The DEMA Show and the power of Brick & Mortar Retailers
YOU’RE HOME FROM DEMA. Your feet are recovering, your suitcase is somewhere near empty, and your head is full of products, conversations, and possibilities. Now comes the part that makes the trip worthwhile: deciding what to do with what you brought home.
What caught your attention? What did you learn? What made you think, “that could work in our store”? You invested time and money in being there. Give at least one good idea a place to land.
Unpack more than your suitcase
Before the demands of everyday business take over, review your notes and talk with anyone who attended with you. Include the staff who stayed behind. They know the questions customers have been asking while you were away, and their observations may help you recognize which discoveries deserve attention.
Which discovery could solve a recurring customer problem? Which conversation suggested a better way to present something you already carry?
What did you see that could make shopping in your store easier or more interesting?
Choose one idea that fits your customers, space, and budget. Assign someone to carry it out and set a date. You can build from there.
Let those purposes guide a display.
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A customer walking into your store may be thinking about a trip, a class, an uncomfortable piece of equipment, or something forgotten on the last dive. Let those purposes guide a display that helps customers understand how your products fit their needs.
“Packing for a Liveaboard” could bring together a selection of useful accessories with a simple checklist. “Make Your Next Dive More Comfortable” could introduce products that address common comfort concerns. “Small Things You’ll Be Glad You Brought” could highlight items easily overlooked when someone is focused on buying major equipment.
You could even host a “How-to Hair Day.” I cannot tell you how relieved a diver becomes at our booth upon discovering that there may be a hair solution for their buddy. Because if your buddy is having an issue, it will be your issue, too.
Choose a manageable selection and explain why each item belongs. A short sign that answers “What does this do for me?” gives a customer a starting point for a conversation. You may already have everything you need for that display. A fresh arrangement can give familiar merchandise a fresh introduction.
What’s in the basket?
Think about what happens after a customer selects a product. Is there a useful companion item they should know about? Have they remembered the small things that will help them use, carry, or care for their purchase? Ask where they’re going, what kind of diving they’ll be doing, and what they already own.
Those answers help you make a thoughtful recommendation, and they also tell you when the customer is already equipped.
That judgment is part of the value of shopping with someone who knows the products and takes time to understand the diver. Your merchandising can open the conversation; your people make it useful.
Give new products an introduction
If you ordered something at DEMA, plan its arrival. Where will it go? What will the display say? Can staff explain who it suits, how it works, and why you chose it? Ask the supplier for photographs, product information, display suggestions, or a brief staff training session.
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Share the enthusiasm that made you stop at the booth in the first place.
Once the display is up, look at it from the customer’s side. Are prices visible? Is its purpose clear?
Can someone handle the product or get help trying it? After a few weeks, review what drew attention, what sold, and what questions came up. Use those observations to improve the display.
A brick, and what holds it together
While preparing for DEMA, I found myself looking at some foam display panels that resemble brick and mortar. I no longer needed them and had considered giving them to a teacher. Then another possibility occurred to me: use them as a visible show of support for brick-and-mortar dive stores.
When I shared the idea with William Cline at Scuba Diving Industry Magazine, he agreed we need to support our retailers. He calls them “the front door to our industry” for consumers.
Dive stores carry the weight. Our relationships hold the industry together. A brick has weight, just as stores carry the costs and responsibilities of serving divers. The mortar is our relationships. How we support each other determines how well the whole structure holds.
That’s an invitation the whole industry can take up. Display a brick, or an image of one, as a visible commitment to strengthening brick-and-mortar dive stores. Then give that commitment substance through your business practices.
My commitment to brick-and-mortar stores goes back to the beginning of ScubaDoRag in the early 2000s, when stores were navigating a new landscape as online selling grew. I had to build a market for products customers didn’t yet know they needed. I sold online at full retail and traveled to consumer shows to introduce the products and explain their purpose.
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Some stores told me, “You’re competing with us.” My answer was that I was building consumer demand and wanted to share the sales opportunity, but stores had to invest in carrying the products to benefit from that demand. I wanted customers to ask for ScubaDoRag and stores to be ready to sell it.
What concerns me today is manufacturers requiring substantial minimum orders from stores, then competing directly with those same retailers for the sale.
Supporting brick-and-mortar stores means respecting the investment we ask them to make.
These stores give divers places to ask questions, try equipment, learn, prepare for trips, and form lasting relationships. As a small manufacturer, I’ve felt the loss of local dive stores directly in my own business: fewer stores carrying my products means fewer opportunities to reach the divers they serve. The loss of a local dive store reaches beyond its doors. We have a shared interest in keeping that structure strong.
Knowledge, service, fair dealing, and follow-through are the mortar that sustains those relationships. Suppliers can strengthen that mortar by helping stores merchandise and explain their products, following up on DEMA conversations, and maintaining pricing practices that give retailers a fair opportunity to sell the inventory they’ve invested in.
The brick is a symbol. Our actions give it meaning.
Bring DEMA home
Choose one thing you learned and put it to work. Build a display, introduce a product, share knowledge with your staff, or follow up with someone who offered a useful idea. Then watch what happens and build on what you learn.Back from DEMA, what will you build? Whatever you choose, be the mortar that holds our industry together.
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