• Welcome to the DeeperBlue.com Forums, the largest online community dedicated to Freediving, Scuba Diving and Spearfishing. To gain full access to the DeeperBlue.com Forums you must register for a free account. As a registered member you will be able to:

    • Join over 44,280+ fellow diving enthusiasts from around the world on this forum
    • Participate in and browse from over 516,210+ posts.
    • Communicate privately with other divers from around the world.
    • Post your own photos or view from 7,441+ user submitted images.
    • All this and much more...

    You can gain access to all this absolutely free when you register for an account, so sign up today!

Scubastore.com delivery time?

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
It can take a long time to get an up-to-date response or contact with relevant users.
Just received an order with a missing item. Completely earth shattering (seriously) as I have been quite seriously planning my life around this stuff arriving.

..is it appropriate to ask wich earth shattering,life changing item this was ?
 
These low cost operations cut corners in order to provide the prices they do. My experience has been everything I ordered arrived eventually, although it may have stretched out to a month in a few instances. Shipping to Australia can be expensive, but items like guns cost an arm and a leg from the USA and Italy, whereas it has been much cheaper from Scubastore in Spain. I order stuff in our off season, which is now we being in winter, so I can wait for it.

I have mentioned them before, but Subprof was a similar operation to Scubastore, only they sold stuff they never had, often before it was even released, and they kept your money while an automatic message system fended you off until they got it or they hoped you went away. By comparison Scubastore have been pretty reliable. But if you need something pronto, then buy locally if there is a distributor. Here that is often not the case, so it is either Scubastore or Divestock in Estonia who are not as cheap, but reliable.
 
Will check into it. The only reason i used scubastore us when i search for something their seo just dominates. If i can find an asian based shop I would be very happy. Any suggestions? The problem is they make it very difficult to ahip here unless you are greased in like lazada or aliexpress, but they have crappy dive stuff.


Since I’m Asia based I thought I could share some thoughts.
Hong Kong is not an option for spearguns as they are considered a firearm there. So, not much of a market and no real shops there. Even transiting through HK airport with spearguns can get you in (momentary) trouble and is not advised.
What HK is good for is for getting things into Asia tax free. But of course only a benefit if you live nearby or have contacts who go frequently between there and your country.

It’s true that freediving is booming in Asia and it’s particularly popular in China and Korea but of course China has the numbers advantage. The gear is not really cheap though. Chinese freedivers tend to like Euro gear and pay way more than what you can buy it for in the US or Europe. And Korean gear is just expensive to start with. A few Chinese brands have popped up on the freediving market but their pricing is not really much or any lower than Euro gear. There are a few carbon fin manufacturers but not cheap and at least one of them don’t really have much idea what they are doing. Another more successful brand is Bestdive who seems to be selling tons of suits.
The Chinese will be moving into making spearing gear at some point but so far no homegrown company has popped up and once it does it might take some years to figure out how to do things.

Oh, I see you’re BKK-based. I know this is almost impossible in these Covid times but BKK is a great destination for having friends bring in gear on trips (I used to be based there). Maybe not so much if you’re American but if you are European or Aussie it used to be fairly easy to get a “pigeon” to bring in stuff as plenty of people from those regions travel to Thailand.
Nowadays, airlines are getting pickier with luggage allowances so bringing in shafts or guns will depend on what airline a potential courier friend is using and/or his frequent flyer status. I’ve had to spend quite a lot of time in the past researching this so I knew what I could ask people to bring me.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Leander
At the risk of thinking DiveHacker actually did order and is sorely missing a snorkel keeper allow me to share a tip from the world of freedivers:
Just stick the snorkel straight under your mask strap. It will wiggle around way less, have less drag and you’ll never go back.
Personally, I’ve done that for ages, ever since my first freedive course.
The only negative about omitting the keeper is that you can’t just pull off your mask and expect the snorkel to stay connected. Many a snorkel have been lost by newcomers to this life altering method until it has been fully understood and accepted;-)
Oh... one more downside, depending on one’s inclinations. But the preferred method of storing said snorkel until you jump in the water is having it tucked in the front of the belt leading to quite the sex toy look. But hey, when amongst friends and all that.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Last edited:
Well this was sad. The order I put in at Divestore/INN last month was handled and shipped within two days. Then the courier, Spring GDS, a subdivision of PostNL, messed it up greatly. It took a month to be transported by donkey from Spain to Greece.

INN replied to my questions on Facebook about the tracking within a day both times. Spring however didn't reply to my email but did reply to a one-star complaint-review on Trustpilot, but even there they tried to dodge every bit of responsibility.

The package arrived, and in perfect condition and without missing articles. Choose DHL/UPS/etc instead of your local mail (which will be Spring GDS for the international part) when ordering from INN.
 
Even UPS isn’t without fault. I had a drysuit due to be delivered via UPS on Thursday. Got notification that they tried to deliver but no one was home. No note and the home office I was walking from has a view of the front door. No one pulled up. Spoke to retailer (not scubastore) and they said it’s quite common when couriers are running late - so they don’t get penalised on their run. Unbelievable.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Leander and Mr. X
Perhaps if everyone here who had a negative experience acutually left a verified REVIEW on TRUST PILOT they would up their game and fix their problems and we as a community would get a better service.

At the moment “DiveInn” are clearly paying someone a lot of money to “fix” their trust pilot reviews and ‘reporting’ genuine poor reviews for ‘breach of guidelines’ so the star system doesn’t count the negative review.
 
Even UPS isn’t without fault. I had a drysuit due to be delivered via UPS on Thursday. Got notification that they tried to deliver but no one was home. No note and the home office I was walking from has a view of the front door. No one pulled up. Spoke to retailer (not scubastore) and they said it’s quite common when couriers are running late - so they don’t get penalised on their run. Unbelievable.
I have had that happen a few times, the courier was a no show even when I was home on that particular day, but was told the courier had found no one home when I inquired later. Couriers lie as you say, as when they run out of time they explain the goods still in their van at the end of their shift as being undeliverable. Usually the next day they silently drop them off and sneak away to avoid a confrontation, or get someone else to deliver it.
 
Happened to me tons of times. But never with UPS, FedEx and DHL but happened a lot with “second tier” courier companies in Philippines and China. I try not to give them a hard time over it as they are likely overworked and underpaid. But with one of the big three, I’d prolly not be happy...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
  • Like
Reactions: Leander
I don't mind for a few days in delay and I understand the couriers sometimes shifting deliveries to the next day (here just call me and simply say "we're not going to deliver, you come and get it." :D) But with Spring GDS, the delay was unacceptably long and made worse by the complete lack of communication. The only other time I had a delivery take more than a month was when Aliexpress shipped something from China by boat. But this was within the EU by a Dutch courier!

I will order again from *INN, but next time I don't pick the local mail option and pay the 4 euros extra to have DHL do the shipping.
 
I previously posted in this thread I received half an item from scubastore. After I initiated a return on their website they handled it quite well actually. They asked me if I wanted to keep the half item and get a partial refund, or get a full refund. I chose full refund expecting to have to ship the half item back and they just told me to keep it. I did have to pay customs on the item so I about paid for it in customs what it was worth, but anyway, this was my one bad experience with scubastore out of I think four orders and they handled it well I thought, it just took a bit long.

The key us to initiate a return in their system even if you don't plan on or want to return. You seem to get much better responses that way.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Leander
Also contacting them through Facebook gave a very quick reaponse for me.

Other than email, phone or whatever, Facebook keeps this counter of "this company normally replied within x-hours/days". I guess this helps to push lazy customer services.
 
I previously posted in this thread I received half an item from scubastore. After I initiated a return on their website they handled it quite well actually. They asked me if I wanted to keep the half item and get a partial refund, or get a full refund. I chose full refund expecting to have to ship the half item back and they just told me to keep it.
So you got everything for free because of a missing snorkel keeper... I can understand your mood changed! :p

Now which snorkel keeper was this again? My only chance in life to own a pretty dive watch depends on it!
 
So you got everything for free because of a missing snorkel keeper... I can understand your mood changed! :p

Now which snorkel keeper was this again? My only chance in life to own a pretty dive watch depends on it!
Truth was it was a wetsuit and I got half of it but paid the highest possible import tax as they categorized it as clothing/fashion (not on accident) and of course I paid the tax on the entire suit listed on invoice, not half a suit. That was $40 just for import taxes! I figure the top is worth about that much though and I can use it. The fact that I did not have to completely eat that $40 was certainly welcome news since it wasn't my fault they didn't send it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Leander
Just received a Mares "Sten 42" from Scubastore which I ordered on September 23rd and was delivered on 31st October, however on checking today I find Salvimar, Mares and Cressi are no longer able to be sold to Australia, which is new. * Due to the Mares new regulations relating to distribution, we are not allowed to ship some products of this brand to Australia. Substitute Salvimar and Cressi and you get the same result. Right now Seac and Eskwad are the only pneumatic guns showing up as potential buys for orders from OZ. As expected Omer pneumatic guns have now disappeared.
 
Just received a Mares "Sten 42" from Scubastore which I ordered on September 23rd and was delivered on 31st October, however on checking today I find Salvimar, Mares and Cressi are no longer able to be sold to Australia, which is new. * Due to the Mares new regulations relating to distribution, we are not allowed to ship some products of this brand to Australia. Substitute Salvimar and Cressi and you get the same result. Right now Seac and Eskwad are the only pneumatic guns showing up as potential buys for orders from OZ. As expected Omer pneumatic guns have now disappeared.
Do you have Mares, Cressi and Salvimar distis in Australia now?
 
Do you have Mares, Cressi and Salvimar distis in Australia now?
Yes, at one time Salvimar were not bringing in their pneumatic guns, but that was fixed a few years ago. From memory it was about the time the first "Vuoto" models came out of the then new "Vintair". This change is probably because importers woke up to a lot of guns coming in when during the virus lockdown their own sales had tanked and they complained to the manufacturers.
 
Last edited:
DeeperBlue.com - The Worlds Largest Community Dedicated To Freediving, Scuba Diving and Spearfishing

ABOUT US

ISSN 1469-865X | Copyright © 1996 - 2024 deeperblue.net limited.

DeeperBlue.com is the World's Largest Community dedicated to Freediving, Scuba Diving, Ocean Advocacy and Diving Travel.

We've been dedicated to bringing you the freshest news, features and discussions from around the underwater world since 1996.

ADVERT