Future of DiveShops?

[Jim Lapenta]

Yes...Go RV-ing is a perfect example how folks could work together and come up with something.

If I was a LDS, I would gather like-minded folks together and...demand that DEMA 1) hand over good reliable numbers of the marketplace and then 2) put some marketing in effect.

And you're gonna say "demand"? How do I "demand" something like that?

Well, the www is a wonderful thing. Not sure how many LDS there are in the US, but surely all of them have an email address. Slapping down a large document with a listing of everyone who's on board would shake up the room. It really would be viewed as you guys taking control of your future and livelihood, I think, since DEMA/etc refuse to do so.

This was tried a few years ago. Over 300 dealers, smaller manufacturers, shops, and some independent instructors all formed an alliance to ask for more say in dema action and decisions. It went nowhere because dema is an old boys, big boy club where large members can buy extra votes. Those members control everything dema does. The smaller one vote members are like gnats on an elephant's butt.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I'm not worried about e-tailers. I'm worried about the continued viability of an industry whose participants donn't seem to understand and/or want to accept the simplest concepts of business economics.

I don't think scuba will fully die. The retail arena is definitely changing in all aspects though. It will be interesting to see where all the chips will finally fall. I guess that's true of any luxury sport activity in this day and age.

 

[redacted]

I'm not worried about e-tailers. I'm worried about the continued viability of an industry whose participants donn't seem to understand and/or want to accept the simplest concepts of business economics.

I see change, but not extinction. Small LDSs are going to go the route of small hardware stores. Large retailers will survive and maybe even flourish as they switch to a high volume sales model. Independent operations will focus on their particular area of the scuba retail market (service, training, specialty manufacturing and sales) but keep their day jobs. Manufacturers' control over retailers will become better balanced. (When is the last time you saw a market that sold Coke or Pepsi, but not both?) Some areas will lose much of their local retail resource. Successful larger retailers will work to fill the voids as there are opportunities to expand their business (customer base).

 

[SeaCobra]

DEMA has zero to limited impact on what's going on, the average scuba consumer has never and will never hear of them. They only effect you if you let them.

To Mr Jammer - sorry to say, but you simply are not the target market to the LDS. I do not mean to be an insult, just stating the obvious.

 

[redacted]

To Mr Jammer - sorry to say, but you simply are not the target market to the LDS. I do not mean to be an insult, just stating the obvious.

That is part of the LDS problem. The target market is new divers and excludes experienced divers who have developed a level of independence from their LDS. We still spend a pretty big chunk of $$$ on scuba. But the typical small LDS rarely has much to offer.

I figure I spend about $15K a year on scuba, mostly travel. The LDS just does not offer much that I want.

 

[Trace Malinowski]

Everything you need to know about the marketing of entry level diving you can learn from watching the movie, "The Lords of Dogtown," backwards. Skateboarding was lame and the Z-Boys made it cool. The sport had ATTITUDE!

Recreational diving was cool and DEMA, PADI, et al, made it lame. The only place you find attitude in recreational diving is in a dive shop.

---------- Post added November 18th, 2014 at 02:34 PM ----------

I think elements of the sport need to step away from the PADI model. Let that agency be the Planet Fitness of the diving world and attract the customers that are drawn to the "professional image" that every geeky corporation embraces. I'm sick to death of sales people in colored polo shirts and khaki pants.

That "professional image" has been trying to squash the bad boys of cool in this industry for a long time. :middle finger:

I want to go to a dive shop that reminds me of a board shop not a Verizon store or where you buy walkers for your great aunt.

 

[MrCultureJammer]

DEMA has zero to limited impact on what's going on, the average scuba consumer has never and will never hear of them. They only effect you if you let them.

To Mr Jammer - sorry to say, but you simply are not the target market to the LDS. I do not mean to be an insult, just stating the obvious.

True.

I don't take dive trips often, and when I do I set it up myself, don't want or need any "entertainment" lined up for me on the trips, own all my gear/tanks/drysuit, etc, and I dive every single week usually 1-3 dives, so I only need air fills (though I have enough tanks that I only do it every 2nd or 3rd week or so.) When my gear needs service I drive it back to whoever made it locally, as their HQ are all located here in SoCal somewhere usually.

But that doesn't mean as a diver and a professional in the ad/marketing world that I'm not interested in fixing the problem. I am. I hate to see a cool sport languish under poor/absent marketing that could so easily be fixed by it. I enjoy Scuba immensely, and talk it up to friends/co workers/strangers etc to 1) see their reaction to it/answer their foolish preconceptions and 2) try and get them interested enough to take a class, telling them I'd be happy to dive with them when they complete it and show them the ropes. Heck, there's a local dive/sport shop here in SoCal that has 2 or 3 x yearly "learn to scuba in our pool for free with our free gear" weekends. I post that flyer up in the kitchen/breakroom at work and send it out via company email to everyone in my agency (200 people?) every time that comes around during the year.

I encourage everyone I meet to try it, or ask me questions about it. Thing is, I'm only one man.

THIS is the job LDS's/DEMA should be doing, on a much larger scale than I am. And they are not. Fixable? Abso-damn-lutely.

Do they want to? Hmmm...

I read this long ago and it applies here:

Advertising doesn't tell you what to think. It tells you what to think about.

 

[Rhone Man]

Everything you need to know about the marketing of entry level diving you can learn from watching the movie, "The Lords of Dogtown," backwards. Skateboarding was lame and the Z-Boys made it cool. The sport had ATTITUDE!

Recreational diving was cool and DEMA, PADI, et al, made it lame. The only place you find attitude in recreational diving is in a dive shop.

There is definitely something in that. One way I get people excited about the idea of diving is talking about underwater hunting, but that is an anethema to conservation minded dive organisations.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

There is definitely something in that. One way I get people excited about the idea of diving is talking about underwater hunting, but that is an anethema to conservation minded dive organisations.

Are you kidding? KILL, KILL KILL! Exterminate them! has been a very common theme lately with the diving public. Kill them all, small, big and medium. Dump their bodies if you want, or eat them.. we don't care.. but ENJOY hunting and killing fish...

























.

.






Of course I am talking about lionfish. So funny that people that shoot and catch a snapper to eat are environmental terrorists, but kill a lionfish and scramble his brains and you are a freaking hero!

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Is it also possible that there is a divide in diving now that at one time didn't exist?
Is there an elite class of affluent new money out there, maybe in high tech or other line of work where three figures is the standard?
It seems all this talk of ad campaigns and getting new people into the sport to support LDS's and such would be aimed at their deep pockets. The people that can go to the best dive locations in the world and spend whatever they want on the best gear available just because they can, and don't care what it costs.

On the other side I see the middle to lower class that maybe love to dive but don't have a lot of money. They are concerned with things like the price of air fills, LDS prices, etc. This is the crowd that looks for deals and tends to be DIY. These are the plumbers, carpenters, mechanics, tradesman in general, and other people with just normal jobs with mediocre pay. They are most likely to shore dive locally if they live somewhere where that's an option. How and what type of advertising would work on them? Or is there not enough ROI with these people to even waste expensive advertising on?

Is diving going to become another elitist sport for the rich only?
With the way gear complexity and prices have evolved it sure seems that way to me.
It used to be a simple tank with straps, a single reg, and a J-valve got you in the water. Now you have to have all this stuff on just to get certified, and the cost still goes up. They were doing the same dives with the simple gear as they are now and the dives really haven't changed, but the gear and prices sure have!

I think the harder core diver in general are the sportsmen, the hunters, or the avid outdoorsperson. The affluent yuppie has money but they have a shorter attention span. I guess it's because they have so many options and scuba is just another activity that they check off their list, along with rafting the Grand Canyon, or hiking somewhere exotic. I know a guy who would drop 40K to go big game hunting in Africa. Not to say they are all like this, but I deal with a lot of really wealthy people just because of my line of work in the Napa Valley and SF Bay area (yacht repair). I casually mention diving and I'm amazed at how many of them used to scuba dive but don't anymore. They always have stories of all the places in the world they've been and dove but then they admit that they saw the best of the best and finally got kind of bored. This where a lot of my free gear comes from. They just give it to me because it has no meaning or value to them anymore.