BUYER BEWARE
The internet is a powerful media and opens up the world for news, entertainment, advise and deals. I am the first one to admit that buying from the net can save a hell of a lot of your hard earned cash. But buyer be aware, for sometimes your purchases turn out not to be as good as you would have hoped
.
As a diver, business owner and dive trainer, I pride myself on providing the best possible advise to my valued customers and have on many occasions pointed customers to the internet for sales. I have also seen a number of people get burnt from impulsive buying on the net or Trademe and can foresee an ever increasing number of net buyers getting their figures burnt in the future.
Here are a few buyer beware tips:
- Brands are continuously changing and those special deals on the net are generally because the product is out of production or have a high failure rate. Case in point, one well known brand of dive computers has a 60% failure rate.
- There has recently been a number of recalls for a number of high profile brand regulators and BCD’s, if you buy one from the net, forget about getting notified about these recalls or getting a local dive shop to fix the problem.
- As we should all know by now, if its seems to good to be true it generally is. Case in point a customer who brought a cheap Drysuit, it flooded on the first dive and is unrepairable due to very poor seal seaming.
- When it comes to getting that annual regulator service from your local dive shop, don’t expect them to be to sympathetic when charging you for the service if it was brought from the net, service kits can cost upward of $100.00, if you buy locally service parts can cost nothing in some cases. It doesn’t take to many years for your good deal to start costing you much more than expected.
- One well know brand of BCD’s and Regulators has for some time been available at prices that shops can not compete with. Result, many shops have discontinued selling them and will not service them, and don’t blame the retailer for high margins, as in this case they are cheaper on the net than the retailer can get them from the local importer.
Yeah, this might sound like a bitch session from a grumpy old dive shop owner with nothing better to do on a cold winters day. But facts are facts, if you buy a a high cost piece of kit off the net or Trademe like a BCD, Cylinder, Reg or Drysuit, expect it to bite you in the arse in the long run, and don’t get all upset if the price for airfills, dive trips or courses at your local dive shop go up, they have to make money somehow.
As you have seen from my earlier blog on Apeks, Suunto and Scubapro, some of us are being pro active in trying to supply our local market with good quality kit at reasonable prices and then being able to follow it up with the service you need and would expect with life support equipment. Spending a bit more on that item of kit at your local shop, might just mean a hell of a lot bigger saving in the long run, it might even save your life.
Buy wisely.
safe diivng
Brent