Dive Gear Express is not only an online retailer, we are also a boutique local dive shop with a specialized clientele arising out of the unusual nature of our local diving marketplace. Our Southeast Florida location is ground zero for some the best and most varied warm water diving in North America. In our area there are over 90 dive shops, boating and sporting goods stores that promote "learn-to-dive" instruction to sell their dive equipment. There are many excellent dive shops in our area, so to avoid their challenges and stand out from the crowd, our narrow focus at Dive Gear Express has always been on the needs and expectations of the experienced sport and technical diver... along with those who want to become one.
The Dive Gear Express Customer Care Team
- We dive locally. We are just a few minutes boat ride from the only barrier reef in the continental US with over 100 shipwreck dive sites and only a few hours drive from some of the best cave diving in the world. Many of our team members are certified recreational divers, and include sport, technical, rebreather, and instructor ratings.
- We teach locally. We currently choose to teach only technical diving courses because the local area has become extremely price sensitive for sport diving instruction. Our team includes both closed-circuit and open-circuit technical diving instructors, as well as sport diving instructors. For use by our students, we also have a modest selection of technical dive gear in our rental fleet.
- We stock locally. We do not "drop ship", all products flow through our Florida warehouse. We keep our shelves and warehouse racks full of equipment sought after by experienced sport and technical divers, but we only sell the dive gear our team use and recommend. We try to filter out products that are outmoded, mere duplicates, mediocre quality, poor value, or mostly appeal to entry level divers. Also, we focus on SCUBA dive equipment exclusively, so you won't see other water sports, boating, spear-fishing or free-diving gear, sunglasses and beach apparel, etc. This greatly simplifies product selection, allows us to stock nearly everything we sell, and often the consolidation of our sales volumes enable us to present very favorable prices.
- We serve locally. We are what is known as a "destination retailer", so we don't need the hassles and expense of a high traffic frontage location. Instead our 6,900 ft2 facility is conveniently located in a secure business-to-consumer complex with easy access just minutes from both I-95 and Florida Turnpike exits. Google Maps will bring you right to our door and plenty of free parking. Everything listed as In Stock on our website is available locally for your inspection, try-on and purchase. We will help you with knowledgeable advice and no sales pressure. Our in-store and online prices are always the same, we present our lowest price everyday to everyone and we are proud of our five-star quality customer service.
- We fill locally. Our technical diving breathing gas fill station is based on meticulously maintained oxygen compatible air compressors with analysis for carbon monoxide, together with an electric gas booster to bulk storage banks of Nitrox 32 and Trimix 21/35 plus ABO Oxygen and UHP Helium. (Friends do not let friends dive Air.) Our team includes an IANTD Gas Blending Instructor. We provide fills for our students, team members and their families (some of our spouses are technical divers), along with some others. However, we are unable to sell retail gas fills directly to the general public.
- We maintain locally. We have a fully equipped service department, including a top-of-the-line Global regulator bench and pressure testing pot. Our factory trained and certified equipment specialists can service or repair regulators, rebreathers and other equipment that we currently sell. They are also PSI-PCI certified cylinder inspectors. Because of our large numbers of VIP's we have a dedicated cylinder inspection and assembly station. All of our work is suitable for oxygen service.
- We boat locally. Because most of the area dive charter boats are independently operated, there might be even more boats than shops! We can "hook you up" with a boarding guaranteed reservation on our favorite local dive charter boat. But frankly, that's for the tourists who don't know better. We'd rather discuss what kind of diving you want to do, then recommend exactly the right dive trip from some of the Southeast Florida dive boats and show you how to book direct for the locals discount.
- We are online locally. By design, in-store and online in our company are seamlessly integrated because who we are as a local dive shop is also influenced by the unique nature of our online dive shop and vice versa. Along with dedicated high-speed Wi-Fi for in-store guests, Chromebase kiosks are used by our in-store customers to securely finalize purchases via our online website. The Dive Gear Express team create and maintain almost all of the content, photography and graphics on our website.
- We are local. From the first day we opened our locally-owned locally-operated small business in Pompano Beach, our earnings have been retained in Dive Gear Express to support our growth with experienced sport and technical divers. All our team members live in the surrounding area. Our team and our company also support local diving and give back to our community in a variety of ways.
- We are global too. We are experts at assembling, inspecting and packing the orders we ship everywhere on the planet. Many of our customers around the world tell us they consider DiveGearExpress.com to be their "local" dive shop no matter where they live.
For Dive Gear Express customers, diving is often their primary hobby and for a surprising number of our customers it's part of their job. A lot of our customers are doing planned decompression stop required or physical overhead dives, and they are doing those dives deeper and longer than ever before. Many of our customers already have a garage full of expensive, but no longer appropriate, entry level gear that is just gathering dust. Experienced divers know that durable equipment in streamlined and reliable configurations make for the best diving. Local or online, our customers want premium quality products for their style of diving at the right price that are in stock along with product knowledge and customer service they can rely upon. We summarize this as our customers are serious divers and our divers expect... NO Bullshit.