The LDS of the future

[Pedro Burrito]

I guess I wonder about the "problems" with the current LDS that needs fixing. Automating a fill station doesn't seem like the sort of silver bullet that will turn a shop around... if nothing else, filling tanks gives the dive op something to do.

I do think that diver services are the way to go. Organizing dives, training, repairs, consulting on gear purchases, etc. Take the inventory down to bare essentials (LDS becomes one big save-a-dive shop) and reduce the sqft-age and focus on the service end.

I agree that I don't think that tank filling is an issue with any LDS. They always justify the compressor by pointing out that the online scuba retailers cannot provide gas fills. They also claim that they are not making any money with gas fills, that they use the fills to get people into the shops.

There are eight dive shops near me, maybe more.

One closed down last year because he was a cranky old-school guy who didn't think that he needed to be open on Sundays or after 5:00 pm, never answered his phone and only sold Scubapro equipment.

One is disorganized and probably isn't paying her suppliers because I have ordered equipment from her and it takes months to get the equipment. I'm still waiting for something that I ordered in July. I've given up on that operation. They also send their reg and other equipment out for repairs and never get it back within 6 weeks.

Another charges way too much for everything and is also disorganized. I ordered a camera system from them in October of 2010 and got an agreement from the order taker that it would be in by Christmas, 2010. My card was charged but the order was never submitted as I found out when I called to check on the status at the beginning of December. They had to special order the system from Ikelite and rush ship it to me so they actually did get it to me by Christmas but that was the final straw for me and I'll never use them again.

I like my current LDS but ... I'm uncomfortable with them for many reasons. They don't sell any of the equipment that I own so I have to take the equipment to another dive shop for service. They also are a mostly SDI shop so if I want to get my pro certs then I have to go with SDI or find another shop. Also, since I don't own equipment that they sell, I have to buy equipment from them before I can start any pro training because students tend to purchase what their instructors use.

Four aren't convenient.

All of them have very little inventory already. Their rent per square foot is outrageous and inventory costs are killing them. Since an empty classroom costs as much per square foot as inventory display square footage, they are getting killed paying rent. I'm surprised that there are so many shops still in business.

I want a dive shop that gives me choices for training agencies. I also want to be able to touch and try equipment. I want to be able to get bungee cord and small parts and pieces from my dive shop (none carry bungee cord in my area). If I go into an Aqualung shop, I want to be able to pick up an Aqualung mesh bag instead of being told that they don't carry them and then directed to the Akona bags. I want knowledgeable staff to help me with my choices. I want my equipment serviced in house and in a timely fashion. Have I mentioned price/cost yet? No, because I know that if I ordered tires online, I'm not going to get my local tire shop to put them on for free. The same holds true for online gear purchases. I know that I will end up paying extra for getting the best price online because eventually I will have to get my gear repaired and serviced. I do not want to be gouged, however. I mentioned in another thread that I wanted a software update on my dive computer. The two local shops that service my brand of computer wanted $285 and $325. I ordered it online for $145 delivered. And fills ... I usually only need them from an LDS when I'm taking a class. I don't even own tanks because I've done most of my diving in Florida or the Caribbean. There is actually no place to dive locally until the quarries open in April so do we really need eight local dive shops with their own compressors?

All I know is that if I had any entrepreneurial aspirations, I would run away from owning a dive shop.

 

[boulderjohn]

Well that's why you make 350.00 a class and i pull 995.00. With your experience you should be in the same ball park... It's not my fault you can't sell it. I'm not a car salesmen, but you could learn a thing or two from one... If you charge it, they will pay. You only devalue yourself, wpbdivegirl is right I'm not competing with you. We don't compete in the same weight class. If it's all for a good cause why don't you go NFP... I'll stick with making good money and providing for my family 100% by doing what I love!

I would like to return to the question of whether one can make a living from scuba instruction alone. Now that we know Brendon actually works on a liveaboard, it reopens the question. I suspect he has duties on the liveaboard apart from instruction. In my liveaboard trips, the only instruction I ever saw performed by the crew was an AOW certification for one of the divers and a couple nitrox classes so that the divers could use that gas on the trips. The only instructors I know of who make their living solely from scuba are employed by an LDS and do a lot of things other than instruct.

This brings me back to what was talked about earlier about current LDS structure and location. As was explained in a scuba marketing workshop I attended, an LDS typically offers some blend of services: sales, instruction, travel, local diving, equipment maintenance and repairs, and gas fills. How that blend works varies by location. In my area there is very little local diving going on, so there is next to no income whatsoever from fills alone, and there is pretty much no attempt to gain income from leading local diving. Fills are necessary for instruction, so there has to be enough income from the other aspects of the shop to make up for that overhead. In contrast, in an area like South Florida, a shop like Fill Express can survive focusing on income from fills, but under new ownership even they have shifted to being more of a full service shop. A South Florida shop does not need to make travel a major part of their product, and I suspect most totally ignore a facet that is considered vital where I live.

I think the impact of the Internet on shops is similar to the impact of location. If your sales income is being seriously impacted, you have to adjust your blend of services accordingly.

Which brings me back to instruction. If instruction cannot provide a full time income by itself, then it has to be a part of a blend. If someone is hoping to make a living in scuba instruction, it seems to me that there has to be something else going on as well. I notice that independent instructor Jim Lapenta is now selling gear as well. On the other hand, if sales are being impacted, then the price of instruction (or some other part of that blend) has to go up. There just has to be a balance, with the nature of that balance depending upon the location and the key skills of the LDS staff. In the long run, though, I think it is ultimately going to depend upon the quality of the experience the customer has when working with that shop. People who feel they were treated well will come back and tell some of their friends; people who feel they were treated badly will not come back, and they will tell everyone they can find.

In summary, I don't think there will be ONE LDS of the future; I think that there will be MANY LDSs of the future, just as there are now.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Here is my guess as to how that will work in the USA. First off, someone will get their panties in a wad and point out that a drive up fill station will necessarily mean that someone is putting compressed gas on the nations highways, thereby bringing all of the DOT requirements. DOT requires that any fill station operator by trained in site specific OSHA HAZWOPER training. Part of that training is to recognize that cylinders be properly marked and have current VIP and hydro markings. OSHA requires that fill station operator training be logged and each fill station operator and instructor sign the logbook as proof of training received. The fill station owner is responsible for maintenance of this log.

The scenario goes like this: Jax develops the software to make the swipe work and sells it to me. I put together the system with pressure gauges and solenoid valves and sell it to the LDS of the future. The LDS of the future puts it together with an online training program so that if you want your self-serve fills, you complete the online OSHA HAZWOPER training. Meanwhile, the LDS of the past cuts the end off the fill whip. The LDS of the future installs security cameras. The LDS of the past calls the state DOT law enforcement officers to investigate. They shut down the self-serve fill station while they conduct their investigation. Can you see that lasting less than 6 months?

I can only think of 4 or 5 other reasons it would be extremely difficult to make work.

What you're describing is the LDS of the present ... the same ones that, 20 years ago, worked hard to make sure that nitrox would never be available to the recreational diver.

I too can think of a lot of reasons why "it'll never work" ... but my experience has been that when a market exists, someone will figure out a way to resolve those problems and make it work.

The LDS of the future will be run by a problem-solver ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I
Automating a fill station doesn't seem like the sort of silver bullet that will turn a shop around... if nothing else, filling tanks gives the dive op something to do.

It wasn't meant to be presented as such ... just an example of the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that might save the LDS from going the way of the dodo bird. The LDS doesn't have a future if all it does is try to maintain a business model that's already decades out of date ... and keep coming up with excuses why it can't change ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Rich Keller]

For this to work, each cylinder will have to be registered with the filling station and given a unique bar code prior to the after-hour fill. The filling station will have to look up the cylinder in a database and make sure it has a valid hydro and vis and also to make sure that the after-hours filler is not asking for a cave fill. The technology is probably available but it's the Pareto Optimum (80/20 rule) problem. 80% of the fills will only require about 20% of the effort to set up but the remaining 20% of the fills will require most of the effort to get right. My guess is that the remaining 20% would be locked out from getting the after-hours filled. It's an interesting problem to work on, however.

The tanks could have a chip inplanted with all the current information about the tank and the owner that could be read by the fill station the same way a chip inplanted in a lost dog can get them returned to their owner. It would have info on the hydro, VIP and current certification level of the owner. This would need to be updated when the tank is inspected, sold or the owner adds a certification. I am not an expert in this field but it seems like it should be all off the shelf tech.

 

[Jax]

The tanks could have a chip inplanted with all the current information about the tank and the owner that could be read by the fill station the same way a chip inplanted in a lost dog can get them returned to their owner. It would have info on the hydro, VIP and current certification level of the owner. This would need to be updated when the tank is inspected, sold or the owner adds a certification. I am not an expert in this field but it seems like it should be all off the shelf tech.

Weee bit much for an RFID. Most are not reprogrammable; if they are, it takes the cost out of profitable land. The info on the tanks / owners could be in the swipe card, easily.

The Pet RFID contains only a number, and the format of the number lets you know which firm. If you don't keep up your information, no good on finding the owner.

BTW, they RFID people, too.

 

[Rich Keller]

BTW, they RFID people, too.

So THATS how my wife knows when I am in the bar? I need to check for that chip as soon as I get home! Where do I look for this thing?

Seriously though, the dog chip was not the best example as I expect they make those as small as possible but they also have chips like that in credit cards and they have enough information that someone scanning them can clone a new card from the information they contain. I was thinking about something more advanced, laminated onto the crown of the tank just under the port so it would be well protected from normal use and the censer used to read the chip could be on the underside of the whip used to fill the tank. You would also need to have two fill whips, one for yoke and the other for DIN.

 

[dmoore19]

I would like to return to the question of whether one can make a living from scuba instruction alone. Now that we know Brendon actually works on a liveaboard, it reopens the question. I suspect he has duties on the liveaboard apart from instruction. In my liveaboard trips, the only instruction I ever saw performed by the crew was an AOW certification for one of the divers and a couple nitrox classes so that the divers could use that gas on the trips. The only instructors I know of who make their living solely from scuba are employed by an LDS and do a lot of things other than instruct.

This brings me back to what was talked about earlier about current LDS structure and location. As was explained in a scuba marketing workshop I attended, an LDS typically offers some blend of services: sales, instruction, travel, local diving, equipment maintenance and repairs, and gas fills. How that blend works varies by location. In my area there is very little local diving going on, so there is next to no income whatsoever from fills alone, and there is pretty much no attempt to gain income from leading local diving. Fills are necessary for instruction, so there has to be enough income from the other aspects of the shop to make up for that overhead. In contrast, in an area like South Florida, a shop like Fill Express can survive focusing on income from fills, but under new ownership even they have shifted to being more of a full service shop. A South Florida shop does not need to make travel a major part of their product, and I suspect most totally ignore a facet that is considered vital where I live.

I think the impact of the Internet on shops is similar to the impact of location. If your sales income is being seriously impacted, you have to adjust your blend of services accordingly.

Which brings me back to instruction. If instruction cannot provide a full time income by itself, then it has to be a part of a blend. If someone is hoping to make a living in scuba instruction, it seems to me that there has to be something else going on as well. I notice that independent instructor Jim Lapenta is now selling gear as well. On the other hand, if sales are being impacted, then the price of instruction (or some other part of that blend) has to go up. There just has to be a balance, with the nature of that balance depending upon the location and the key skills of the LDS staff. In the long run, though, I think it is ultimately going to depend upon the quality of the experience the customer has when working with that shop. People who feel they were treated well will come back and tell some of their friends; people who feel they were treated badly will not come back, and they will tell everyone they can find.

In summary, I don't think there will be ONE LDS of the future; I think that there will be MANY LDSs of the future, just as there are now.

Though I do not work in the industry, I am a consumer, I know what my likes and dislikes are. I do not know how other parts of the country operate. From what I have read here on ScubaBoard the business model here is somewhat different than most other places. I agree with you, there will be many different business models.

 

[VooDooGasMan]

Boulder not so sure brendon is on livaboard, WPB is throwing off instead of just saying where she works, and she claims brendon is a stage name, His name is brendon fowler and I believe the shop is one in ? as it does have same prices.

Now as far as livaboards go, possibly they have a OW on them or maybe a place on land they have class, cause the boat is not that big and divers do not want to have to stay away cause of a class going on. So Brendon and WPB might be on a land based part of livaboard.


Oh I know now this is a early april fools joke from wookie, lol.

 

[VooDooGasMan]

Oh yay jax I was meaning if you put o2 in at home and top off at unmanned air supply, also topping of pony's.