Buying dive equipment isn’t like buying books, videos or consumer electronics. The reason why comes frequenrly comes down to the difference between price and value.
- Price is merely what you initially pay for an item.
- Value is the return you get from that purchase over time.
As you’ve no doubt discovered, sometimes items with the lowest price end up being the worst value in the long run. That’s especially true of dive equipment. For example, it’s easy to find items that (barely) fit the description of adjustable scuba fins on line for under $100. That’s an attractive price, but is it a good value?
- The right pair of fins are an investment that should last you ten years or more. This means that the buying decision you make today is one you’ll have to live with for years to come.
- Cheap fins are invariably stiffer and harder to kick. This fact, by itself, can easily make the difference between a miserable dive and an enjoyable one.
- Cheap fins don’t last. Saving 50 percent over the cost of the right set of fins means nothing if you end up replacing those cheap fins three times in the next ten years.
- If you buy the wrong fins going in, you will most likely end up buying the right pair later on — which means any money you spent on the cheap fins is ultimately wasted.
- Of course, if your cheap fins end up making every dive so painful that you ultimately quit diving, the money you “saved” could end up costing you your entire investment in learning to dive in the first place. Looked at another way, saving a few bucks on something like fins is no savings at all if it ends up making a $2,500 dive vacation miserable.
- If amortized over the life of the fins, the difference in price between the right fins and the wrong ones could be as little as 25 cents a dive. Wouldn’t you rather invest the quarter and enjoy every dive?
And that is the difference between price and value. So, when buying scuba gear, always look for value, not price.