Retail Confidence - A Mid-Year Survey
By Mark Young
A look at how diving's retailers have fared in the first half of 2011Ask companies in the diving industry to say how their year is going so far, and the answer's a mixed bag. It's that, or many are answering with caution. So how are we doing post-recession? There are few gauges in the diving industry and with the recession's effects supposedly subsiding, and since diving is mostly a discretionary activity (in other words among the first to feel a recession and the last out), it would be nice to know where we stand . . . keep reading
|
How Stable is Diving's Retail Base?
By E. Mark Young
Dive retail health is an important measure for the diving industry; much of the industry's business is connected there, and dive stores create most of the industry's customers. This industry has few economic gauges, including no reliable way to know how dive retailers are doing in any short-term measure, but one long-term gauge is retail stability. . . . keep reading
|
Operational Survey -- Dive Retailers and Discounting
By Mark Young
For retailers, the practice of discounting products and services is perhaps one of the most important areas of business consideration. In major retail operations like Sears, discounting doesn't apply at the store management level because the price is the price. At smaller independent retailers discounting is discretionary, and the way it's handled effects, either positively or negatively, sales levels, profitability and customer relations... . . . keep reading
|
|
Dive Retailers and
Social Media Marketing - Survey 2010
Mark Young
Social networking has been around as a marketing device in the dive industry for less than two years. As with everything new and novel, especially with marketing technology, questions surround the applications, effectiveness and future of the "Facebooks" and "Twitters" of today and tomorrow in the marketing of diving's business. . . . keep reading
|
How Stable is Diving's Retail Base?
By E. Mark Young
Dive retail health is an important measure for the diving industry; much of the industry's business is connected there, and dive stores create most of the industry's customers. This industry has few economic gauges, including no reliable way to know how dive retailers are doing in any short-term measure, but one long-term gauge is retail stability. . . . keep reading
|
In an Economic Downturn, How Do You Spell Relief? It Might Be 'R-E-N-E-G-O-T-I-A-T-E Y-O-U-R L-E-A-S-E'
By Larry S. Green, Esq.
You've heeded Franklin D. Roosevelt's advice, recognizing as he did that, "It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something." You've already dulled your sharpest paring knife; staff is at a minimum; inventory is threadbare; marketing (hah!). Still, a graph of recent revenues shows that after they flatlined, they went over a cliff. Not so good, but hopeless? Too many tenants believe that putting their heads in the sand will solve all their problems, and they always seem to find out too late that an unflattering negotiating posture yields little value. So why not just ask your landlord for some help? Before you do, however, take a deep breath and remember that your landlord is your business partner, not your adversary. . . . keep reading
|
Showroom Aquatics -- Considerations for an In-Store Aquarium
Stephen G. Noble
Walk into many dive stores today and you're in kind of a typical retail environment. Customers see dive equipment, accessories, maintenance and training area, an airfill station … but we are not really selling those things. We're selling diving; both the experience and the dream. The other things follow. So what should your customers see and feel when they come into your store? . . . keep reading
|
Retail Perspectives on Internet Competition (2009 Operational Survey)
By Mark Young
A continuing issue facing diving's retailers is the sale of dive equipment over the Internet. The Internet is basically a low-priced competitor, the same as it is for retailers everywhere, and it is here to stay. The questions are how big of a factor is it, how do retailers cope and what will it represent in the future? . . . keep reading
|
Diving Divas: Getting Women Into Your Store and Into Diving
By Donna Askew
When I began teaching (a while ago), this was definitely a sport dominated by men. I lived just outside Minneapolis, and the local newspaper ran a half-page article on me, the woman in town making a career of teaching scuba diving. I was a minority of one in the area. There are still fewer women than men in the sport, but not by so much. According to DEMA's 2006 Survey (Profile of the Most Active Divers in the U.S.: Lifestyle and Demographic Study), 34 percent of active divers are women. Surveys by our sister publication, Dive Training, indicate that women make up 40 percent of new divers. . . . keep reading
|
|
Contact Us
