My LDS

[Beefcake]

I know very few of you will ever need to buy gear in Tigard, Oregon, so I am mainly throwing this out there to possibly help other dive-shop owners with a rookie's perspective. Anyway, while several dive shops in the Portland area have gone out of business in the past few years, there are still several to choose from. When I decided to get certified last year, I shopped around, and I chose one that I was comfortable with for my training. However, when I got around to buying gear, I was on a severely limited budget, so I had to buy used equipment for my girlfriend and I. As much as I like the owner of the shop I trained with, they were absolutely against me buying used gear and put down the equipment that I bought, so I shopped around again. I found a local shop, UnderWaterWorks, that had fair prices, an extremely friendly and knowledgeable salesman / repair tech, and most of all they understood what I was doing and were happy to service my old used equipment in order to get me diving. Now, I haven't made any major purchases there yet, but I have become a loyal customer and have bought nearly all of my personal gear and accessories from them. When Christmas and birthdays roll around, I generally ask for gift certificates from this shop so that I can go buy a new mask or polespear or something. My point is that I chose this shop because they were friendly about servicing my used Conshelf SEA and helpful in getting my tanks hydro'd. This has blossomed into a mutually beneficial relationship, and I now spend hundreds of dollars a year there. I think that is what customer service is all about.

PS. From everything I have read here, it sounds like ST has the customer service issue figured out.

[Diver Kat]

Good to know you found a reliable dive shop. The first shop was very shortsighted (as so many are!) Don't they sell their own 'used' gear after awhile? Pretty much all the dives shops I know do. So it's kind of stupid to knock used gear. And they lost a customer to boot. Stupid, stupid ....