Internet gear question

[Scubaroo]

The Internet is real and it’s not going away

Nothing to add, just thought this quote was worth highlighting

 

[divemastergreg]

Best of luck to ya. Hope it all works out.

 

[divemastergreg]

Thanks for all your support. From your LDS........

 

[redacted]

Thanks for all your support. From your LDS........

Greg

Does your LDS have an internet presence? My impression is that if you already have a reasonably successful LDS, an internet presence costs just a bit more and greatly expands your customer base. It also allows you to offer your local customers very competitive pricing on to of good service.

Failing to take advantage of such an opportunity may severly handicap your business potential. Take a hard look at Scubatoys. They are authorized dealers for all their products and their prices are right in line with the most notable "unauthorized" internet scuba dealer. If you are passing on this opportunity because of principles, your principles may be the death of you(r business).

You can't really ask customers to support you if you decline to take advantage of opportunities to support them with competitive prices.

 

[countryboy]

The item about HP equipment from Walmart.... Try buying an EVO notebook.. You can't. How about a DC Desktop.. Nope.. These are business class machines and Walmart will not stock them.

The "clearinghouses" make the mfr create cheap items that they can sell tons of, make a little on the margin, but their buying power / number of sales drives the profit..

Not saying this is totally bad.. just buyer beware.. you may be getting the same "specs" (in generality) but not the same quality.. Same goes for the big home stores... Not the same product that you find elsewhere.. many times cheap imitations..

Do I want this to happen to my scuba gear.. NO WAY!

My LDS competes with VERY agressive pricing, many times meets, and quite often beats, internet pricing... At this time, there is not enough people to attend to all the walk in customers, let alone to start focusing on expanding to the internet.

Things will evolve... just make sure you are getting the same quality for the $$$

You need to research your purchase, and make wise decisions...


p.s. Check the sku's on the wally world pc and compare to the HP site.. probably can't find it because they are "special" orders just for them.. Same goes to BestBuy, Staples, etc.. I think you get the picture.

 

[pg60]

Honestly I think its often a simple gap in knowlege. Many non internet savy people are totally unIable to use google much less glean useful information from forums. I think when they start reading you the "internet speech" they simply can't phantom a new diver having the amount of information we have access too.

I think that you hit the nail right on the head here. My LDS owner is a great guy but to him internet gear sales == Ebay.

He feels his "internet is a bad deal" point of view is vindicated every time someone brings in gear for service that they bought off Ebay. But he does not seem to understand the gulf between taking a crapshoot on EBay and buying from a place like Scubatoys where you get the best of both worlds: great price and great service.

Like any other business it is really all about supply and demand. When I was certified in the 80s the only supply was your LDS or the LDS in the next town over. The demand (# of divers) has not changed much since then but the supply side sure has. Supply goes up, prices go down.

I think most LDS need to adapt their business model to the service side (fills, training, trips, repair) if they want to survive. By refusing/overcharging service for gear bought off the net they are just shooting themselves in the foot. Would your local golf store refuse to re-grip clubs you bought off the net? Would your local computer store refuse to sell you a new hard-drive when the one in your Dell crapped out?

 

[lairdb]

[...]The company I worked for made most of its profit on the sale of equipment (they were a Hewlett Packard house selling high-end routers and networking equipment) with only a modest margin on repairs and service. That company is still in business, but almost all its profit is now from service work. They even tell their clients to purchase equipment off the net and then make money setting up and servicing the systems and designing web pages.[...]

Seramblis's analysis is right on, and it triggered a further thought for me.

I've realized for a long time that there are a lot of parallels (the manufacturer relationships, service issues, distribution mechanisms, independents vs. chains, tweaky technical toys, limited places to engage in hobby, obsessive hobbyists and clueless newbies...) with the other hobby I used to instruct in: recreational and practical shooting. The parallels really are amazingly there.

Seramblis's comments made me reexamine this parallel, and I found the only missing element -- government regulation. (I really should have thought of it before; Porter's Five Forces model of competitive strategy calls it out specifically.)

The parallels of migrating toward a service oriented business, beginning to make instruction a value-add rather than a necessary cost-center, having to realign when the web shifted informational and transactional power, etc. -- all of these are exactly what gun shops and ranges went through. The damper on that effect, though, and the reason many small gun shops still make any money at all selling guns themselves, is the presence of difficult and complex regulation.

I raise this, because it seems an important cautionary note -- this implies a potential model in which it would be in the retailers's best interest to have substantial regulation imposed on the industry. I think most of us agree that the existence of LP, DiveInn, ScubaToys, scuba.com, etc., have had a pro-consumer effect in our relationships with the LDS. The potential wrench in the works is regulatory -- all that Scooter's Skanky Scuba Shoppe needs to end this-here intarweb problem is to have state or federal legislators put the force of law behind the "life support equipment" argument. Presto, back to thousand dollar regulators and no bargaining.

Y'all who are advocating diver licencing, think on that for a few, please.

 

[divemastergreg]

I have never turned away someone with a price from the internet. If I can match it I will. A lot of internet companies buy close out products. (lower prices on them) Thats why they can sell them for so cheap. Sometimes I can't beat them, sometimes I can. Just be careful who you buy your stuff from. Really what I am saying is give your LDS a chance to compete with them. Bring in the prices from internet and let your LDS try to match or even sometimes beat them.

 

[bp_968]

I have never turned away someone with a price from the internet. If I can match it I will. A lot of internet companies buy close out products. (lower prices on them) Thats why they can sell them for so cheap. Sometimes I can't beat them, sometimes I can. Just be careful who you buy your stuff from. Really what I am saying is give your LDS a chance to compete with them. Bring in the prices from internet and let your LDS try to match or even sometimes beat them.

Excellent idea. It was the FIRST thing I tried. I've done that a number of times for camera gear and the local store will usually work hard to match or get close to those prices. Sadly the LDS had no interest in that. I got 10$ off a 190$ set of fins, but they said they can't lower their prices because scubapro won't let them. pretty convientent since they carry almost nothing but scubapro.

Bp

 

[divemastergreg]

Excellent idea. It was the FIRST thing I tried. I've done that a number of times for camera gear and the local store will usually work hard to match or get close to those prices. Sadly the LDS had no interest in that. I got 10$ off a 190$ set of fins, but they said they can't lower their prices because scubapro won't let them. pretty convientent since they carry almost nothing but scubapro.

Bp

Some companies give a min. msrp that you can't go below. Thats true.