Well, after about an hour of discussion with the web hosting service for our current www.divesports.com website, I finally got the website security certificate issue resolved.  The new certificate has been installed.  I blogged about this issue a couple of day ago at this post.

Web hosting services really confuse me.  In my conversations to try to determine why my certificate was not working, I determined the real problem.  ComCity, my web hosting provider, is migrating to a new set of web servers.  They claim to have sent many emails describing this change.  For this to work properly, I should have reviewed the 12 emails they sent me about this change and done all of the things to make it work properly.  There is only one problem….I never got ANY of the emails.  Only after talking with them three or four times did I learn about these email and all of the instruction to solve the problem.  They forwarded the never received emails to me, I followed the instructions, and now it is working like a champ.  But, where is the customer service?  Why didn’t they notify me when I didn’t do the right things to make the migration work?  If the issue was about the migration and the things I didn’t do, why did I have to buy a new certificate?  I will be very happy when we launch the new managed content system in January.  Our new Volusion website will be nice and I have a lot of confidence in the dedicated server service they offer.   No more fussing with ComCity.

Well, it is 4:00 PM in Alabama.  My website now has a security certificate.  I can leave for Thanksgiving with a clear mind.  I hope you all enjoy your holiday.

Phil Ellis

Buy Scuba Gear with Big Discounts

Today is my birthday.  I was born on November 21, 1952.  On the day I was born, the United States Post Office issued the first two color stamp, using the rotary printing process.  Man, a lot has changed since that day.  I was born in the middle of the Korean War.  I was born 2 years before my uncle Don, the greatest guy I have ever known.  I was born 6 years before I practiced “duck and cover” exercises in elementary school to protect against the nuclear bomb attack that we were SURE was coming.  I was born 9 years before the Bay of Pigs, maybe the most critical foreign relations disaster in our hemisphere in my lifetime.  I was born 11 years before the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, an event that sent everyone in my generation into tears.  I was born about 15 years before Neil Diamond wrote “Sweet Caroline”, a tribute to our late president’s young daughter.  I was born 17 years before the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam war, a time that terrified everyone my age.  I was born 18 years before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, the event that created the most national pride for my generation.  I was born 29 years before IBM introduced the first “personal computer”, making the PC available to the masses (It took me another 15 years to realize that this was a big deal).  I was born 25 and 30 years respectively before the births of my two kids, absolutely the coolest thing that has ever happened to me.  I was born 41 years before the first attack on the World Trade Center, the event that made me realize that terrorism is a world-wide concern.  I was born 49 years before the final attack on the World Trade Centers, the one that worked, the one that finally made the world realize that worldwide terrorism is a war.

This is going to be a cool birthday.  I feel much better than I felt six months ago.  My kids are home.  Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, my favorite food day.  Jan is cooking big and our table will be full.  There is not a thing in the world that I need or want, so whatever gifts I open will be great and unexpected.  Actually, it probably doesn’t get much better than this.  I am glad today is my birthday.  I am glad I made it this far.

Oh, some other cool people also share my birthday today….Ken Griffy, Jr, a great baseball player…Dick Durban, bad politician….Voltaire, French philosopher…Goldie Hawn, Laughin girl…Nicollette Sheridan, the witch of Wisteria Lane…Chris Moneymaker, the first internet poker player to make it big…David Tua, boxer and tough character…and Elizabeth George Speare, prolific American author of children’s books.

Some people also left this world on my birthday…Bill Bixby, the Incredible Hulk, Max Baer, a tough boxer, and just one year ago today, Robert Lockwood, Jr. (or “Robert Junior” after the great guitarist Robert Johnson), a great jazz guitar player.

Phil Ellis

Buy Discount Scuba Equipment from DiveSports.com

Over the last eight years of being in the scuba business, we have seen lots of innovative new products come onto the scuba scene.  Some of the products gain a solid footing and become part of nearly every scuba diver’s regular assortment of gear.  However, some products are not designed with that large market in mind.  The newest item we have recieved will certainly be in that second smaller category, and will serve a very small segment of the technical diving community.  This new product is a set of bands and isolation manifold to fit 5 1/2 inch diameter cylinders.  The Dive Sports Staff members have actually talked numerous times about the idea of doubling small aluminum or steel cylinders to make a small compact set of doubles, but we were sure that no manufacturer would put forth the initial expense of designing such a system.  Well, we were wrong. 

Dive Rite has designed a manifold and stainless steel tank bands to fit any tanks with a diameter of 5 1/2 inches.  We assembled a set today using Worthington 40CF  Steel Cylinders rated to 3130PSI.  The bands and manifold would also work on any 5 1/2 inch diameter tanks, like those from Faber and other manufacturers.   This set of Worthington Doubles is quite a neat little set.  They provide complete tank and regulator redundancy, while not weighing you down like a typical set of steel doubles.  They will also sit closer to your back so they will make for a very streamlined rig, probably more so than even a standard single cylinder.  I think they will be perfect for the diver who wants the trim, balance, and redundacy of doubles, but just doesn’t need all of the gas supply that conventional doubles provide.  I’m certainly looking forward to giving them a try myself.

Brad Ellis

Brand Name Scuba Gear at Discount Prices

Well, today is sales tax day in Alabama.  Every month, on this same date, I have to file and pay our sales tax for all in-state sales for the previous month to the City of Decatur, Morgan County, and the State of Alabama.  Some months, this is pretty depressing.  When I don’t pay much, it means I didn’t sell much to local, walk-in customers.  I love those months when I write the big checks to these three agencies.  Big sales tax checks mean big local sales and big local sales mean the local dive community is active and growing.

People often don’t understand the role local merchants play in the revenue stream for the local governments.  We collect the sales taxes, we hold them in trust, and then we divide them up and distribute them to the various tax authorities.

Each month when I file my sales tax reports, I wonder what the future will be for the revenue stream in local governments.  As we all know, you pay no sales tax when you make a purchase from an Internet site outside of your state.  Sales tax revenue is the life-blood of most local governments.  As Internet sales increase, sales tax receipts for the local governments decrease.  Consumers have learned that they can save an immediate 7%, 8%, or even up to 11% by making purchases from outside of their state, thereby avoiding those sales taxes.  Of course, every state has a provision called a Use Tax that requires individuals to file a return and pay the local sales tax on all items purchased outside of their state.  Unfortunately, I have never heard of anyone that actually files one of these returns.  Many already feel that the state gets enough; they aren’t about to voluntarily give more.

Oh well.  I guess I would suggest that scuba equipment buyers should take advantage of the benefits of buying from an online operation.  Avoid that sales tax if you legally can.  However, we should expect that the states and local governments will decide to remedy this problem at some time in the future.  I don’t think they can continue to watch their revenue drop as Internet sales increase.  Don’t be surprised when they act.

Phil Ellis

Discount Scuba Gear with Full Factory Warranty on Every Item

I spent most of yesterday working on our new divesports.com website.  As I have mentioned in a previous post, due to the work on the new site, I am not able to direct as much attention to the current website as I would like.

Late last night, I checked our online order system to see how the weekend sales were going.  I found an order from a new customer who attached the following note to his order……

“your website seems to have a security certificate error.  expired maybe?”

 This sent me into a state of panic!  Questions started running through my head.  Had someone broken our security?  Was there another famous ComCity web failure?  Had my certificate accidentally developed a glitch?

As fast as possible, I logged into my user control panel for the website.  There, I found the answer.  Despite having selected an Automatic Renewal option for my security certificate when I opened our website four years ago, ComCity (our service provider) just didn’t renew the certificate.  They had the correct permission, the credit card, and all of the information they needed.  They just didn’t do it.  So, I placed my online order for the new certificate, printed the questionnaire that requests all of the business information (required because my certificate had expired), and faxed it to them at 11:00PM last night.  I hope they do the renewal and install the renewed certificate as soon as possible.

The sad thing is……this certificate really has little to do with real website security.  It is more for buyer comfort than anything else.  All orders on our site are received through a secure server, the credit card number is never stored on our database, and everything important is password protected many times over.

Anyway, thanks to my new customer M. Clark for bringing this to my attention.  I have renewed my new certificate for 2 years.  Your order has been filled, you got your free shipping as promised, and nobody has pilfered your credit card number.  And you are going to love those pressure gauge modules.

Phil Ellis

Buy Discount Scuba Gear Online DiveSports.com

I am an unabashed free trader.  I have always been and always will be.  This is a rant most of my business associates have heard before, but I never tire of making it.  So, I will make it again here.

The distribution of scuba diving equipment, at the wholesale level, is very tightly controlled by the manufacturers.  Every local scuba store signs dealership agreements that tightly control how the store may resale the merchandise to consumers.  Restrictions on internet advertising and price issues are the most restrictive of all dealership provisions.

During the holiday shopping season, savvy shoppers are always looking for deals and discounts.  Newspapers are thick with sale pages and ads for the big box stores, ski equipment retailers, and speciality stores of all types, all offering the best prices of the year. Radio stations are saturated with 30 second spots highlighting the best prices from all sorts of retailers.  Your mailbox is cluttered with direct mail advertising, mostly trumpeting the great prices available to you.   In fact, if discounts aren’t offered, consumers will simply shop somewhere else.  Why would they spend their limited holiday funds to buy items that are no cheaper during this sale season than any other day of the year?  Consumers have a limited amount of money to spend during the holiday season; they just can’t afford to spend it where no bargains are offered.

You local scuba diving store is often boxed out of the gigantic spending season by their dealership agreements with the wholesale manufacturers.  Price advertising is typically limited to a Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) for each individual item.  This MAP price is typically nothing more than 5% or 10% off of the published Suggested Retail Price, not nearly enough of a bargain to motivate consumers.  Some manufactures even specify Minimum Acceptable Resale Prices.  These rules actually restrict the ACTUAL price the dealer can charge the customer at the cash register.  Such rules make it almost impossible for the local scuba store to create any buzz or traffic during this season.  Why would the consumer buy a regulator (that they can’t use for several more months) during the holiday shopping season when the price is no different from the price in July?

Most will immediately say “Isn’t this illegal?”  Unfortunately, it is not.  Various Supreme Court rulings  over the past 100 years have made it perfectly acceptable for a manufacturer to insist upon price and advertising restrictions….all under the guise of “protecting the value of the product” and “providing margin protection for the dealer base”.  This level of manufacturer control was just reaffirmed last year in a landmark case called Leegin vs PSKS.  Your local scuba store simply has no latitude in light of these rulings and the restrictive policies of the scuba manufacturers.  The real impact of these restrictions simply forbids the local scuba store from enjoying the benefits of the largest spending season in the United States.

Those of us who operate scuba internet retail websites have found ways around these restrictive policies.  Stores with the capability and resources to operate a successful internet store are often more savvy at advertising, have larger budgets to get our message out, and are far more experienced at working with (actually around) the manufacturers restrictions.  Unfortunately, the average local scuba store is not in that position.

So, as the holiday shopping season moves into full swing and the money begins to flow, your local scuba store owner simply must put his head in the sand and hope for warmer weather.  No matter what he wants to do with HIS business, the supply restrictions prevent him from acting.

If any scuba manufacturers are reading this, I have a simple question….Just who are you protecting?  Who benefits from these restrictions?  Why can’t an American business man do what he pleases with product he has purchased and paid for?

Oh well, just my routine rant against those that block us free traders.  Maybe one day, someone will listen.

Phil Ellis

Discount Scuba Equipment with Full Factory Warranty

Our old static page website at www.divesports.com  worked very well for us for several years and continues to work today.  Unfortunately, maintenance on that site is extremely difficult.  A simple price change on a single product might take 30 minutes to complete.  With hundreds and hundreds of static pages, searching for every instance of a particular product is difficult.  Even then, we often realize that we missed a page when making a product change.

As we now focus our efforts and energy on the new managed content system, I have finally realized that the old site will not look quite as nice for the holiday season as I might have hoped.  In such a small store, with a very limited number of employees, we simply don’t have the manpower to do everything we would like to do with the old site, while maintaining our efforts to continue the progress on the new site.  The old site only needs to survive for another month or two.

This actually makes me a little sad.  The old website was my personal baby.  I was the only webmaster.  Every page, every picture, every description was mine and mine only.  I hate to go through the holiday season without giving it the attention is deserves.  Unfortunately, that isn’t possible.  We have to move forward.  I realize that the new site will be easier on our customers and much easier on us.

Phil Ellis

Best Prices Available for Scuba Diving Equipment

We have been hard at work designing our new web 2.0 site for www.divesports.com.  Our old website was a collection of static web pages (thousands of them) linked together with a SalesCart shopping cart installed.  When we launched that site in 2003, we were quite excited to immediately start seeing orders.  That old site has worked well for us over the past 4 years, but it is clearly the right time to launch a more detail-rich managed content system.

We began the site design in September of this year and feel pretty confident that it will be ready for launch sometime in January of 2008.  We choose one of the most popular ecommerce software providors in the world, Volusion.  Our new Volusion site will finally give us an opportunity to talk WITH our customers instead of talking TO them.  Our new software will feature Instant Help one-on-one chat capability.  This will allow us to have detailed direct chat conversations about products and service directly through the web browser.  Our customers will also be able to offer direct-publication reviews of all products offered for sale on the site.  This should allow potential buyers to get product feature reviews directly from real users.

I will continue to add additional information about our site design process on this blog.  The closer we get to launch, the more I will be able to tell.  Thanks for reading.

Phil Ellis

Discount Scuba Equipment with Full Factory Warranty

Blogging is brand new to me…and I guess we all have to start somewhere.  Welcome to my first post on divesportsblog.com.  Over the coming weeks and months, I will be using this blog as an opportunity to talk with you about what I love best……..scuba diving.  Divesportsblog.com is the editorial extension of our primary ecommerce website, www.divesports.com.  I will be using this space to tell you about the great products and services we offer, about the new additions to our product catalog, about the dive travels of our friends and customers, and maybe even giving a little insight into the trials and tribulations of operating a brick and mortar local scuba store and a worldwide scuba diving e-commerce website.

I hope to be able to bring you some serious information about the state of our scuba diving industry and the role divesports.com plays in bringing this amazing sport to as many people as possible.  I look forward to your comments on the posts and welcome your advice on how we might make this weblog more informative and interesting.  Thanks for visiting.

Phil Ellis

Your Local Scuba Store…No Matter Where You Live!