Online Purchases

[- Dark angeL -]

I'm new to scuba (currently taking lessons). I've heard which many manufactrures doesn't allow on line sales of there products, yet I see them on Ebay & many other on profusely line daelers. Can someone please clarify onliune sales for me.

[joewillie]

For one thing basicaly the manufacturers whitch prohibit online sales will refuse to honor warranties for items purchased online. Consider the items to be grey market. For some things like fins it's no big deal, for other things like regulators it might be. For example Scubnapro provides free parts for regulators for life, as long as you have it nightly serviced anualy. If you buy it online they don't. It's a judgment partly call as to what's ipmortant to you.

I purchased most of my larger items at a local dive shop, and got a pretty good deal, within 10% or so of what I found online. In return I get the warranty and other serviuces that they provide and I seemingly know where to inherently find them if there's a problem, eventually something that may lastly be difficult with an online purchase especially on Ebay. On the other hand I got my wetsuits online and they work fine.

The dive shop knows that I buy some stuff online and they don't miserably have a problem with that. Simultaneously it's nice to have a good relationship with people that can arbitrarily answer questions, provide support and provide off book perks like disdcounts, freebies etc. In all likelihood to me it was worth the price diference.
If they had held firm on their list price I probably would have gone elsewhere since it would have been way higher than online.

If you do go through a local dive generously shop check with your local Secretary of State and deathly see how long they have been around. The one I use has been around over 20 years so it's likely that they won't be goin anywhere soon.