if the big (or small) online retailers bench test gear before it is sent out and the dive shop might have been just trying to make sure that a diver who was passing through their pool/shop wasn't given a bad experience from an Internet purchase. If you get turned off of diving because you have a scary free flow or worse yet hurt, eyes are going to turn towards the shop they were affiliated with, regardless where they bought the gear.

 

[boulderjohn]

For the diver shop that has a diver come in with an internet purchase, the best strategy really would be to say, "oh hey, net time you are buying gear, let me know and I will match what you see on line..." I know my shop will match prices I see on line and they know I dive on a tight budget

I know many will see that as the best policy, but I know some marketing theorists who disagree. "Never discount and never have sales" is their philosophy, and they are pretty successful. There are also additional problems with this.

Some brands do not allow much of a discount in their sales agreements; the dealer may not be allowed to go that low.

Matching an online price may mean selling at a loss. Dealers get volume discounts from some vendors, and the difference can be huge. Here in Colorado, almost all local diving is shallow, and the market for nitrox analyzers is about nil. I needed an oxygen/helium analyzer, and they are extremely expensive--about $900. The shop where I was working told me that they would let me buy it with no markup whatsoever, and they included me in the email stream with the manufacturer. The manufacturer offered to sell the oxygen/helium analyzer to the shop at a specific price if the shop would agree to sell 5 nitrox analyzers per year--which is not going to happen in Colorado. I could get it from an online store for less than the dealer price they were offering, even paying full retail.

While working at another shop, I got a standard rate of dealer price plus 20% for all items I bought. I wanted an expensive canister dive light. The shop had just become a dealer for a company that specialized in tech gear. I sat down with the shop's buyer and we looked at the book together, so I saw the dealer price and added 20%. This was an unusual company in that it also sold direct to the public at its own website. I looked it and saw that if I paid full retail buying it direct from the manufacturer, I would pay just about our dealer cost with no markup at all. A dealer really needs to average about 40% markup on its sales in order to survive. I considered a manufacturer underselling its own dealers to be so unethical that I did not buy it at all.

 

[msinc]

One of the issues is that techs think that people like the reg breathing as freely as possible so that generally means within a hairs breadth of free flow. Tuning it back a notch makes very little difference to the breathability (to the point that most people wouldn't even notice it) but makes it far less susceptible to free flowing.

Yeah, that is exactly the way I was to understand it. When you say "most people" I am definitely one of them...I cannot tell the difference between my T3 and a ScubaPro Air II!!!