price of scuba gear in shops?
i just bought a scuba knife for $44 in one shop in Monterey (it is normal scuba shop). I saw it on the internet for $23 (of course after I used it in the ocean) …. there are other things way more expensive in this shop.
Are all shops pricy like this? On one side you would think no, but there are not that many shops and really not that many divers, if you think about how many people actually buy anything, they need to have the prices high just to survive.
Keep in mind the fact that your LDS (local dive shop) has more overhead to pay. They pay to have someone stand there all day to explain products to the five to ten people that come in each day. That human being is paid off the sales the store makes to 2-3 people’s purchases. No product line is completely foolproof either. Virtually every product sold at retail has a return rate, some lower than others. The LDS has to pay to send things back to the supplier. These are two major reasons you have higher prices at a ‘brick and mortar’ shop.
Let’s give you a really good example of why you might want to purchase your gear from a reputable LDS. A young man who is currently taking an open water to instructor course with a local university college came in to ‘my’ (by affiliation not ownership) shop 3 weeks ago. Several times. He has had alot of luck with gear in the past 10 days. All of it bad.
1)The first time he came in, his octo hose fitting had just broken off INSIDE his first stage. I will tell you almost every manufacturer of Scuba equipment will decline warranty obligations if you purchase your equipment on what is considered the ‘grey market’ or internet based stores. His would have been no different so there was NO POINT in even asking our rep. As it was, I personally had a tool designed to remove broken fittings at home and decided to help the poor kid out.
Cost: Buy new low pressure hose and pay service tech time to fix, both at RETAIL prices.
2) Same young man had several key seams on his BCD fail less than 5 days after the regulator incident. Because it was a brand we do not normally sell, and the one unit we did order in in the past year was a different size, EVEN IF our shop owner was willing to LIE for someone who made the choice to go elsewhere to buy gear, the supplier would have caught on instantly by BOTH serial numbers and size discrepancies.
COST: rent a BCD from us for 4-5 days while local shoemaker REBUILDS the BCD. Pay both at RETAIL prices.
3) Mask failure two days after BCD. I was not there to hear what the specific failure was, but this time out of sheer pitty our owner did approach this particular rep. Because our shop spends thousands of dollars every year purchasing ALL of our rental equipment from this particular rep, he was willing to help out based on OUR loyalty.
COST: begging
4) 4 days ago the school’s compressor took a dive itself. It was going to take a couple days to get fixed, but they still need to dive in order to get their required number of dives in before the Instructor Exam. Our owners are out of town for 2 weeks on their one vacation a year, and are therefore unavailable for ‘deals’. You might say air is cheap right?? well think about it this way: each standard 80 costs in filters and labor to change the filters, the electricity to run the compressor, plus there is the labor of the individual to fill the cylinder, and the compressor itself… theirs broke down, when will ours?? These machines cost 15 000$. So was the employee able to give him "free" air?? Not without getting in trouble from the loyal divers in the shop at the time. We would have smacked him silly since we GLADLY pay for air as one way we keep the business operating.
Think for a moment now about the nature of businesses. All Businesses. They exist to make money. If they don’t make money they fold. In a situation like this where the Business provides a multitude of other services which individually cannot hope to support an operation on their own, if the Business fails then the people whom it serves loose out too. It costs money to pay the rent, buy the equipment, maintain things, turn on the lights and connect the telephone. All these costs are significant and must be paid somehow. The owners are not running a charity. Gear sales are the largest source of income for any shop. If you take away all the other services a shop provides, you are then looking at a greatly reduced cost, and you can sell to the internet in order to make up for lost customer traffic generated by your other services no longer offered…. can you see where this is heading??
So if every LDS decided to turn to internet gear sales exclusively so as to concentrate on the ‘gravy’ where would you get your air fills?? who would you turn to to rent gear?? or try on sizes before you buy?? Internet sales do not contribute to offsetting all the other costs of running a dive store so while it may look like the Internet prices are better (and therefore RIGHT since if they can sell it at that price everyone should too) keep in mind that gear prices support the WHOLE operation as well.
the internet one is prob. crap
References :
It’s a retail store. They have a physical space that needs to have the rent paid and an area for stock and to service gear. They also have employees that dole out information for people.
Online sales don’t offer this and I personally, would much rather pony out some cash knowing that I can be assured that what I buy is in tip top shape (not a factory second) and that it can be serviced. I also am in favour of the sales person’s knowledge being something I can tap into, regarding the product in question. You won’t find that on a website.
References :
Keep in mind the fact that your LDS (local dive shop) has more overhead to pay. They pay to have someone stand there all day to explain products to the five to ten people that come in each day. That human being is paid off the sales the store makes to 2-3 people’s purchases. No product line is completely foolproof either. Virtually every product sold at retail has a return rate, some lower than others. The LDS has to pay to send things back to the supplier. These are two major reasons you have higher prices at a ‘brick and mortar’ shop.
Let’s give you a really good example of why you might want to purchase your gear from a reputable LDS. A young man who is currently taking an open water to instructor course with a local university college came in to ‘my’ (by affiliation not ownership) shop 3 weeks ago. Several times. He has had alot of luck with gear in the past 10 days. All of it bad.
1)The first time he came in, his octo hose fitting had just broken off INSIDE his first stage. I will tell you almost every manufacturer of Scuba equipment will decline warranty obligations if you purchase your equipment on what is considered the ‘grey market’ or internet based stores. His would have been no different so there was NO POINT in even asking our rep. As it was, I personally had a tool designed to remove broken fittings at home and decided to help the poor kid out.
Cost: Buy new low pressure hose and pay service tech time to fix, both at RETAIL prices.
2) Same young man had several key seams on his BCD fail less than 5 days after the regulator incident. Because it was a brand we do not normally sell, and the one unit we did order in in the past year was a different size, EVEN IF our shop owner was willing to LIE for someone who made the choice to go elsewhere to buy gear, the supplier would have caught on instantly by BOTH serial numbers and size discrepancies.
COST: rent a BCD from us for 4-5 days while local shoemaker REBUILDS the BCD. Pay both at RETAIL prices.
3) Mask failure two days after BCD. I was not there to hear what the specific failure was, but this time out of sheer pitty our owner did approach this particular rep. Because our shop spends thousands of dollars every year purchasing ALL of our rental equipment from this particular rep, he was willing to help out based on OUR loyalty.
COST: begging
4) 4 days ago the school’s compressor took a dive itself. It was going to take a couple days to get fixed, but they still need to dive in order to get their required number of dives in before the Instructor Exam. Our owners are out of town for 2 weeks on their one vacation a year, and are therefore unavailable for ‘deals’. You might say air is cheap right?? well think about it this way: each standard 80 costs in filters and labor to change the filters, the electricity to run the compressor, plus there is the labor of the individual to fill the cylinder, and the compressor itself… theirs broke down, when will ours?? These machines cost 15 000$. So was the employee able to give him "free" air?? Not without getting in trouble from the loyal divers in the shop at the time. We would have smacked him silly since we GLADLY pay for air as one way we keep the business operating.
Think for a moment now about the nature of businesses. All Businesses. They exist to make money. If they don’t make money they fold. In a situation like this where the Business provides a multitude of other services which individually cannot hope to support an operation on their own, if the Business fails then the people whom it serves loose out too. It costs money to pay the rent, buy the equipment, maintain things, turn on the lights and connect the telephone. All these costs are significant and must be paid somehow. The owners are not running a charity. Gear sales are the largest source of income for any shop. If you take away all the other services a shop provides, you are then looking at a greatly reduced cost, and you can sell to the internet in order to make up for lost customer traffic generated by your other services no longer offered…. can you see where this is heading??
So if every LDS decided to turn to internet gear sales exclusively so as to concentrate on the ‘gravy’ where would you get your air fills?? who would you turn to to rent gear?? or try on sizes before you buy?? Internet sales do not contribute to offsetting all the other costs of running a dive store so while it may look like the Internet prices are better (and therefore RIGHT since if they can sell it at that price everyone should too) keep in mind that gear prices support the WHOLE operation as well.
References :
PADI DSAT TDI SDI Instructor