Yet fit well
Handling LDS fee?
- Thread starter elitegoodguy
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I don’t mind paying something extra from a smaller dive shop, but some small shops will charge $10 for a big bolt snap or something like that. To avoid that, I’ll make sure to keep plenty of extras on hand from DGX and have multiple spares of odd sized things like 12” inflator hoses.
Hoag
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After reading all of the misgivings that people have toward their local dive shops, it just reinforces how incredibly lucky I am. There are several dives shops within about an hour drive from where I live, but two shops really stand out, one in Kitchener/Waterloo, and the other in Oakville. Both shops are far more interested in cultivating a long term relationship with their customer base than they are in making a huge score off of a single sale. Both shops are willing to say "Yeah, that'll work, but I think this would be a better option and it'll save you a little money compared to what you were looking at." Both are willing to say "No, I don't think you need a new __________. Give me a couple minutes & let me replace a part & let's see if that fixes your problem." (And I wind up buying a $10 part instead of a new piece of gear.)
This business model may seem foolish to some, but it keeps the customer base loyal. I would not hesitate to recommend either of these shops to people looking for an LDS. (In fact, at one time or another, I have recommended both of them here on ScubaBoard.)
So, how do I deal with online prices? I will research what an item costs online (converting that price to $CAD). I will then print out the page and take that into my LDS and ask if he is able to come close to the online price. In some cases, the answer is "No, Hoag, I can't touch that price, but thanks for checking with us." Sometimes the answer is "No, I can't match it, but I can come close. Here is the best price I can do." Sometimes, the answer is "Ya know Hoag, that's a fair price, but I think I can do a little better."
After that conversation, the ball is in my court so to speak, and I have to decide how much I am willing to pay to have the convenience of buying it at my LDS and maintaining that relationship.
This business model may seem foolish to some, but it keeps the customer base loyal. I would not hesitate to recommend either of these shops to people looking for an LDS. (In fact, at one time or another, I have recommended both of them here on ScubaBoard.)
So, how do I deal with online prices? I will research what an item costs online (converting that price to $CAD). I will then print out the page and take that into my LDS and ask if he is able to come close to the online price. In some cases, the answer is "No, Hoag, I can't touch that price, but thanks for checking with us." Sometimes the answer is "No, I can't match it, but I can come close. Here is the best price I can do." Sometimes, the answer is "Ya know Hoag, that's a fair price, but I think I can do a little better."
After that conversation, the ball is in my court so to speak, and I have to decide how much I am willing to pay to have the convenience of buying it at my LDS and maintaining that relationship.
The short fill would annoy me. But are you giving this as an example of an insane price? It sounds like that might be just about 100% markup on the cost of running the compressor. In this thread, we've been talking about how historically dive shops were able to sell gear at 100% markup, which allowed them to practically give away classes and air fills. Now if they have to match the gear prices of online retailers, who can get away with much less overhead, and if they can't charge more for classes because it'll deter new divers, then the money has to come from fills.
Never uttered in my area. Even the DM's that were apart of the shop said you have to be really hush hush about buying stuff online as it infuriated the owner.
I don't think it's a foolish business model at all.... we do the same thing in my line of work. I am not the end all be all at what I do. We offer competitive pricing but at the end of the day it's not a perfect fit for everyone. I have zero issues recommending another place as long as I know they'll be taken care of.
If that's the case then why do shops in say FL not only sell stuff for less, but their air fills are also less? I can get an air card in FL for ~ $4 / air fill. I can't even get an air card here. I understand that it's volume, but if the shops around here made it about diving and not about sales they would have more volume.
Competition
Would they? Is diving as popular where you are as it is in Florida? Not trying to be snarky; I genuinely don't know.
When I worked in restaurants, I learned that our biggest expense by far was labor. I know it takes a lot more people to run a restaurant than a dive shop, but it's worth noting that our labor came cheap-- servers only made the federal tipped minimum wage of $2.63/hour, while everyone else but managers made exactly the regular minimum wage plus a portion of the servers' tips. I did some management work and found that those slow nights just killed us on our labor cost, because we could only cut the staff so much and still function. Similarly, a dive shop might have, what, half a dozen people working at their busiest time? But you can't have less than one person, even if there's only enough work at the moment for, say, 25% of that person. Close up early because the shop is empty, and you piss off the one person who shows up after and really needs a fill for tomorrow. You can also only downsize the physical shop so much, even if you never have more than one customer at a time.
Volume is incredibly important to being able to offer low prices. But low prices don't just bring people in off the street-- at best, they lure people away from your competitors.
DIfferent shops have to use different strategies depending upon where they are located. Now, many make mistakes, but a strategy that is profitable in one area will absolutely flop in another.
Here in Colorado, which annually has among the 3rd highest number of divers per capita in the nation and a surprisingly large number of dive shops, there is close to no local diving. Only a tiny percentage of divers own their own tanks. Because of that, there is no money to be made supporting local diving, and most don't even try. You can only get nitrox at a couple of shops because the nearest place where it has any value is about 400 miles from Denver. The same goes for Trimix--only one suitable site in the entire geographic region is 400 miles from Denver. For most Colorado shops, the best way to make money is through dive travel, and all shops offer many guided trips to dive locations around the world.
This impacts sales, and sales volume impacts pricing. When I wanted to buy a trimix analyzer, the shop with which I was working offered to get if for me at their dealer cost. I was cc'd on the negotiations, so I know all the details. The company agreed to sell the shop a trimix analyzer at a certain price if the shop also agreed to sell 5 nitrox analyzers a year. I doubt if 5 people came to the shop looking to buy a nitrox analyzer in the history of the shop, so the shop declined. The dealer price the company offered was more than it would cost me to buy one from any online seller.
Diving is not huge here in my part of the world.... some think it's too cold
I understand what you're saying 1000% and I agree, and I would NEVER want to own a dive shop, and I never have in the past....so technically my ramblings are that of someone who honestly doesn't have any stake in the game and is just a random person on the interwebs.
With that said, I would be MUCH more inclined to buy stuff at my local shops if they went out of their way to treat me right. Not once have I felt it was about me or my diving and not the sale.... not to mention all the nickel and diming bs. $12 bolt snaps and $10 bottles of defog...come on.
In a perfect world I would think starting a dive club or maybe a group that met at the pub. Maybe have small presentations like I know they do down around DC. Maybe not huge amounts of volume up this way, but make it about diving and the money will trickle in. Make it about money and slowly fade away... no skin off my teeth.
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