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Our goal is to provide product excellence in both design and quality, and allow YOU to make a profit. Our marketing represents the only practical approach. One that allows our authorized dealers to make a fair profit and NOT be "Beat Up" by the massive mail order business or internet discounters. Many of you are already dealers for other brands of buoyancy products, and face the same problems associated with it. Most BCD designs offer poor performance, substandard quality, and the parent companies you have to deal with become a nightmare because of unfair volume pricing, accounting, shipping problems, and defective product returns. Many Scuba equipment companies, have LOWERED their retail prices to remain competitive, and have also RAISED your dealer cost to maintain their profit margins. What little remains is your profit, and this is not the way it should be, because you do all the work.
QUESTION: Are you satisfied with your current equipment provider? How do you feel when you are forced to live with a MAP pricing structure when same product is being offered by the big discounters like Leisure Pro at close to your dealer cost? Or listed on ebay for less than what you paid? ...and your customers and students look at you like a crook because you cannot match the great price they found on the internet. How can you compete when your own equipment provider is cutting special discount deals to the high volume mail order people?
ANSWER: The answer is that you cannot, as long as you are selling the same products. You create the customers for them, and they obtain all the benefits and profits. We have researched the market, and have over 30 years experience in the retail end of the scuba industry, and know exactly what is going on, and we don't like it any more than you do. Some larger companies like Zeagle, Dacor, Mares, Cressi, Oceanic, ScubaPro, SeaQuest, Suunto, Aqualung, and others have not embraced the internet, and the internet marketing of their products have run wild to the point where few dealers can make a profit, and most everyone dealing with their brand is pretty much frustrated.
EXCUSES: The company representatives will tell you that those big discounters are NOT authorized dealers, and that "our company is working hard to stop those Gray market sales" Ask yourself, how hard would it be to purchase a few items like regulators or BCD's with serial numbers and then track the product back to the source and cut off the flow of equipment? It's not hard at all, and it only requires a few hours work. However, they won't do it, because they don't care, and are making a lot of money and moving products outside of normal authorized dealer channels.
QUESTION: The next big question should be is how can "those internet discounters" sell at your cost and still make a profit if they are not purchasing directly from your supplier at a discounted rate? Remember, these are the same equipment providers that will suspend your dealership should you even try to sell your items on ebay, or the internet at a competitive price. Are they really working for you? It is NOT a fair playing field.
ANSWER: The solution is to NOT compete with the same product, which is exactly what we have done. It's time for you to STOP training students and creating customers for the internet equipment discounters. We only have minimum restrictions, and an exclusive superior product, and a practical marketing system that allows you to not only sell on ebay and your stores official internet website, but to also make a profit. All we ask of our dealers is that they keep their published discount prices at or above the shown MAP prices. This keeps playing field fair for everyone and still allows an excellent profit margin and nobody feels cheated. Any violation of this MAP advertising pricing policy will result in the instant termination of the dealership.
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