Support your local Dive Shop!

   In this day where Amazon will deliver just about anything to your door step, we, have become accustomed to shopping from the comforts of our homes. Need soap? One click away from delivery the same day. Want to book a flight? Multitude of websites to do just that in the blink of an eye.

     But, have you ever thought about the repercussions? Remember Travel Agents? Been to a mall lately? Macy’s is closing stores left and right, Sears has declared bankruptcy, and JC Penney is looking like it will go under soon. The look of malls are changing and their survivability, at least in traditional aspect as we remember them is questionable.  Bad thing? Probably not, as we are a capitalistic economy and the market takes care of itself, Old stores die, new one’s flourish.

     Now enter the dive shop. Dive Shops, in general, have been suffering over the years from declining sale losses to the internet. Some stores have adapted by adding online sales, and it may very well be the model of the future successful Dive Center.

     Is this bad? Is not competition good? Well, yes…., until you try to get an air fill on the internet. Need to rent tanks for your fundive or class?  Or return a faulty part under warranty, only to find the vendor is an unauthorized dealer, or you need your tanks hydro’ d , or perhaps the need to speak to someone about their experience with a certain brand of BCD. Regulator serviced? See a pattern here?

     Over the past ten years, North King County and Snohomish County has lost four dive shops, leaving just one in Everett and nothing North until you get to Bellingham, or West to Anacortes.  Concerned?  You should be if you are a diver..

     Dive Shops not only provide valuable services we cannot find on the Internet but are also dive communities. We need them! Their success is and should be important to us. And, more often than not their prices are competitive. Especially if you factor in the service and warranty aspect of their service departments, etc.

     As divers, we need to be aware of this and make the effort to support your local dive shop. I, for one, do not wish to invest in an air compressor, nor have to worry where I will get my regulator serviced for its annual checkup. Do you?