I hear that about LDS's hating Leisurepro.com At my LDS the shop owner is a SCUBAPRO dealer and sells many other things as well. I know in the SP catalog they have set prices on items. She sells other things like tanks,lights,bags ect.ect. anything not SP for 2-3X the amount you can get it on Leisurepro.com. I have told her a number of times people cant afford to pay $89 for a light W/100 lumins when you can get a 900lumin for the same price. Same things with bags leisure sells it for $$ LDS sells it for $$$. I asked her to be a little competitive when it comes to this but she refuses. She would rather lose out totally lose out on the sale then try to make up the loss in volume. She wonders why she is always so broke and about to go under.
I love to support my LDS but I refuse to pay 3X the amount for something I can get online. With the way the economy is and jobs hard to come by people are not just going to pay retail anymore. Dive shops on bulk orders can get things 25 to 50% below dealer cost and there is a 100% mark up on retail cost from dealer cost so takeing a little loss on a retail item to be competitive wont kill you and in the long run could save the ONLY dive shop in our town.
I agree whole heartedly on this. I know of a dive shop I went to in the past where the owner beleived that MSRP is the only price with no exception. I spoke with many divers over the years and they were totaly turned away from this shop.
I even spoke once with a dive club leader who mentioned that several of that areas local dive shops got together and attempted to get some sort of agreement on how to better serve the area and entice more divers. One of the suggestions was to work on sales somewhat where the potential new diver had a chance to get into the sport at a more reasonable cost and the reply was that they will not sale any items below MSRP.
Now in my area especially the dive industry is drying up rather quickly as there were once about 5 diver shops and a few sporting good stores around who sold dive gear as well. these sporting good stores folded up and 3 of the other shops went under leaving only 2 shops behind.
Of these two shops there is a since of bad blood in the air though I try to stay out of the middle of it. One of the dive clubs I belong too has alot of members who cants stand Shop A because of various reasons (Out of respect I wont mention these). Dive Shop B has a larger percentage of divers who go there in this dive group.
Dive shop B is not as large as alot of the shops say in Oklahoma City or even Joplins shops but it does carry a considerable amount of dive gear that divers need.
Now I have been to dive shops in the past and asked about LeisurePro (before I really understood the diffrences) and he came unglued. I was told that they are a grey market seller who was selling merchandise without Manufacturers warranty. They do however carry this on some merchandise and those that do not honor their sales for warranty they carry their own in house warranty which is great!
Some items I understand the need for warranty like regulators but Aqualungs sling shots which I use only have a 2 year manufacturers warranty. They wont honor LeisurePro as an authorized seller but Leisurepro offers 2 year in house.
I have said it before and have to say it again though. When these shop owners complain about being undersold how many of them shop at walmart for their groceries and have in part helped run the mom and pop stores out of buisness because they saved money at walmart. Now arent they being unfair to the small town grocery store?
What about when they buy new cars do they shop around or just walk onto a lot and say give me a mustang at MSRP I dont need a discount?
