Don’t sabotage your most important sale

If yours is like most dive centers, students in beginning classes must supply their own masks, snorkels and fins. Unfortunately, this may be the only thing students ever buy from you.

As it becomes increasingly difficult and costly to travel with items such as BCs and regulators, customers are less willing to invest in them. There is also the fact that, in many instances, dive gear prices have far eclipsed inflation. This has further diminished hard goods sales.

This being the case, masks, snorkels, and fins could well be not only the first sale you make to students but also the most important one. Why? Because what you sell to students can easily impact the likelihood of further sales. Here is what we mean.

Has this ever happened to you?

A student comes in to purchase a mask, snorkel and fins for class.

You start by selling them a mask. It might be a more modestly priced mask or one with several high-end features. However, all that matters is that it fits properly and is comfortable to wear. Depending on what they choose, the student may spend anywhere from $70 to $150 or more.

Next, you move to snorkels. You extoll the virtues of features such as replaceable mouthpieces, flexible barrels and dry valves. When you are done, you have convinced the student to spend $70 or more just on a snorkel.

Fins would be the next thing on the list. However, before you can sell the student fins, you must first have them select a pair of wetsuit boots so they can try fins on over them. Prices here can start around $60 and exceed $100. The biggest variable will be the thickness and rigidity of the sole.

At this point, you are ready to move on to fins. However, by now the student may be experiencing some serious sticker shock. They came in expecting to spend less than $100, based on the price of the cheap snorkeling set they saw at the local discount sporting goods store.

At this point, however, you are up to $250 or more and haven’t even gotten to fins. Not surprisingly, the student wants to settle on the cheapest fins you have. And that would be a huge mistake.

Cheap fins are no bargain

Better-quality fins like TUSA’s HyFlex Switch not only tend to be more powerful, but given their advanced blade technology, they can actually be easier to kick. They will also incorporate features such as elastic or spring heel straps.

If you let your students settle for buying less-than-ideal fins, the fact those fins may be harder to kick and more difficult to use can be a constant distraction during training. Additionally, your students may be less likely to keep diving following certification if their fins take all the fun out of it. And, if they don’t keep diving, you will never sell them any more gear.

Turning things around

The best way to ensure your students get the right fins may be to turn things around. Instead of making fins the last thing you sell to students, make them the first. This will help you avoid the sticker shock problem.

When running a dive center in the Midwest, we’d start our mask/snorkel/fins presentation by going straight to our top-of-the-line fins. That presentation would go something like this:

“These are the best fins we sell. They are the ones several dive magazines have rated as the best there is. They are also what all of our staff uses. They cost more; however, over the next ten years, the price difference will work out to less than twenty-five cents a dive. It will be some of the best money you will ever spend on dive gear. Besides, we are going to show you some other items where you can save money to make up the difference.”

We sold a lot of those fins. And our customers loved them and never regretted spending the extra money.

Don’t sell useless gear

In our earlier example, one of the reasons students were reluctant to invest in better-quality fins was that they’d already pissed away $75 or more on a piece of equipment they are unlikely to use following certification. We are talking, of course, about dorkels. (Whoops! Did we actually say that? We meant “snorkels.”)

Following certification, you students will quickly discover that, out in the real world, very few divers go around with an oversized adult toy strapped to the side of their head.

Before the widespread adoption of jacket and back-inflation style BCs, snorkels were necessary as horse-collar BCs could not get your head out of the water far enough to breathe while swimming on the surface. But that was more than 40 years ago. We’re 25 years into a new century now.

If your students continue to dive, they are likely to do as most other divers do and leave that near-useless and often distracting piece of gear at home. This means that in the highly unlikely event they might one day need it, it will be sitting at home collecting dust.

A much better investment may be one of the newer, more compact folding snorkels. These not only cost less, but you can put them in a pocket and take them with you on every dive. And the money students save by buying them can be put toward items such as better fins and a personal dive computer.

Match your students gear to real-world needs

Wetsuit boots and open-heel scuba fins are by far the best choice for most divers. But not always.

In many places, people limit their diving to tropical vacations. Except for destinations like Bonaire, your students will be diving from boats and not walking over rocky surfaces to get to the water. If diving exclusively from boats, they may not need wetsuit boots to protect their feet.

Another consideration is that traveling with dive gear has become expensive and inconvenient. A growing number of divers want to be able to travel with just carry-on luggage.

If you have students who will be completing their open-water training dives in the tropics, you may be better off selling them something like TUSA’s Travel Right fins. Although adequately powerful, they are more compact and can be worn over bare feet. They are an ideal solution for many traveling divers.

The right gear can mean students learn better and keep diving longer

Your primary goal should be to get students into masks that fit comfortably and fins that are powerful yet easy to kick. They do not need $75 snorkels or even the most expensive wetsuit books.

Help your students spend their equipment dollars wisely, and they will learn to trust your advice and be more likely to make future equipment purchases.