The True Power of a Dive Retailer: Community

William Cline, Publisher, Scuba Diving Indsutry Magazine and President, Cline Group

William Cline, Publisher, Scuba Diving Industry Magazine and President, Cline Group

Friday night was pizza night at the Aqua Lung Center in Fullerton, California.

It was 1978, Southern California, and I was the dive store manager at the ripe old age of 16. I had been working there since I was 12, thanks to my father’s ingenious scheme of quietly paying the shop owner for my hours without telling me, until I was officially old enough to be hired.

By 16, I was running the store.

That dive shop was so much more than a business. It was an ecosystem, a community, a place where divers belonged. People didn’t just come in to buy gear. They hung around, told jokes, shared stories, and stayed well past closing time. It felt a lot like the old American TV show Cheers, where everybody knew your name.

I still remember Guy, Don, Pat, Brian, and countless others who passed through that shop in the late 1970s.

JAWS had come out a few years earlier, and one of the most common questions we heard was, “Are there sharks in the water?” sometimes even referring to the swimming pool. One movie shifted public perception of the ocean overnight. After years of Jacques Cousteau showing us wonder and curiosity, Peter Benchley introduced fear. I’m not sure the industry has fully recovered from that even fifty years later.

But this article isn’t about fear, it’s about community.

The local dive store has always been a safe place for divers to reconnect with the feeling of diving, especially when they can’t get away or when local conditions don’t allow it.

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Recently, I heard about a shop near us in Dallas that hosts a monthly “island party” happy hour, open beer and wine, divers and non-divers welcome, just talking stories and talking diving. That’s brilliant. That’s diver community at its best.

Research consistently shows that divers who have more diver friends stay active longer, spend more on equipment, and travel more often. The 2023 DEMA Consumer Survey reinforces what many retailers already know instinctively, community drives retention.

Creating a sense of community at the local dive store isn’t just fun, it’s smart business. It’s also why dive retailers remain the heartbeat of this industry.

Thank you to everyone who has read our issues over the past 24 months. And as always, thank you to the 986 dive retailers who continue to lead this industry forward in the U.S.

If you have an innovative way your store has helped engage your local community, I’d love to hear about it. We would be happy to share your story with other retailers looking for ideas and inspiration.