Whats wrong with the Scubapro X-Tek Pure

[ripman3]

Where can you get steel tanks at that price?

---------- Post added February 17th, 2015 at 12:42 AM ----------

 

[RJP]

but like many other massive corporations, you have to fund their marketing budget and corporate bloat.

Just so you know marketing makes products cheaper... not more expensive.

Surprising how many people think that "product sales cause marketing to occur" when it's actually - and obviously - the other way around.

 

[tbone1004]

craigslist mate, tanks are one of the worst things to buy new due to depreciation.

Have to drive for some. Didn't see any on craigslist near you right now, but if you get in with the cave diving crowd there are usually guys shuttling tanks around pretty regularly and there are some big names in our community up in NYC.

https://washingtondc.craigslist.org/mld/spo/4886931502.html
Those would be worth the drive, they are 120's not 100's, they are the skinny necks so you'd have to negotiate a price with the singles valves since that manifold can not be capped or plugged. Only downfall to those tanks is they have to be used with 300 bar DIN regulators, due to the 3500psi pressure, but they are beautiful tanks and my personal favorite bottles both in sidemount and backmount. They'd fit your size well.

Marketing makes products cheaper yes, but only when the sales of the products are higher pushing the margins lower and cost of the products the same or close enough to oust competition. When the margins are the higher, cost of production is lower, but cost of purchase is the same or higher, you are feeding corporate bloat. DSS makes a higher quality product, in one of the most expensive places to do business in the world, but they keep their prices cheaper than the big boys do. I know how marketing works in the real world, but this industry is so f*cked up the normal rules of business don't apply. If they did, Suunto's new Eon Steel wouldn't cost $1500 when Shearwater puts out a computer that costs about the same to manufacture but have chosen to take a realistic margin on it and not spend hundreds of thousands of dollars marketing the thing, so they charge $850 or whatever it is for it right now, their dealers only make $100-$150 on it, and they sell a boat load of them, the Eon Steel dealers probably make at least $500 on it, but sell fewer of them so it just doesn't work out.

If your statement applied to this, then Scubapros X-Tek would be cheaper than the rest of the market, but instead they choose to spend the money to market it, then price it at or above the competition and don't end up actually selling stuff anymore. Unfortunately in this market there isn't a lot you can do to separate yourself from the other guys with marketing because most of it is coming out of the same 3 factories in Asia, so quality is all the same, it's all on price and little bit on brand loyalty now. Now, in recreational gear marketing may work better than it does in technical diving, but if marketing actually worked to keep prices down in technical diving Hog, Dive Rite, Deep Sea Supply, and Halcyon would all be out of business and we would all be diving Aqualung and Scubapro gear, but with the exception of regulators and jet fins, you don't see much from those two brands, you see the three above because they are cheaper to buy and generally equal or better quality.

If you can give me a single example in technical diving where marketing has actually made a product cheaper I'll eat those words above, but I can't find a single product from Aqualung, AUP, or Scubapro that is cheaper and better made than competition from DSS, Dive Rite, or Hog, none of which have huge corporate structures, or spend huge amounts of money on advertising, Dive Rite more than the other two, but still nowhere near the amount of the first three

 

[RJP]

If your statement applied to this, then Scubapros X-Tek would be cheaper than the rest of the market, but instead they choose to spend the money to market it, then price it at or above the competition

A.) In the real world PRICE is part of marketing (google 4Ps), and is set based on the overall marketing strategy. In fact, pricing is one of the FIRST decisions to be made in the marketing mix. Usually while the product is still just an idea. No one puts their whole marketing plan and budget together and then has a discussion about pricing.


You say that Shearwater "took a more realistic margin" but that of course is just silly if you think they made that decision based on how much (or little margin) they wanted. Their pricing decision was based on expected demand. Their margin was a result of their pricing decision... not a cause of it. They priced their product wherever they did as a marketing decision; whether to undercut a competitor to gain a competitive advantage or because they figured they would not sell many at a higher price.

Do you honestly believe that the good folks at Shearwater would't take Suunto's profit margin? Or that Tobin doesn't wish he could get Halcyon's selling price? Not saying this to cast aspersions or question either's motivations. They're just smart enough to realize that they won't sell much of anything if they priced their product the same as the larger, more widely known brands.

"...but if marketing actually worked to keep prices down in technical diving..."


If you can give me a single example in technical diving where marketing has actually made a product cheaper I'll eat those words above, but I can't find a single product from Aqualung, AUP, or Scubapro that is cheaper and better made than competition from DSS, Dive Rite, or Hog, none of which have huge corporate structures, or spend huge amounts of money on advertising, Dive Rite more than the other two, but still nowhere near the amount of the first three

B.) I never said marketing makes one product "cheap" overall, or cheaper than another product. Marketing support makes Product X cheaper than if Product X was NOT supported by marketing.

 

[tbone1004]

I deal with marketing every day as part of my job, you do obviously as well, I also know that there are some genuinely good companies out there that aren't trying to gouge their customers. Halcyon has artificially inflated their prices to reflect a much higher quality and because of that they sell fewer rigs than they would if they dropped their price to that with the rest of the market, their cost of production is no higher, they just demand a higher price for their product and are OK with not selling as many. DSS makes their products in house and because they do mainly direct sales instead of dealers and they keep their market share down, their fixed costs are lower, Scubapro et al have enormous fixed costs so they have to factor that into their pricing strategy and have to maintain a much larger market share and higher dollar contribution to support their style of business. Only way to do that is insane margins, you're in marketing, you know that the companies are operating under two very different styles, the smaller guys are doing more direct and strategic dealership networks and taking advantage of a niche, the big boys are trying to plaster the market with their products and to do that costs a lot of money.

It's not wrong, one is not better than the other, it's just different. What makes my skin squirm is when they are putting out products that are no better with worse customer support at equal or higher price. Until January Hog was the biggest offender putting out identical regulators to Dive Rite and Hollis at significantly lower prices. The other factor that makes this difficult to figure out is the R&D budgets for these types of products are different than in normal manufacturing. Scubapro didn't have to go out and actually design a harness, plate, or wing for the X-Tek Pure, they went to their factory and said "copy this", not a lot of R&D, no investment in retooling etc, their factory produces for other manufacturers. Hog went to ODS and said I want this with these few tweaks and I'm going to order 1000 of them, they didn't have to go and redesign a regulator and build tooling up from scratch, this rebranding that is going on is saving all of the upfront costs of R&D and retooling.

With all of that said, I'd still argue that marketing isn't actually effecting the costs of these products because they are in a niche and niche based products don't follow general trends for the broad market and if the small companies cut 100% of their marketing budget, their price wouldn't change because the market would still support it. This is small enough of a market that word of mouth via forums and local dive clubs I'd bet does a far better job than putting ads out in magazines and what not. This is just a weird little niche in the industry and because it is so small traditional marketing doesn't really fit the mold for normal marketing strategy. You must see that with your consulting, Scubapro can't market the X-Tek like they do with their normal stab jackets, same as how they don't market the jet fins like they do with whatever their new fancy $200 fin is, you have to create the demand for the higher priced products, but since most technical divers are engineers or engineer types and don't succumb to traditional marketing strategies and are usually turned off by it, you have to be a bit different, luckily it's a lot cheaper to market to the engineer types than it is to the masses. No matter how you spin it, niche marketing doesn't work the same as mass marketing, you know that. My point with all of this is if the big three cut the marketing and corporate bloat out of their products on the technical side, they could have the same dollar contribution coming back to them which usually equates to higher margins, and would have about the same market share because they could cut costs and undercut competitors. I'm willing to bet that Tobin has a higher dollar contribution on his rigs than Scubapro does once all of the fixed and variable costs are factored in, same as Shearwater having the same dollar contribution on a Petrel as Suunto does with the Eon Steel. I've seen dealer pricing on those, the dealer costs are similar for DSS rigs as they are for most of the others, and the Petrel dealer pricing is comparable with the Eon Steel, the difference is because the MAPS are lower the dealers aren't given a lot of incentive to push it, but because the Petrel is placed at a lower cost to the consumer, this niche purchases and endorses it. Shearwater dealers maybe make $150 on the Petrel, the Eon steel is surely almost a 100% markup to the dealer over cost, which is fine, then another 100% markup on top of that to the dealers so that is where they are able to make their money. Cue why you don't see package deals with a lot of the technical gear, the margins from the dealer are so low they can't really drop them any more than they already are, but since recreational gear is sold at such high of a markup they can lump them together

 

[RJP]

I deal with marketing every day as part of my job, you do obviously as well,

You only have to deal with marketing... how about some sympathy for those actually DOING it?



The suggestion that small products, companies, and markets (I reject the use of the term "niche" in marketing overall, but that's another discussion) are somehow exempt from the same market forces and economic principles as others simply has no basis... in either theory or reality.

Any entity that is involved in trying to get humans to give them money in exchange for goods and services is subject to the same market forces.

That fact that many in the scuba industry don't understand - or are unwilling to accept - these well-characterized forces and how they impact the business of diving is a huge problem.

 

[tbone1004]

oh I don't envy you guys, the marketing team that I work with have some of the highest stress most frustrating jobs I've ever seen, trying to figure out how and where to market is a major issue but since this industry is such a dinosaur I don't think they'll ever figure out how to actually sell more product at lower prices with a higher dollar contribution. We shall see, but I'm not particularly optimistic

 

[TSandM]

A friend of mine bought the X-Tek Pure system, and I remember not thinking much of it. I went to the website to
see if I could remember what I didn't like -- as I recall, the inflator hose is too long for my taste, and I don't like the big dongle off the butt dump, but I think my biggest annoyance was the weight pocket system the person had bought, which I had difficulty sorting out. The wing size is appropriate for single tanks, and the harness has the appropriate number of d-rings. If you get a screaming deal on the setup, it's probably just fine, but you might eventually want to replace the corrugated hose with a shorter one.

 

[RJP]

oh I don't envy you guys, the marketing team that I work with have some of the highest stress most frustrating jobs I've ever seen, trying to figure out how and where to market is a major issue but since this industry is such a dinosaur I don't think they'll ever figure out how to actually sell more product at lower prices with a higher dollar contribution. We shall see, but I'm not particularly optimistic

My favorite is the typical R&D/Marketing conversation:

R&D: "Here... we've developed this great new product."
Mktg: "Really? Who's it for?"
R&D: "It's for you guys. Go sell it."
Mktg: "No... what customer is it for?"
R&D: "What's a customer?"
Mktg: "The person who's need this product is supposed to meet."
R&D: "What's a need?"
Mktg: "Ughh... people won't buy this unless they think they need it."
R&D: "That's marketing's job... we've already done the hard part."

True story.

 

[ripman3]

Thanks again tbone. You have been very helpful. Right now the tanks are gonna have to wait. I bought 4 Al80s in the past 7 months. My wife is about to kill me. I still need to get the bp/w and all i keep hearing is, you already have a bcd, do you really need another one! YES!! I think i am gonna go with DSS. Thanks again...