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slotperfect

What Can We Do About Skyride II

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"I see" says the blind man! I pretty well had that figured out, and now, what you just said just confirms what I was thinking. Thanks for the insight. My DZ is not a USPA DZ yet, but we were planning to join over the winter but if they do let SLYride back in, we will absolutely not join. The only accociation we will have with USPA will be to keep our licenses current so we can go to boogies without be put though the wringer at registration or manifest.
Thanks again for the feedback.
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The only problem I can see with that is that, and I could be wrong, but a; the DZO's that do take the certs are going to be too hard-headed to take the hint and b; There's enough business that I don't think it would hurt the DZO that does take the certs.
Ya think?
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An interesting idea would be for DZs not accepting Skyride to offer an ultimatium to DZs who do. Either stop accepting Skyride certs, or we will start accepting them.

At first it sounds counterproductive, but the idea behind Skyride is that a DZO will save on advertising by letting Skyride do it for them, and in exchange, they accept a few dollars less from Skyride for the jumps. If EVERY DZ in an area accepts Skyride, then the 'advantage' of letting Skyride advertising for you goes away, as now your competition has the same 'advantage'. The net benefit becomes zero.



I think that is a great idea. That way others can also see the benefits of the system. True, competition will be increased, but so will the business volume. Technically, everyone will win.

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a; the DZO's that do take the certs are going to be too hard-headed to take the hint and b; There's enough business that I don't think it would hurt the DZO that does take the certs.



DZOs accept Skyride certs becasue they want to make money. The thought is that they will gain additional customers from their affiliation with Skyride, and this is why they are willing to accept a discoutned rate from Skyride for the jumps they sell. The increased business is supposed to offest the discounts.

If you can show them that they will not be gaining any additional business, the discoutned rates become a straight loss. Nobody likes to loose.

As for your 'B', there is a fixed amount of business in any geopraphic area. Seeing as Skyride doesn't advertise in any way that existing DZs already do, they are not bringing any new business into the sport.

Lets say you have 100 potential tandems in an area. Before Skyride, those tandems would seek out a local DZ, and made their jump. Maybe it was 50-50 between two DZs, we'll call them A and B.

Now Skyride comes, and snipes 30 of those customers via fake websites, and high placement on search engine lists. They direct the 30 jumpers to DZ 'A', where the certs are accepted.

The remaining 70 tandems will still be split 50-50, but at the end of the year, DZ 'A' has done 65 tandems, and DZ 'B' only got 35.

If DZ 'B' was to start dealing with Skyride, Skyride would still only have 30 tandems available in the area, but now they would be split between between A and B, with the end result being back to both DZs doing 50 tandems per year, only now, they are being paid less for the 15 that come from Skyride. There is no advantage to either DZ.

Overall, if you think there's enough business out there, you haven't been paying attention. Skydiving business is down across the board, and the last thing we need now is a parasite trying to 'install' themselves into the transaction between DZs and their local customers.

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competition will be increased, but so will the business volume



Please explain to me what Skyride does to increase business volume.

Passive adversting like websites does not create new busniess. It still requires the customer to seek out the business, meaning that the customer had already made the decision to jump, and is now simply seeking a location.

What system does Skyride have in place to promote skydiving to new customers? How is Skyride convincing people who previously would not consider jumping that skydiving is something they should try?

Furthermore, I can see how in a simple example, Skyride can be a benefit to one DZ over another. I outlined that in the post just above this one.

What I cannot see it how it continues to be a benefit if all DZs accepted the certs. The advantage is neutralized, and at that point, all DZ might as well NOT accpet the certs, and save themselves the expense of dealing with Skyride (both financial and the cust. service liability you incur by working with them).

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Skyride decreases business for the real DZs because the people that get screwed never want to visit a DZ again.



Odds are they didnt want to visit another DZ anyways. They wanted a tandem, one jump, thats it. Got the tshirt and lived to tell about it.

If your goal is to take these tandems and turn them into repeat business via an AFF course than you really are delerious. Once again, it is what it is.

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The first thing, GO THE HELL AWAY SKYPAPA! You are not welcome here! And secondly, The idea is a pretty good one to hold it over the other guy's head, but I just can't see us lower ourselve to the level of joining those crooks. I would rather have less business and know that I provided a good, honest service instead of having to worry about some unhappy customer being all over my ass or even get stuck in the middle of their legal issues.
And you are right, if someone is looking at skydiving websites whether it be one of skyride's or a site from a REAL skydive center, that person has already made the concious desision that "I want to jump out of an airplane". The business is there, the only problem is that with skyride in the mix, there's a lot less for everyone else that really is close to the person wanting to jump.
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The thought is that they will gain additional customers from their affiliation with Skyride, and this is why they are willing to accept a discoutned rate from Skyride for the jumps they sell. The increased business is supposed to offest the discounts.



When skyride tried to get our DZ to accept their certificates, they wanted something like a $35-40 discount per tandem.

I'm convinced that if a DZ spent a fraction of those losses on effective advertising, they would do more business than skyride possibly brings. I'd bet that holds true even in a skyride infested area like southern CA. Believing that they HAVE to accept skyride because their competition does is just short sighted and lazy.

If a DZ wants to spend $40/tandem on advertising, come see me. I want in on that and I'm sure I could get real creative.

Dave

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Well if that's the case, you are just here for shits and grins! How can you support someone if you don't know them. You must be a George W. Bush supporter. Before Bush, $1.09 a gallon of gas, after Bush $3.00 and still rising. Do the math or is your memory as short as your johnson?
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Davelepka...you're theory on DZ A and DZ B with 100 tandems is correct, except you give Skyride too much credit.

If both DZ's accepted Skyride certificates, then I'm sure Skyride would approach DZ A and say "I'll give you 80% of the business over DZ B if you agree to take $10 less in your cut". DZ A says sure because they are getting the majority of business and Skyride walks away with more money in their pocket. That would work fine and dandy until Skyride approaches DZ B and says "DZ A is taking $10 to get 80% of the business. If you take $15 less, we'll give you 90% of the business". Even more money in Skyrides pocket.

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Well if that's the case, you are just here for shits and grins! How can you support someone if you don't know them. You must be a George W. Bush supporter. Before Bush, $1.09 a gallon of gas, after Bush $3.00 and still rising. Do the math or is your memory as short as your johnson?



Wow. I am quite sure all the other skyride haters on this board would prefer you take a back seat after seeing this post.

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"I'll give you 80% of the business over DZ B if you agree to take $10 less in your cut". DZ A says sure because they are getting the majority of business and Skyride walks away with more money in their pocket.



That's the point when both DZs realize that they are being hustled, and hopefully see that if they both dropped Skyride, they would be back on even ground, with just each other to deal with.

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The point was that for someone to support a cause in which someone else or in the cases of skyride or Bush, everyone gets screwed and can't seem to do anything about it,,,, yet. Why else would the state of Georgia have litigation against them? They are sure not doing just for for fun or for sport.
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That isn't a full solution unfortunately.

There are only two dropzones in CT, Danielson aka Funskydiving, and CPI. To the best of my knowledge CPI has never accepted skyride.

Danielson orginally accepted Skyride but this season cut their ties with them.

But that doesn't stop skyride from having a website that advertises dropzones in CT. It doesn't stop them from sending people to a dz that no longer exists. :S

"The restraining order says you're only allowed to touch me in freefall"
=P

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Yep, that's just like the Tennessee market. No one here accepts their certs, but yet they still advertise to be in Nashville, Memphis, etc. Like I said earlier, if they would only add a location and state on their websites that they are NEAR the cities or states, I would believe that a large protion of the complaints that jumpers and wuffo's alike have would deminish. The reason that smaller DZ's that don't use them loose so much business is because of this false perception that they are IN the city, not NEAR.
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Failure is NOT an option!
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