Scubatoys
My wife and I are currently in the middle of our basic Open Water SCUBA certification classes. The shop provides the heavy-duty gear, but like all diving classes you have to provide some of the basic "personal" gear - mask, fins, boots, and gloves. The local shop we're working with is decent, but honestly doesn't have a great in-store selection and frankly is priced a little high - basically MSRP for everything. We bought some of the gear thru them - fins and gloves -- things that we wanted to try on. We also decided to look elsewhere for some of the other things - we found that another local (though further from us) shop has a much better in-store selection, and Kim ended up getting her mask from them. I tried on one that I was interested in but they didn't have the exact color combo that I wanted.
Enter Scubatoys.com. I found out about 'em thru the very active and very helpful ScubaBoard and decided to try them for ordering my mask. They actively participate in the online community, are an actual brick-and-mortar shop as well --and therefore fully authorized dealers, since many of the dive gear vendors apparently haven't gotten around to thinking that this internet thing is going to go anywhere and don't want online vendors. I found the mask I was after, in the color combo I wanted, and it was in stock -- and on sale for about 2/3 the price the local shops wanted. Their shipping estimator isn't very good though ($35 to ship a 9oz. mask via 2-day UPS???) so I contacted the owners vis the forum. I had a response back that day (I could've called but really didn't feel it needed that kind of attention) and they provided a MUCH better shipping price, as well as including the 10% discount that the offer to members of the forum -- so for $50 including s/h I got what the local places wanted $76-90 for, plus free defogger.
I think we'll still try and support the local shop when we can (they're decent people, and it would suck to see them out of business since they also provide SERVICE and trips, and training as well as sell gear) but I expect that Scubatoys will be getting some more orders down the road for the things that aren't really sized or otherwise in need of long-term service.
Enter Scubatoys.com. I found out about 'em thru the very active and very helpful ScubaBoard and decided to try them for ordering my mask. They actively participate in the online community, are an actual brick-and-mortar shop as well --and therefore fully authorized dealers, since many of the dive gear vendors apparently haven't gotten around to thinking that this internet thing is going to go anywhere and don't want online vendors. I found the mask I was after, in the color combo I wanted, and it was in stock -- and on sale for about 2/3 the price the local shops wanted. Their shipping estimator isn't very good though ($35 to ship a 9oz. mask via 2-day UPS???) so I contacted the owners vis the forum. I had a response back that day (I could've called but really didn't feel it needed that kind of attention) and they provided a MUCH better shipping price, as well as including the 10% discount that the offer to members of the forum -- so for $50 including s/h I got what the local places wanted $76-90 for, plus free defogger.
I think we'll still try and support the local shop when we can (they're decent people, and it would suck to see them out of business since they also provide SERVICE and trips, and training as well as sell gear) but I expect that Scubatoys will be getting some more orders down the road for the things that aren't really sized or otherwise in need of long-term service.