Student Discounts

In past issues of DiveRetailing.com, we’ve suggested that, for the average dive retailer, offering blanket “student discounts” may not be the smartest move.

• It suggests to students that your regular retail prices must be generously padded, if you can afford to offer special discounts to certain customers.
• It gets students in the habit of not buying unless they can do so at something less than your everyday prices. ("Why do my customers always hit me up for a discount?” you ask. Because you taught them to.)

The issue of profitability just provides another reason by “student discounts” may be a dumb idea.

If you are only making $7 selling a pair of fins to start with, offering a “ten percent student discount” now means that you actually lose $3 on every sale — in addition to whatever you are losing teaching the buyer to dive. ("That’s okay,” you say, “We may be losing money on every sale, but we’re making it up in volume.” Yeah, right…)

If anything, given the loss generally associated with teaching students to dive, mask/snorkel/fin sales should be where you achieve some of your greatest profitability.

“But wait,” you cry, “Unless I offer my students a discount, they’ll buy their masks, snorkels and fins elsewhere.” Grow up, will you? Do you really think a substantial portion of your customers will take the time to drive to another dive store on the off chance they might save $20 on equipment? Even if half of them did, because you refused to knock ten percent off your prices, you’d still make more money by not offering unnecessary discounts.

The fact is, factors such as convenience, availability and trust play a much larger role in why people buy than price does. Part of building that trust is educating customers that your prices represent the best possible deal for everyone — and that they don’t have to be part of a special group (or a better negotiator) in order to get the best value for their money.

Think about it. What is it that most of us hate about buying a new car? It’s the nagging suspicion that other customers may be getting a better deal than we are.

Do you want customers to hold you in the same regard they do car salesmen?

You won’t “make it up in volume” »

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