If you went into a Sportsways store and wanted a Healthways regulator, you
just had to listen to this tirade about why you just do not want to buy what you
came in to get (Because you may be swimming in a tunnel with your arms at the
side and you got into a situation where you needed to push the purge button for
more air and had no way of getting your fingers to it, with the Sportsways
protruding button you could use your body to push the button.) Anyway there were
a lot of ridiculous arguments between the various makes. Most of it did not make
any sense at all.
As a matter of fact, there was one store on the east coast, who worked
totally differently with one of the newer manufacturers. The owner wanted to sell
only those regulators from that newer manufacturer. But everybody was buying
U.S. Divers regulators. U.S. Divers was really in a monopoly situation in the
marketplace. He got a dozen U.S. Diver regulators, took them into the back room
and changed a few adjustments in the regulators. After these adjustments, some of
the regulators would make horrendous noises, others would kind of studder and so
on. Here you came in and wanted to buy a "Calypso" regulator. The shop owner
would say: "Take your pick and breathe off it. The regulator did not sound like what
you were used to, so the store owner would offer you to try another one. Well,
after a few tries, he would give a sales pitch about the quality control of the
competitive regulator, and you were sold on the competition. U.S. Divers caught
wind of this, and threatened to sue the guy if he didn't stop it. Kind of interesting,
but that's the way the diving industry was.
The diving industry consisted among others, of a lot of "Harley Davidson
riders." These early customers all came in to the dive stores with their leather boots
and the full regalia. Nevertheless, they were the ones who bought the regulators.
There was not a large market back then. In the 1940's and '50's even into the
'60's, female divers were the exception. Women sat on the beach looking
decorative, but rarely if ever got wet. As the sport progressed, more and more
women became interested in the sport.
Hollywood got into diving! One of the greatest boosts the scuba industry
got from Hollywood was from Mike Nelson (portrayed by Lloyd Bridges)
and the television series Sea Hunt in 1958. The show aired through 1961 with weekly
installments.
By 1963 the TV audience was ready for "Flipper", or "Lassie in a wetsuit" as
some preferred to call the show.
Earlier days, friends would get together and buy from a manufacturer direct,
maybe six or 10 regulators at distributor cost and only pay additional freight. This
setup the common practices of discounts in the professional business.
Today we have beautiful stores, most with their own compressors, and many
with a swimming pool with 90 degree water behind the lobby area. Diving stores
have to have dealer pricing and a markup to survive. Some stores were distributors
and dealers at the same time. There was a problem competing within an
environment like that, at least for the stores that were simple dealers. The
distributing dealer could cut his "Over the counter price" and thus somewhat
unfairly compete with his own chain of dealers, who got 20% less profit to start
with.
