normiss 622
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Rover 9
http://www.adrenaline365.com/skydive-houston-24k/houston/air/14777
900 bucks??
~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~
900 bucks??
~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~
normiss 622
The HALO tandem looks like a better bargain though.
Given what they seem to charge for extra altitude! ![[:/]](/uploads/emoticons/dry.png "[:/]"){kind=small}
Quotethe legit sites only use REGISTERED DZ operators, so those operators who are casting their nets wider, trying to improve the customer flow, should be penalised by those who dont??
The trouble is that these 'brokers' are not doing any real advertising to draw 'new' customers. If all you do is search engine optimization, every one of your 'customers' was already looking up skydiving and likely interested in making a jump. The interest and desire was already in place, hence the reason they were searching for a DZ. If the 'broker' was not in place, they would have located the closest DZ(s), and done direct business with them. With the 'broker' in place, they end up routed to the their website, and with no knowledge of the industry, maybe the customer assumes that working through a broker is the SOP (or assumes they they are dealing directly with the DZ) and end up buying there, and costing the DZ money (I have yet to hear of the 'broker' who does not take a cut of the proceeds).
Now if the 'broker' was doing some sort of advertising, in order to draw in people who were not previously searching for a DZ or thinking about making a jump, that would be casting a larger net for the DZO for sure. As it sits, they are not casting a larger net by grabbing local customers who are already interested in making a jump, the 'broker' is actually fishing inside of the DZOs existing net, and then releasing those 'fish' to the DZ once they get their cut.
The comparison to other brokers is not accurate. Take any of the travel brokers, like Travelocity, for example. For starters, they advertise. They run deals and offer services to draw more people into the industry. They put out some sort of effort for their rewards. Second, they're dealing with national markets and customers. Airlines, hotels, and car rentals are not local businesses, nor are their customers. The pool of customers any of those business are looking for is the entire country (the world for some), and as such is a much wider audience then everyone looking to make a jump in western Pennsylvania. Given the size of the industry and service area, the travel indusrty can support ticket brokers and still make money. Local DZs trying to pull in $200/head on tandems 8 months out of the year cannot.
Squeak 17
QuoteQuotethe legit sites only use REGISTERED DZ operators, so those operators who are casting their nets wider, trying to improve the customer flow, should be penalised by those who dont??
The trouble is that these 'brokers' are not doing any real advertising to draw 'new' customers. If all you do is search engine optimization, every one of your 'customers' was already looking up skydiving and likely interested in making a jump. The interest and desire was already in place, hence the reason they were searching for a DZ. If the 'broker' was not in place, they would have located the closest DZ(s), and done direct business with them. With the 'broker' in place, they end up routed to the their website, and with no knowledge of the industry, maybe the customer assumes that working through a broker is the SOP (or assumes they they are dealing directly with the DZ) and end up buying there, and costing the DZ money (I have yet to hear of the 'broker' who does not take a cut of the proceeds).
Now if the 'broker' was doing some sort of advertising, in order to draw in people who were not previously searching for a DZ or thinking about making a jump, that would be casting a larger net for the DZO for sure. As it sits, they are not casting a larger net by grabbing local customers who are already interested in making a jump, the 'broker' is actually fishing inside of the DZOs existing net, and then releasing those 'fish' to the DZ once they get their cut.
The comparison to other brokers is not accurate. Take any of the travel brokers, like Travelocity, for example. For starters, they advertise. They run deals and offer services to draw more people into the industry. They put out some sort of effort for their rewards. Second, they're dealing with national markets and customers. Airlines, hotels, and car rentals are not local businesses, nor are their customers. The pool of customers any of those business are looking for is the entire country (the world for some), and as such is a much wider audience then everyone looking to make a jump in western Pennsylvania. Given the size of the industry and service area, the travel indusrty can support ticket brokers and still make money. Local DZs trying to pull in $200/head on tandems 8 months out of the year cannot.
Regardless of what any of us think. (BTW I HAVE seen adrenalin, advertised, particularly in hostels and backpacker environs) If a DZO Chooses to contract an intermediary ticketing agent who the fuck are any of you to tell them there are wrong. Let them run there businesses how they see fit.
a lot of those places like Adrenaline et al. also provide other "extreme" packages. On my travels around the world i have seen many and varied types of them, they serve a purpose and quite a few business operators (including DZOs) would seem to agree
You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?
It's bad enough that we have the sLyride scumbags to deal with, but now not only do we see the reinvented sites from sLyride, I believe those "new sites" linked are most likely connected to Cary in some fashion.
But now we have the insider dealers. I like Doug Smith as a person, but I'm very disappointed to see his "pro skydiving" network, another third party getting between dz's and people in the local market. For example, in my area none of the small 182 operators in the state, all 3 of them are, refuse to join the pro skydiving network, or they can't justify the expense.
So if you do a Google search in my local area and you are smart enough to wade through the sLyride bullshit (lot's of them one for each burb) you find the Pro skydiving crap. On there not one of the local dz's is pointed too, but rather all the competing dz's in the next state are... yea sure he shows their names in small print at the very bottom of the page and claims that is fair representation of all the players, when in fact it's a simple funneling of local traffic to "his" network players who pay to have him stand in the way.
It's don't matter if it is sLyride or Doug's bullshit, regardless it's fucked up and driven by greed, it's not about helping DZ's or DZO's compete with the other 3rd parties, it's all about getting a cut of pie from outside their own market.... What is the over head on his new 2 million facility and those turbines?
But now we have the insider dealers. I like Doug Smith as a person, but I'm very disappointed to see his "pro skydiving" network, another third party getting between dz's and people in the local market. For example, in my area none of the small 182 operators in the state, all 3 of them are, refuse to join the pro skydiving network, or they can't justify the expense.
So if you do a Google search in my local area and you are smart enough to wade through the sLyride bullshit (lot's of them one for each burb) you find the Pro skydiving crap. On there not one of the local dz's is pointed too, but rather all the competing dz's in the next state are... yea sure he shows their names in small print at the very bottom of the page and claims that is fair representation of all the players, when in fact it's a simple funneling of local traffic to "his" network players who pay to have him stand in the way.
It's don't matter if it is sLyride or Doug's bullshit, regardless it's fucked up and driven by greed, it's not about helping DZ's or DZO's compete with the other 3rd parties, it's all about getting a cut of pie from outside their own market.... What is the over head on his new 2 million facility and those turbines?
you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo
Squeak 17
Quoteregardless it's fucked up and driven by greed, it's not about helping DZ's or DZO's compete with the other 3rd parties, it's all about getting a cut of pie from outside their own market.... What is the over head on his new 2 million facility and those turbines?
Isn't that one of the great hallmarks of your country.
Anyone willing to put in the work can succeed in business. there is obviously a niche for it, or it would not exist and DZOs would not pay a commission to use them.
I see an awful lot of Yanks pissing and moaning about the things that supposedly "make your country great"
You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?
QuoteIf a DZO Chooses to contract an intermediary ticketing agent who the fuck are any of you to tell them there are wrong. Let them run there businesses how they see fit.
The problem is when these 'brokers' start pulling business away from the local DZs, or manage to hook one local DZ, and then all the other locals are on the hook to play ball, or lose out on whatever existing customers (remember, people searching for skydiving are already looking to make a jump) the 'broker' happens to snag.
It's a very fine line, and given the size of the market (and the margins) in the market, there really isn't room for 'brokers' of any kind. Skydiving isn't cheap, but neither is running a DZ, and any 'middleman' who is taking a cut of the pie needs to be generating more new business than the % they are removing, or it's a net loss for the DZ at the end of the year.
The vast majority of DZs are 'local' businesses. Meaning that 99% of their business comes from people within a given geographical location. The number of people in that area, and number of DZs in the state will dictate the size of the available market, and that's how the size of a DZ is determined. There's a reason that Skydive Chicago runs multiple turbines for 8/9 months per year, and Skydive Columbus runs a 182 on the same season.
So when you have a 'broker' from outside of that are come in and funnel some of that money out of the area, it's bad for business. Forget about the cost of gas, airplanes, lawsuits, etc, it's a burden that the industry does not need. If these 'brokers' did not exist, customers would still find their local DZs, and be able to deal with them directly.
It's clearly an advent of search engine optimization. These 'brokers' never existed before the prevalance of the internet for marketing purposes. It used to be the DZ needed someone one the phone 24/7 to take calls from the phone book/newspapaer/word-of-mouth advertising, and where were the brokers then? Nowhere to be found because it took time, money, and effort to make those phones ring and generate sales. Now it's a faceless website that runs itself, so the parasties come out to feed.
Free market or not, it sucks and is a bane on the industry.
QuoteIt's bad enough that we have the sLyride scumbags to deal with, but now not only do we see the reinvented sites from sLyride, I believe those "new sites" linked are most likely connected to Cary in some fashion.
But now we have the insider dealers. I like Doug Smith as a person, but I'm very disappointed to see his "pro skydiving" network, another third party getting between dz's and people in the local market. For example, in my area none of the small 182 operators in the state, all 3 of them are, refuse to join the pro skydiving network, or they can't justify the expense.
So if you do a Google search in my local area and you are smart enough to wade through the sLyride bullshit (lot's of them one for each burb) you find the Pro skydiving crap. On there not one of the local dz's is pointed too, but rather all the competing dz's in the next state are... yea sure he shows their names in small print at the very bottom of the page and claims that is fair representation of all the players, when in fact it's a simple funneling of local traffic to "his" network players who pay to have him stand in the way.
It's don't matter if it is sLyride or Doug's bullshit, regardless it's fucked up and driven by greed, it's not about helping DZ's or DZO's compete with the other 3rd parties, it's all about getting a cut of pie from outside their own market.... What is the over head on his new 2 million facility and those turbines?
I hear your frustration.
But the companies you are speaking of that are winning out in the Google search for "stratostars DZ" and getting all the other 'crap'...to me says that the other companies ARE spending money on advertising.
That's how Google works.
You pay for the ad words and all kinds of other marketing they will sell you, and that will help get YOUR name to the top of the list, instead of "slyride" which I am assuming is some sort of scam from the way its described....
So while I hear and somewhat understand why you are upset about these guys stepping on your coin, you have to understand they spent money to do it, and that's capitalism.
So go outbid them on their ad words, get your DZ to the top of the list, and sit back and laugh all the way to the bank.
There is another part of this many people fail to understand or get. Let's say you want to open dz. In a lot of markets, sLyride scam has over saturated the market with a website for every little town or burb around and snag up every name. For example skydiving Omaha & Skydive Omaha Etc. There might not be another dz for hundreds of miles.... you try to pick out another name to use like skydive Bellview a burb in Omaha...
Guess what.... Yea it's getting that hard to name a place and market it with the market flooded with not only sLyride scam, but now the other third party players doing the same thing. Sure I getting it, you now have to spend more money to rank as high or higher and hope that your local customers can find you after wading through all the bullshit scam sites.
In the above example of Google search for "skydive Omaha, or Skydiving Omaha" not only do you see all the sLyride scam sites, you will find Doug's site pointing to one dz in Iowa and another in Missouri, both of those dz's are a few hours drive from Omaha, when Lincoln Sport Parachute Club is less then 30 mins down the road.
Go try to pick out a name for a new start up dz in your market place and see how many sites are flooding your local market using every key word or snagged up domain and then let us how that works out for you.
Yes there are work a rounds and ways to combat that crap, it's all an additional expense that will passed on to the consumer. And then we have those who get burned or later on find out they drove hundreds of miles out of their way to make a jump... it pisses them off and over all makes the sport look bad, those running the broker sites don't give a shit if it harms the industry or makes it look bad, they got their money.
Once had a lady show up in Indiana, for a tdm jump after the jump while editing her video, making small talk, it turns out she drove from Rochester Ny. over night to be at her appointment to jump. That is close to a thousand miles round trip drive and she passed at least 6 other dz's.
Guess what.... Yea it's getting that hard to name a place and market it with the market flooded with not only sLyride scam, but now the other third party players doing the same thing. Sure I getting it, you now have to spend more money to rank as high or higher and hope that your local customers can find you after wading through all the bullshit scam sites.
In the above example of Google search for "skydive Omaha, or Skydiving Omaha" not only do you see all the sLyride scam sites, you will find Doug's site pointing to one dz in Iowa and another in Missouri, both of those dz's are a few hours drive from Omaha, when Lincoln Sport Parachute Club is less then 30 mins down the road.
Go try to pick out a name for a new start up dz in your market place and see how many sites are flooding your local market using every key word or snagged up domain and then let us how that works out for you.
Yes there are work a rounds and ways to combat that crap, it's all an additional expense that will passed on to the consumer. And then we have those who get burned or later on find out they drove hundreds of miles out of their way to make a jump... it pisses them off and over all makes the sport look bad, those running the broker sites don't give a shit if it harms the industry or makes it look bad, they got their money.
Once had a lady show up in Indiana, for a tdm jump after the jump while editing her video, making small talk, it turns out she drove from Rochester Ny. over night to be at her appointment to jump. That is close to a thousand miles round trip drive and she passed at least 6 other dz's.
you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo
BillyVance 34
They appear to be based in Las Vegas just by looking at their terms link at the bottom.
Wonder if this outfit has any link to the guy that ran the tandem-only DZ near Las Vegas? If you were a licensed skydiver showing up to jump there with your own gear, you got told to fuck off. 
"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban
Jumpdude 0
Quote
I hear your frustration.
But the companies you are speaking of that are winning out in the Google search for "stratostars DZ" and getting all the other 'crap'...to me says that the other companies ARE spending money on advertising.
That's how Google works.
You pay for the ad words and all kinds of other marketing they will sell you, and that will help get YOUR name to the top of the list, instead of "slyride" which I am assuming is some sort of scam from the way its described....
So while I hear and somewhat understand why you are upset about these guys stepping on your coin, you have to understand they spent money to do it, and that's capitalism.
So go outbid them on their ad words, get your DZ to the top of the list, and sit back and laugh all the way to the bank.
The Google adwords program and other paid advertisement is not even that big of an issue! I mean yes, it is the ad at the top of the list and is as crooked and the rest, it's the organic search results that are fucking up the market! Page after page of fake, scalper sites before a REAL DZ site shows up! THAT'S the issue!
If it were not for the middle man sites, it would be a no brainer for the customer! They would find their local DZ and everybody would be happy!
Whoa! They even have jet fighter rides
Fucker.
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