From: fssmith@venus.lerc.nasa.gov (Greg Smith)
Subject: Re: Mail Order
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: NASA Lewis Research Center
Date: 13 Apr 1992 09:35 EDT  

In article <930449@hp-ptp.ptp.hp.com>, davew@hp-ptp.ptp.hp.com (Dave Waller) writes...
>fssmith@venus.lerc.nasa.gov (Greg Smith) writes:
>> 
>> Dave perhaps the stores you frequent are better than most.  I have found
>> th mail order savings on name brand identical equipment to be up to 50
>> percent.  It makes a huge difference.  I buy stuff from local dive shops
>> if their prices are in line.  I would gladly pay a little more for better
>> service, to support the local economy, dive shop etc. But I will not
>> pay twice as much.  
> 
>Mail order places do not provide air fills, or have the concomitant
>cost of maintaining a compressor. They do not service regulators (or at
>least none that I am aware of). These are just two extremely important
>services that dive shops provide, that without the shops we're shit out
>of luck.
> 
>I am not trying to say that your decision to purchase equipment
>through mail order is "wrong".  What I am criticizing is the view that
>dive shops are somehow ripping people off and making out like bandits.
>This simply is not the case, as the vast majority of owners and
>employees are living on rather low wages, the primary reason for their
>continued participation in the industry being their love for diving.
> 
>One point that is indisputable about divers who never darken the doors
>of a dive shop to make major equipment purchases but instead make them
>all through mail order is that they are riding on the backs of those
>that do patronize the dive shop for purchases, as these folk are
>essentially subsidizing the shop services that the mail order folk are
>using.  For example, air fills are not a profitable portion of a shops
>business, yet they are a required service that we all use.

Dave, I believe Berry's scuba sells air fills and performs regulator 
maintenance and so do other mail order stores.  Do you have an interest
in a dive shop?  You get price reductions that others on the net dont.

> 
>Greg, you're free to make whatever purchasing decisions you like, and
>I don't hold any serious negative opinions about you, or anyone else,
>who chooses mail order as their purchase medium.  However, dive shops
>are not in general cash cows, but are instead just staying barely in
>the black in most cases.  I think that it is important to understand
>what the TRUE costs are to keeping this sport alive and viable, and I
>make my own decisions based upon all those factors, not simply the
>price I pay for a piece of equipment.
> 
>One contributing factor to my becoming an instructor, albeit one of
>the minor ones, was the availability of equipment through a dive shop
>at substantially reduced prices.  It is my informed and considered
>opinion that with all aspects considered, I get more value for my
>money buying equipment at dive shops (at regular diver prices, not
>instructor prices) than the value I get for a smaller outlay for
>equipment from a mail order house.  By being an instructor, I can
>offset some of that monetary cost by contributing my time to the
>industry, and bringing business in for a dive shop (any shop in the
>area...  I am not tied contractually to any particular place).
> 
>You make a different cost/benefit analysis, and come up with different
>conclusions.
> 
>Dave Waller
>YMCA Instructor